For much of the past year, I've been using the Huawei Pura X flip phone. I brought it back home from a trip to China in April, and the biggest surprise is how much I've continued to enjoy its oddball form factor since then.

In particular, as rivals like Motorola and Samsung have stuck to their tried-and-tested flip phone designs, Huawei, with the Pura X, is still the only flip phone manufacturer to rethink what the flip phone form factor should be.

I’ve returned to the Pura X several times over the past few months, and despite having all of the best flip phones at my disposal, its form factor has become my favorite. So, here's why the Pura X proves that everyone else is getting flip phones wrong, and why I think Huawei could be onto something.

The flip phone as a mini tablet

If you're choosing between the Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7, one thing becomes immediately clear: both phones take the same approach.

Motorola and Samsung have so far looked at the flip phone as a way to make a big phone smaller. And while compact devices undoubtedly have major appeal to some users – my sister, for instance, has fallen in love with her Razr Ultra 2025 – downsizing a phone has thus far required trade-offs in the camera department and, in Samsung's case, further concessions when it comes to battery and performance.

In comparison, Huawei takes a different approach. First, the main screen of the Pura X has a 16:10 aspect ratio, which is reminiscent of the iPad mini and other smaller tablets. This makes it better for multitasking – although the Pura X isn't going to challenge one of the very best tablets in that respect – as well as better for watching movies versus a regular flip phone.

Second, the main screen measures 6.3 inches, making it much more comfortable than the 7-inch displays used by Samsung and Motorola. Yes, the Pura X is noticeably smaller in that respect, but the aspect ratio of its screen makes it feel more like a portable tablet than a folding big phone. It also makes it feel like a notebook you'd carry, rather than a phone, which is a feeling unique to the Pura X.

The added benefit of the Pura X

There’s another key reason why I like the Huawei Pura X: the 3.5-inch front screen. It isn’t as large as that of the Motorola Razr Ultra, nor is it as capable, but the Pura X's front display does have three cameras. This makes the phone more versatile than all of its key rivals, and it's the closest we’ve come to seeing a true flagship camera on a flip phone.

The best globally available flip phones for camera performance are the Razr Ultra 2025, which uses two 50MP sensors, and the Honor Magic V Flip 2, which has a 200MP main camera and a 50MP ultra-wide camera. Comparatively, the Pura X has a slightly less capable 40MP ultra-wide camera, but the 50MP camera is just as good (on paper, at least).

The standout feature is its 8MP telephoto lens, which offers 3.5x optical zoom and OIS (Optical Image Stabilization). Samsung, Honor, and Motorola all offer 2x zoom via in-sensor cropping on their respective flip phones, but this approach doesn’t have the same reach as a dedicated telephoto lens, so, in my view, the Pura X is the best flip phone camera you can buy right now.

For many people, a 2x ‘optical’ zoom through in-sensor cropping is satisfactory, but there’s little doubt that a dedicated telephoto will always take better photos.

It also means there’s a longer zoom range with AI and more detail to work with when you do need a zoom lens. Yes, the Pura X's 8MP telephoto lens doesn’t compare to the telephoto lens you’ll find in many of the best camera phones (think the Galaxy S25 Ultra and iPhone 17 Pro Max), but it does push the boundaries forward for flip phones specifically.

There's one additional benefit to the Pura X, and it's specific to the front screen: unlike its key rivals, the unique design of the Pura X means its Cover Display works in both horizontal and vertical orientations. This adds a further level of versatility that's totally missing from its key rivals.

The key downsides of the Pura X

It would be remiss of me not to mention some key pitfalls of the Huawei Pura X. First, its availability is extremely limited (you won't be able to buy it in the US, UK, or Australia right now), and second, Huawei’s new HarmonyOS Next platform means there’s no support for Google apps and services (though many Google services are available via third-party container apps).

Yet, despite these obvious downsides, my overall hardware experience has been extremely positive. I love the Razr Ultra 2025, but I’ve found myself turning to the Pura X more often than not because I really like its form factor. It’s not a phone I could use as a daily device, especially as it lacks the core underlying architecture to offer an Android-like experience, but it is the most unique flip phone right now.

