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00:00Yeah, can you hold on one second?
00:01I just got to, I got to unfold my phone real quick.
00:11Weird flex, but okay.
00:13♪ Don't I make you, don't I make you, don't I make you ♪
00:18♪ Don't I make you, don't I make you, don't I make you ♪
00:21I feel like every week we get a new rumor
00:23that the Samsung Galaxy Fold is about to relaunch.
00:26Like it's coming soon, it's past the tests,
00:29They finished the redesign.
00:30It's about to launch again.
00:32It's finally ready.
00:33Like at this point, I'll believe it when I see it.
00:35But until then, since the Fold never is officially launched
00:38and Huawei's going through some things,
00:41this is the first and only folding phone
00:45to actually ship in 2019.
00:49This is it.
00:49This is the Royal FlexPai.
00:51So I've taken a closer look at it.
00:53Technically, we saw it briefly at CES in January,
00:56but that was barely hands-on.
00:58They let us see it and take videos of it,
01:00but every five seconds, they'd take it out of our hands
01:01and show us how to use it correctly.
01:02So I feel like that barely qualified as a hands-on,
01:05which I get it.
01:06That's your first way of showing the world what you've done.
01:08But now that I've got it in the studio
01:10with no employees around me,
01:12I get to treat it like I treat every other phone
01:14that comes through here, normally.
01:16So the unboxing is pretty solid.
01:18Kind of janky with the amount of poor translation
01:20happening in the box, but that's not what I'm judging.
01:22It came with a few accessories in there, which is nice,
01:25but I'm judging the phone here.
01:27And my first impression just of actually holding the phone
01:29for the first time is it's really weird looking,
01:34but I'll get more into that in a sec.
01:36Really, the main thing to consider here
01:37is there's a couple of different ways to do a folding phone.
01:40There's the way that folds out with the screen on the inside
01:44and then there's the way to fold out
01:46with the screen on the outside.
01:49And the bottom line from what I'm getting with the FlexPai
01:52is the folding screen on the outside
01:55is not the way to go.
01:57So first of all, like we knew already,
01:58the flexible OLED panel, which is the most delicate part,
02:02is exposed to the elements all the time.
02:05It's not covered.
02:06It's also thicker because the components
02:08can't really completely fold flat onto each other.
02:11And unlike folding a piece of paper,
02:12the radius of this fold is still way greater than zero.
02:15It's much more of like a sharp curve than a fold, honestly.
02:20And so the whole thing becomes too chunky
02:22to reasonably fit in most people's pockets.
02:25It's kind of like the size of the Seinfeld wallet, honestly.
02:27And a wallet for your money.
02:30Now, you know what?
02:31Maybe I can't judge the whole concept
02:32on this super early hardware.
02:34Like so many pieces of this feel just like a hack.
02:37Like look at this hinge.
02:38The most vulnerable, important part that isn't the screen,
02:41the hinge, it's literally covered
02:43in this like accordion-shaped rubber
02:46and then screwed in on the sides.
02:48It isn't smooth to fold and unfold.
02:50It kind of makes some noises sometimes
02:52when you touch it the wrong way while folding.
02:55And I just have my doubts about this material
02:57not wearing down over time with lots of folds
03:00and being in the sun and getting scratched
03:02and maybe even ripping.
03:03I mean, I guess technically the rubber on the back here
03:05is preventing debris from getting into the hinge
03:09and then maybe popping up onto the screen.
03:11So that's their solution around that.
03:13But now your phone looks like an accordion.
03:16And also, I don't think there's any number of folds
03:18that this mechanism is rated for.
03:22Like the Galaxy Fold,
03:22which had that highly engineered hinge.
03:24We all saw the video where they claimed 200,000 folds
03:29by a robot and we saw how that went.
03:31But this is not giving me the impression
03:33that it's more durable than that.
03:36Really feels like a hack.
03:37Oh, and then there's the crease.
03:40So there were plenty of thoughts on the Galaxy Fold's
03:42very slight crease from folding in.
03:44The Royal FlexPai, because of the way it folds out,
03:48has two creases.
03:50You can kind of see them,
03:51like one on either side of this hinge.
03:54They try to play it like you have three screens,
03:56one front, one back, and one side.
03:59Like they really told me that at CES,
04:00that this is a three screen phone
04:02and it's got this kind of awkward sliding shortcut UI
04:06in the middle on this third screen.
04:09It's not what I would call a third screen.
04:11But you know, with any folding phone,
04:12they're trying to make features that take advantage
04:14of this new form factor they've ended up with.
04:17And with this water OS on the Royal FlexPai,
04:21you know, there's a couple, there's not many.
04:23For example, you can turn on or off the back screen
04:25at any time if you want,
04:26with a button that's permanently in the navigation bar.
