Royole premieres the RoKit, the "world's first" devkit for foldable electronics

While most consumers may have looked at Royole's FlexPai or FlexPai 2 as less-than-convincing entrants in the burgeoning foldable smartphone space, certain enthusiasts might have looked at it as something that might be improved by being taken apart and put back together again, perhaps in a different way this time. For individuals like these, Royole now offers the RoKit flexible electronics development kit.

Accordingly, it consists of a box containing many parts found in a complete FlexPai 2, a 7.8-inch 1440p 60Hz AMOLED display backed with the OEM's third-gen Cicada Wing hinge technology. The fully-flexible sensor array needed to interface with it is also in evidence, as is the wiring, interfaces and other accessories necessary to construct full foldable (and HDMI 1.4-capable) developmental prototypes.

Therefore, this might be a useful way to flesh or test out concepts for this emerging category of technology. Then again, the RoKit contains some disadvantages, some of which stem from the original FlexPai variant on which it is based. Its "open platform", Snapdragon 660-powered motherboard is Android 10-based, even though its latest successor is now poised to go public and stable very soon.

In addition, its power source is microUSB, and, thus, limited in the profiles it can use on top of that. For pro-sumers that might be prepared to overlook that for the fun and edification involved in building what they want based on the RoKit's contents, these kits are now available at US$959 on the OEM's global website.