The Pura X is not as integrated nor as streamlined as an Android phone – and I do wish that Huawei had kept the Android kernel libraries so I could easily install native Google apps, as on the tri-folding Huawei Mate XT – but with a few workarounds, this is certainly a compelling device.

Take notes, Samsung and Motorola

As I’ve spent more time with the Pura X, one thing has become clear: whether this form factor replaces the flip phone as we know it or helps launch another category of folding phones, I want other phone makers to copy the Pura X's form factor.

The aspect ratio is better, the cover display makes the Pura X feel like a regular phone, and Huawei's cameras outpace the competition. The phone's 4,720 mAh battery isn’t the largest, its 66W charging isn’t the fastest, and it has some obvious software-related pitfalls, but I’m convinced that this is a form factor that other phone makers should consider adopting in 2026.

• The Huawei Mate XT 2 could land on September 10
• That's the same week we're expecting the iPhone
• The first Huawei tri-fold was launched last year

The pioneering, triple-folding Huawei Mate XT that launched in 2024 is due to get a successor later this year – and the latest rumor suggests the premium device is going to be unveiled around the same time as the Apple iPhone 17 series.

This information comes from well-known tipster Fixed Focus Digital on Chinese social media platform Weibo (via Android Headlines), who says we can expect to see the Huawei Mate XT 2 announced on Wednesday, September 10.

If you've been keeping pace with the flurry of iPhone 17 rumors in recent weeks, then you'll know those are pointing to Tuesday, September 9 as the big day for the grand unveiling of Apple's next flagship phones.

The usual iPhone upgrades are in the pipeline – a faster processor, better cameras, and so on – but there's no doubt that it's Huawei that will be unveiling the most innovative and exciting handset that week, if these rumors prove to be accurate.

When are we getting a foldable iPhone?

Apple has always taken a rather slow and steady approach to smartphone innovation, which helps explain why Huawei is now on its second tri-fold phone and Samsung is on its seventh round of foldables, while Apple has yet to even hint that a foldable iPhone is coming.

The most recent information we have suggests that Apple will finally launch a folding iPhone in September 2026, alongside the iPhone 18 line. After that, we might get treated to a new model every 12 months, as Apple gets more familiar with the manufacturing process.

Rumors indicate that Apple has been working hard to minimize the crease on its foldable iPhone, and we're expecting it to cost a fair bit too. Other leaks suggest it won't claim the title of the thinnest foldable phone when it appears.

A folding iPhone has been a long time coming, and we're looking forward to seeing it, but Apple has a lot of catching up to do at this point, with Samsung expected to launch its own tri-fold phone at some point in October.

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I only recently learned that the popular idiom "seeing is believing" is a gross misreading of Thomas Fuller’s original quote. The 17th-century English clergyman *actually* said "Seeing is believing, but feeling is the truth" (thanks, Reddit scholars), and that slightly amended version rather nicely sums up my feelings towards the Huawei Mate XT.

I had of course read about (and seen pictures of) the world’s first commercially available dual-screen, tri-folding smartphone before visiting Huawei’s UK PR agency for a recent product launch. But it wasn’t until I got hands-on with the Mate XT at this same event that I realized I was wrong to dismiss Huawei’s headline-grabbing phablet as an expensive gimmick (and yes, I know Fuller’s quote refers to *emotional* feeling, but humor me).

When the Mate XT hit shelves in China earlier this year, I rather snarkily wrote that Huawei's tri-folding phone is so expensive you could buy four PS5 Pros (or 5,620 Twinkies) for the same price. That continues to be true, but having now held the real, actual product in my real, actual hands, I can see why the Mate XT supposedly got over 3 million preorders in its home market.

For those unfamiliar, the Huawei Mate XT is an entirely new type of folding phone – rather than folding once, like a book, it folds twice, like a three-page brochure (incidentally, I initially thought it was wrong to call this a 'tri-folding' device given that only two of its screens fold, but I’ve since come around to the designation). The USP here is obvious; you get three displays for the price – in portability terms – of one.