04:30The front and back screen are also treated
04:32like two different user interfaces
04:34by remembering the state of your use separately.
04:37So if I'm on one screen and I open the settings app,
04:41and then I flip it over,
04:42and on that screen I open up the clock,
04:45when I flip back to the other side,
04:47the settings are still open.
04:49And when I go back to the other side,
04:51the clock is still open as well.
04:52So I could see that separate use being somewhat useful
04:56if I get used to it.
04:57Kind of like how the Galaxy Fold
04:58treated the front and back screen
04:59as separate most of the time,
05:01different wallpaper, different app layout, the whole thing.
05:04And then because of the dual camera layout,
05:06you can have the front and back of the phone
05:09show as a viewfinder while you're taking a photo.
05:11So the selfie shot with the main camera
05:13can be a higher quality.
05:16And then people you're taking a photo of
05:17will see themselves in the back screen
05:19and probably look at that instead of the camera lens.
05:22And if you scroll far enough in the camera settings,
05:25there's something called baby mode,
05:27which replaces that back screen
05:29with some entertaining cartoons and characters
05:32to get your baby to, I guess, look at the phone
05:34when you take pictures of them.
05:35Nice, so that's cool, I guess.
05:37But what this layout has really taught me
05:39is if you wanna take photos of something out there
05:42with the full viewfinder, you can't.
05:45There's no cameras on the back, they're all facing you.
05:48So you can't take photos of things that aren't you
05:52unless you close the phone.
05:54I think my favorite quirk though
05:55is that almost every version of auto-rotate,
05:58almost every version works, ready?
05:59So this works, this doesn't work,
06:04this works, and this works.
06:06And then you fold it and you get this to work,
06:10this works, this doesn't work, then this does.
06:16Same thing on the other side.
06:18I don't know why it was so fascinating to me
06:20that you have like 16 ways to rotate it
06:22and like 14 of them work.
06:24Look, this is a super early folding phone
06:26and this is what you're gonna get
06:28when you rush to be first.
06:30Mission technically accomplished, you're first,
06:33but at what cost?
06:34Has it gotten better since CES?
06:36Actually, yes, especially in the animations department.
06:39I still wouldn't call it fluid by any means,
06:42that's not a word I would use,
06:43but it's at least smoother than it was a few months ago.
06:47But no matter how you move around this form factor,
06:49grabbing the screen from both sides and folding it in half,
06:53at least on this phone, is incredibly awkward.
06:55Also, things like the volume buttons being split
06:58above and below the fingerprint reader,
07:00which is also not the power button, that doesn't help.
07:04The lack of headphone jack doesn't help.
07:06The noises you get sometimes when you fold it,
07:09that doesn't help.
07:10And of course, water OS, not having much English in it,
07:14no Google Play services, no Play Store,
07:17that didn't help either.
07:18I'm not trying to put my SIM card in this phone
07:19and use it every day and have my information
07:21sent to who knows where.
07:24I guess importing this phone
07:25was a bit of a hack in the first place.
07:27And all that is not to mention the battery concerns.
07:30When I first booted up this phone,
07:32I got a little bit of a walkthrough
07:34and part of that walkthrough said,
07:36only to charge it while it's unfolded.
07:39I literally have no idea why.
07:41Bottom line, this phone actually
07:44just really makes me miss the Galaxy Fold.
07:46Like I already missed it when I had to give it back,
07:48but this really doubled those feelings.
07:51Now don't get me wrong,
07:52the FlexPai has flashes of brilliance.
07:54Like sometimes I just look at it in my hands
07:56and it's wild that you have a screen folded over backwards
08:00and still working perfectly and responsive and not broken.
08:04Like that's already amazing.
08:05I felt like you could show this to someone
08:06from five years ago and they'd be very impressed
08:10and surprised, but it also makes you think,
08:12what will these look like in five more years from today?
08:15Okay, I've learned two main things
08:17from playing with this phone.
08:19One, being first doesn't really matter if it sucks.
08:24Like, and that applies to a lot of other things,
08:26but especially with new tech and with this folding phone.
08:29But then two, folding in is better than folding out.
08:34Like folding out is cool and it looks potentially better.
08:37That Huawei Mate X that we've been drooling over
08:39because it seems to look so much better
08:41than the Galaxy Fold, I think it will look better,
08:44but I don't think that's the way to use a folding phone.
08:48I think as long as the screens and the hinges
08:49are as shaky and not so durable as they are now,
08:53folding in is gonna be the better way.
08:55Also don't forget about that Motorola Razr
08:57that's gonna sort of fold in if that ever happens.
09:00I think that's another good way to do it.
09:01But the whole folding out thing, probably not the way to go.
09:06Either way, that's been it.
09:08Thanks for watching.
09:10Catch you guys in the next one.
09:11Peace.