The Mate XT measures 6.4 inches when collapsed and a whopping 10.2 inches when fully unfolded. For context, that makes it some 2.6 inches larger than the single-hinged Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 and not far off the size of Apple’s iPad 10.9 (2022) at full stretch.

When I first read about the Mate XT, I understood the benefits of its Z-shaped form factor, but I assumed it would feel flimsy and its two creases would be too distracting to ignore. In both cases, I was glad to be proven wrong.

This is a sturdy-feeling phone with hinges that can stay in place at any angle. It doesn’t flop open or closed and it uses magnets to stay shut when you want it to be. I didn’t get to stream any content on the Mate XT, but at first glance, its creases, while visible, are comparable to that of the Honor Magic V3, which we praised in our Honor Magic V3 review for being “one of the shallowest and least noticeable creases of the current foldable crop.” From a design standpoint, this thing is a marvel.

I wasn’t able to put the Mate XT’s power credentials to the test, but it’s an impressive beast in terms of specs. It runs on a Huawei-exclusive Kirin 9010 chipset and 16GB RAM, with storage options ranging from 256GB all the way up to 1TB.

The phone’s 5,600mAh battery is similarly formidable (on paper), and it supports 66W wired charging and 50W wireless charging when paired with Huawei’s SuperCharge charger.

On the cameras front, the Mate XT gets a three-lens rear setup comprising a 50MP main lens, a 12MP ultra-wide lens, and a 12MP periscope lens, while an 8MP selfie camera rounds out Huawei’s three-screen photography offering.

What you’re getting here, then, are standard flagship foldable specs in a decidedly un-standard (and much more useful) design package. Foldables have long promised to deliver tablet-style utility in a much more convenient form factor, and while we’re big fans of the Galaxy Z Fold 6, Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, OnePlus Open, and more of today’s best foldable phones, these products still feel like awkward halfway houses between phone and tablet, rather than bona fide problem solvers.

The Huawei Mate XT is currently only available in China, so we’re unlikely to put it through our full review process any time soon, but as a window into the potential future of foldable devices on this side of the world, it’s a supremely exciting device.

Indeed, Samsung is rumored to be developing its own tri-folding phone – one that could launch as soon as 2025 – so here’s hoping we’ll get more hands-on time with a variety of tri-folding devices in the coming months.

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• Huawei has revealed the Mate X6 folding phone
• The main camera has 10 manually selectable aperture stops
• Unlikely to be available in the US or UK

Huawei has revealed the Mate X6, the latest addition to its Mate X line of booklet-style foldables, with a major focus on photography.

The phone comes equipped with a 50MP main camera with an impressive 10 physical aperture stops, allowing users to determine the depth of field and light intake of the camera manually. That’s a step up from even the best camera phones – think Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and iPhone 16 Pro – which almost always have a fixed aperture.

The camera system also features a 40MP ultra-wide camera and a 48MP telephoto camera with 4x optical zoom and a 5cm super macro mode.

As a folding phone, the Mate X6 boasts a 6.45-inch 1080 x 2440 external screen and a 7.93-inch 2240 x 2440 internal screen, both of which are OLED panels. A new multitasking feature allows users to run three apps simultaneously.

We’re still waiting for details on the internals of the new device, but we do know that the phone’s heat dissipation area has increased by 30% thanks to the use of new, cooler materials such as graphene.

However, even if we did have the internal specs of the Mate X6, it’s unlikely they’d be of much use – Huawei hasn’t sold phones in the US for years due to a legislative ban, and the company is currently absent from the UK market.

This would make the Mate X6 the second especially innovative foldable released by Huawei in recent memory. The Mate XT tri-fold device, for instance, arrived in September 2024 and made huge waves with audiences and commentators despite only being available in China (that said, we'll be publishing our own hands-on review of the device very soon).

The Huawei Mate X6 is available in three colors: Nebula Gray, Nebula Red, and Black, with the Nebula colors featuring a textured exterior. Regional availability beyond Europe – where the phone will begin shipping for €1,999 on January 6 – has yet to be confirmed.

For the latest official updates as we hear them, be sure to keep up with our dedicated Huawei phones coverage, as well as our more general phones coverage.

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We’ve been reporting on leaks and official teasers surrounding the tri-folding Huawei Mate XT for several months now, and the dual-hinged, triple-screen phone is finally here.

Huawei launched the Mate XT at a glitzy showcase in the hours following Apple’s iPhone 16 event, confirming that the phone’s OLED display measures 6.4 inches when collapsed and a whopping 10.2 inches when fully unfolded. Of course, Huawei also confirmed the price of its new flagship smartphone at said launch event, and it’s enough to make your eyes water.

The Huawei Mate XT – which is currently only available in China – starts at 19,999 yuan (around $2,810 / £2,150 / AU$4,220) for the model with 256GB of storage. That price rises to 21,999 yuan (around $3,090 / £2,365 / AU$4,645) for the model with 512GB of storage, and higher still to 23,999 yuan (around $3,375 / £2,580 / AU$5,065) for the model with 1TB of storage. All three models ship with 16GB of RAM.

For context, the cheapest version of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 – aka the most expensive of the best foldable phones in 2024 – costs $1,899.99 / £1,799 / AU$2,749. Heck, the newly announced PlayStation 5 Pro costs $699.99 / £699.99 / AU$1,199; you could buy four of those for the same price as the cheapest Huawei Mate XT. Or 5,620 Twinkies – whatever floats your boat.

So, yes, the latest foldable innovation to emerge from China costs an arm and a leg – but innovation comes at a price in almost every product category. The Apple Vision Pro infamously cost $3,499 / £3,499 / $5,999 at launch (and still does), while many of the best mirrorless cameras cost even more than that (the Sony A7R V, for instance, retails for $3,900 / £4,000 / AU$5,900).

The difference between, say, the Apple Vision Pro and the Huawei Mate XT is that consumers – in China, at least – seem genuinely interested in buying Huawei’s never-before-seen foldable. Chinese retailer Vmall, for instance, reports (via The Verge) that 3.7 million Huawei Mate XT preorders were placed before pricing was even announced.

As for what other specs the Mate XT boasts beyond its Z-shaped folding form factor (which, strictly speaking, is bi-folding rather than tri-folding), the phone comes with a 5,600mAh battery and support for 66W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.

On the camera front, the Mate XT gets a three-lens rear setup comprising a 50MP main lens, a 12MP ultra-wide lens, and a 12MP periscope lens, while an 8MP selfie camera rounds out the phone’s photography offering. Under the hood, the Mate XT is reportedly powered by the Kirin 9010 5G chipset, though Huawei hasn’t yet confirmed as much.

As mentioned, the Huawei Mate XT is currently only available in China, and although Huawei is now technically free to trade in international markets, we don’t think we’ll see the company’s latest foldable released elsewhere. 

That said, there’s every chance that the likes of Samsung, Google, and OnePlus will take inspiration from the Mate XT, so we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for rumors of a tri-folding competitor in the coming year.

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The first tri-foldable phone is almost here, and we've got another look at it: the Huawei Mate XT officially launches this coming Tuesday, but images and storage options have already been posted online by Huawei.

You can head to the Huawei store now to see the Mate XT in a red finish with gold accents. The site now lets you reserve the phone in China, and the storage options are listed as either 512GB or 1TB, which both come with 16GB of memory.

Huawei previously posted the same image on social media, and noted tipster Evan Blass has also shared the picture of the phone with a different dark gray color. It looks as though these are the two colors that buyers can choose between.

Unfortunately, it looks as though the Mate XT won't be available outside of China – not least because Huawei devices are still banned in the US. The rest of us are going to have to wait to get our hands on a tri-folding phone.

Another fold

The addition of an extra fold to the standard foldable form factor adds an extra engineering challenge for Huawei, but it also means part of the main display can double up and be used as the outer display when the device is folded.

With the Mate X and the Mate X2, Huawei has previously produced two different types of standard book-style foldables: one folding inward and one folding outward. That technical know-how has no doubt been useful in creating the Mate XT.

We've also previously seen a teaser video for the Huawei Mate XT, which offers a brief look at the phone in use. We're still waiting for some key details about the phone, including the main screen size and the chipset that's being used inside.

All should be revealed on Tuesday, September 10: everything gets started at 2.30pm China time, which means it'll be 11.30pm PT on September 9, and 2.30am ET / 7.30am BST / 4.30pm AEST on September 10.

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Huawei has officially named its upcoming tri-fold smartphone the Huawei Mate XT.

The name, which follows the convention of Huawei’s Mate X foldable series, was confirmed in a new teaser video shared to Weibo by the Chinese manufacturer (via GSMArena).

The teaser also links the upcoming phone to Huawei’s Ultimate Design brand, a continuation of its previous Porsche Design collaboration, which currently offers a luxury smartwatch.

This association with Ultimate Design could be Huawei preparing consumers for a high price tag – the Mate XT's predecessor, the Mate X3, retails for the equivalent of around $1,825 / £1,390 / AU$2,700 in China, and a new, more advanced product is likely to be even more expensive.

At the time of writing, Huawei devices can’t be sold in the US due to an ongoing ban, and the company doesn’t sell phones in the UK despite offering tablets, laptops, and other accessories.

We can reasonably speculate that the XT stands for X Triple or X Tri-Fold, suggesting Huawei has accepted the “tri-fold” naming convention – this in spite of the fact that the Mate XT actually folds twice, not three times.

A proper rollout

The new teaser follows the announcement of Huawei’s upcoming “grand ceremony”, a product event in the vein of Apple’s annual iPhone launches.

GSMArena shared that Huawei has scheduled its launch for September 10, just one day after the much-anticipated Apple event on September 9.

Huawei is likely looking to avoid a clash with Apple’s event, which will almost certainly play host to the reveals of the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max, and draw immense interest as a result.

Announcing a world-first product right after an incremental annual iPhone update could be a bid on Huawei's part to steal some of Apple’s thunder.

This event announcement, coupled with the new Mate XT teaser, has brought an air of officiality to the tri-fold’s rollout, which was previously led by leaked images and off-the-cuff remarks. Only recently, Huawei Consumer Business Group CEO Yu Chengdong (also known as Richard Yu) seemingly confirmed a September release date for the Mate XT in a comment made at the launch of Huawei’s STELATO S9 electric car.

A genuine world-first 

Rumors of a tri-fold device making it to market have circulated all year, with suggestions that Samsung, Honor, and indeed Huawei have been working to produce the first phone of this kind.

Additionally, concept devices from Tecno Mobile and a suspicious-looking OPPO render have added to the speculation, as has a working prototype displayed by TCL CSOT.

Although a global release for the Mate XT is unlikely, it’s always exciting to see a genuinely new product reach consumers.

For the latest foldable phone updates, be sure to check out TechRadar's phones coverage, as well as our guide to the best foldable phones of 2024.

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Huawei's upcoming tri-foldable phone has been spotted several times in the wild, and the company has now announced an unveiling date of Tuesday, September 10, as rumors continue to swirl around this intriguing device.

You can see the event teaser over at GSMArena, and while the phone isn't specifically mentioned, that sure looks like a Z-shape folding handset in the background. New smartwatches and an electric car could also be unveiled.

The event is scheduled to get underway at 2.30pm in China on the afternoon of September 10 – which works out as 11.30pm PT on September 9, and 2.30am ET / 7.30am BST / 4.30pm AEST on September 10.

For those living in California and along the US West Coast, the Huawei tri-foldable is actually going to launch on the same day – just – as the iPhone 16 series, as September 9 is also the date of Apple's 'It's Glowtime' event, which is perhaps a deliberate move on the part of Huawei.

The most expensive panel ever

Even though we've caught a glimpse or two of the phone in public, we don't know too much about it, other than that it'll have two hinges rather than one (which is the standard on handsets such as the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6).

Industry analyst Ross Young, who is usually reliable when it comes to predictions, says the phone is going to have a 10-inch main screen, and that it'll be the most expensive smartphone yet – which is unsurprising considering the tech built into it.

It seems that the extra screen space will be used to run "PC-level applications", so we could be looking at a device that blurs the boundaries between phone, tablet, and laptop. High-end internal specs have also been rumored.

How easy it'll be to buy this phone outside of China remains to be seen – Huawei is banned from selling its devices in the US, don't forget – but it's still going to be a notable first for the mobile industry, marking the introduction of a new foldable form factor.

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Just a week ago, a photo of Huawei’s rumored tri-foldable phone emerged, and now we’ve seen another shot – this time of it folded.

Posting on Chinese site Weibo (via GSMArena), leaker @WhyLab shared a photo of the still unofficial device, and as with last time, it's pictured in the hand of Huawei exec Richard Yu.

But where last time the phone was unfolded – showing off the large display – this time it’s fully folded, so it looks more like a conventional smartphone. And despite having two folds (creating three distinct sections), it also looks very thin in this image.

This photo also gives us a glimpse of the camera block on the rear, which juts out a little and appears to have a similar circular design to the camera block on the Huawei Mate X5 – which is a more conventional foldable phone with only one fold in it.

A big screen and an imminent launch

We don’t know much about this upcoming phone, but reportedly it has a huge foldable screen of around 10 inches – which is achievable through the addition of that extra fold. We’ve also heard that it could land sometime from September onwards.

Usually, we’d expect more information to have leaked if indeed the phone is that close to launch, but these out-in-the-wild pictures do suggest it could be almost ready.

However, don’t count on being able to buy it, as it's unlikely that this tri-fold phone will get a wide global release. At the very least, there’s no real chance of it being available in the US, since Huawei doesn’t have a presence there.

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As our list of the best foldable phones will tell you, there are more foldables to pick from than ever before. We don't yet have a tri-foldable phone on the market though – and it's looking increasingly likely that that's about to change.

As Gizmochina reports, Richard Yu, the former CEO of Huawei, has been spotted using what seems to be a tri-foldable handset on an airplane. Well-known tipster Digital Chat Station has chimed in to say this is indeed the device we're looking at.

A tri-foldable phone is a foldable phone with an extra fold, and even more screen space – think about the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, but there's an additional panel fixed on to the side, so you're essentially looking at three standard phone screens joined together.

That does of course add to the bulk when the phone is folded up, as you've got an extra layer to deal with. For some users though, that may be a worthwhile trade-off: the main display is rumored to be around 10 inches in size, corner to corner.

Incoming phones

Just a few days ago we heard that Huawei had managed to reach certain durability standards with its tri-foldable phone – and the sight of the company's ex-CEO using one would certainly back up rumors of an imminent launch.

It's thought that the tri-foldable could make its debut anytime from September onwards. September is also the month when we're expecting the new iPhone 16 series to make an appearance, while the Pixel 9 phones are due to be unveiled this coming Tuesday.

Samsung is the brand most people will think of when it comes to folding phones, despite continued competition from the likes of OnePlus and Motorola. There have been rumors that a tri-foldable is also on the way from Samsung, but it's not here yet.

If Huawei does manage to be the first to market with his particular form factor, it sounds as though the device will come running HarmonyOS Next: a desktop-style operating system that would be able to make full use of those 10 inches of screen space.

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Huawei has launched two new flagship phones, the Mate 60 Pro Plus and the Mate Fold X5, shortly after debuting the new Huawei Mate 60 and Mate 60 Pro. Both releases come at a time when Huawei remains restricted from purchasing 5G-capable chips from U.S. companies like Qualcomm, raising a stir when these new phones proved capable of reaching 5G speeds.

The Huawei Mate 60 Pro Plus is a more powerful variant of the Huawei Mate 60 and 60 Pro, featuring a large 6.82-inch OLED display capable of an adaptive 120Hz, a 13MP front camera paired with a 3D sensor for facial recognition by way of three holes in the front of the display. Around the back, there's a flexible trio of cameras, composed of a 48-megapixel main camera backed up with a 40MP ultrawide and a 48MP telephoto lens. It supports up to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. It is available in black and white colors.

As for the Mate X5, it's more or less the same as the Huawei Mate X3. Where it differs is a slightly tweaked camera design, a new Phantom Purple color, and up to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. Don't worry, you didn't miss news of a Mate X4, Huawei, like Oppo with the Find X series, skipped the "4" of its series.

Huawei has kept silent on the processor powering both phones, but they are thought to be the same (unconfirmed) 5G capable Kirin 9000 series chips discovered in the Mate 60 and 60 Pro by a teardown.

Is Apple taking notes?

Huawei adopting its own 5G-capable modem is a result of the company being restricted from using components sourced from US companies. Though the company did use Qualcomm's chips in some of its recent phones, Huawei was restricted to using 4G variants only, crippling their usefulness in an increasingly 5G world. 

Being able to reach 5G speeds means that Huawei has broken at least one of the restraints holding it back. Without the Google Play Store, it's unlikely to make a dent in the global market or reach its previous heights anytime soon, but you can't help but root for the underdog if you see them trying so hard.

Similarly, Apple has been tipped  to be adopting its own modem chip for the iPhone in a move to consolidate control over the iPhone components. The company already designs several of the components for its iPhones, most notably the A-series chips. These make iPhones one of the best phone around. 

Should Apple join Huawei in ditching Qualcomm's modems, this could lessen the power of the erstwhile mobile powerhouse, even as rivals from MediaTek and Samsung bolster their offerings.

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Huawei launched the Huawei Mate 60 and Mate 60 Pro, its second big flagship series for the year. Both smartphones were released without much fanfare in China and boast impressive hardware specs, including LTPO OLED displays, specialized Kunlun glass, and facial authentication. Huawei is also reportedly equipping these with 5G capabilities, a first for the company since restrictions were placed on trade with Huawei by the Trump administration.

The Huawei Mate 60 Pro is a typical flagship phone that would be one of the best Android phones if it were running a more friendly Android system. It is powered by Huawei's HarmonyOS and packs a 6.82-inch 2720 x 1260 120Hz display. The display has a very small bezel, and is interrupted only by a tiny hole-punch layout for selfies and facial authentication.

Huawei retains its camera focus here, with a powerful triple-lens rear camera system including a 50MP main camera, a 12MP ultra wide camera, and a 48MP telephoto camera. This is all powered by a 5,000 mAh battery with 88W charging. 

The Mate 60 is a pared-down version of the 60 Pro. All the main features, including the fast charging and LTPO display, are included in broad strokes, but you won't find any triple-hole punch for secure facial identification. The battery is also a smaller 4,750 mAh, and the charging is reduced to 66W. Both the Mate 60 and Mate 60 Pro are capable of two-way satellite texting, like the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro.

What's the big deal about being 5g capable anyway?

According to a Reuters report, the Mate 60 and Mate 60 Pro's launch was so low-key and out of the blue that even staff at Huawei were "caught off-guard." There may be a reason for that. The Huawei Mate 60 and Mate 60 Pro reportedly feature 5G support, and that's a pretty big deal. 

Though we expect all modern smartphones will have a 5G modem, the Huawei Mate 50 and Mate 50 Pro were not 5G-capable. With Huawei's trade restrictions, the company was unable to procure 5G chips. Even the Huawei P60 and P60 Pro both use a 4G model of the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor. 

If Huawei has managed to overcome the U.S. restrictions, that would be a big win for the beleaguered company. Huawei is rumored to be using its own homegrown Kirin processors, though Reuters has not been able to confirm this. Neither the product pages of the Mate 60 nor Mate 60 Pro shed any light on this, and Reuters cites posts on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of X (née Twitter). 

Though 5G would be a win, Huawei will still face problems gaining market share outside its home country. The lack of the Google Play Store remains a big problem for many. Of course, rival company Xiaomi has no such limitations, and Honor still supports Google Play's services for those who would like a taste of Huawei's flavor, as our Honor Magic 5 Pro review shows.

Huawei has been making waves in the foldable market for years, and the reveal of the new Mate X3 – alongside the conventional candybar P60 series – has certainly set tongues wagging, with packed spec sheets for both.

While the Huawei P60 and its Pro and Art variants look to offer a more traditional smartphone experience, the Mate X3 feels like it could be the next exciting leap for folding phones. That's thanks to a considerable drop in weight from devices like the Galaxy Z Fold 4, and the fact it offers an impressive spec sheet that's worth a look for all tech enthusiasts.

The phone was initially restricted to China, but has since become available to pre-order in the UK and Europe. Below, then, we've sourced everything worth knowing about the Huawei Mate X3; including its price, weight credentials, screen refresh rate, and much more.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? Huawei's latest folding phone
• When is it out? Announced March 23 (China), on sale April 13. Announced May 9 (UK), on sale May 26. 
• How much does it cost? From CNY¥12,999 / £1,999.99 / €2,199

Huawei Mate X3: release date and price

The Huawei Mate X3 was revealed on March 23, 2023 for the Chinese market, and began shipping in that region on April 13 from CNY¥12,999. 

That price refers to the 256GB version of the phone, while the 512GB version will set you back CNY¥13,999, and the larger 1TB version costs a whopping CNY¥15,999.

The Mate X3 goes on sale in Europe from May 22, and in the UK from May 26, in one storage configuration: 12 GB RAM/512 GB. That version will cost you £1,999 / €2,199. Incidentally, if you’re in the UK and order the phone via Huawei before June 5, the company will also throw in a free Huawei Watch GT 3.

Prior Huawei devices have taken a little under half a year to emerge in other territories beyond the company's homeland, so it's refreshing to see Huawei bring the Mate X3 to the UK and Europe so soon after the phone's initial China launch. 

It's also worth noting that the Mate X3 won’t land in the US, and there’s a high chance that it won't make it to Australia, either.

Huawei Mate X3: design and display

Since the Huawei Mate X3 is a folding phone, it offers not just one, but two displays -- and both are impressive in their own right.

Each OLED panel offers a 120Hz refresh rate, with a 6.4-inch cover screen with a 2504x1080 resolution (and a 20.9:9 aspect ratio). Pop the phone open, and you're greeted with a 7.85-inch display with a 2496x2224 resolution and a 'so-close-to-square' aspect ratio of 8:7.1.

The "cover" display sports reinforced Kunlun Glass to help protect against breaks and scratches, too – returning from the Mate 50 Pro (and also found on the P60 lineup).

Huawei is dubbing these displays as 'X-True' – the brand's not-entirely-catchy moniker for tough glass with impact resistance, as well as certified color accuracy and color projection. All-in-all, it's a nice way of saying that you're getting an accurate but tough set of screens, and we're all for it.

The company promises that the outer display's Kunlun Glass protection makes it up to ten times more drop resistant than the equivalent cover screen on the previous Mate X2, while the main folding display is now four times more impact resistant than before.

As for the rest of the design, the Huawei Mate X3 is now water-resistant – with the IPX8 certification that means the Galaxy Z Fold 4 finally has a noteworthy competitor in this department. That continuing theme of durability persists through to the phone's hinge too. It's intended to be more flexible, and allow for a flatter open display, but it also lets the phone be propped open laptop-style, for video calls and selfies.

There are five colorways to choose from in China, with basic black, white and gold options, as well as fetching violet or dark green finishes. The black, gold and dark green options come rendered in vegan leather, while the other variants of the X3 sport a glass back. Those in the UK and Europe are limited to the black and dark green versions of the phone, mind. 

Huawei Mate X3: camera and battery

We've already mentioned that hinge that makes it easier to take photos on a flat surface or enjoy video calls, but that's still reliant on impressive cameras. From the spec sheet, it certainly looks like the Huawei Mate X3 is ready to hold its own in that regard.

There are 8MP selfie cameras on each of its displays, meaning you'll be able to easily chat with loved ones whether it's open or closed.

Naturally, the back snapper is impressively powerful, with a 50MP f/1.8 main camera, offering plenty to work with. There's also a 13MP ultrawide with an f/2.2 aperture and a 12MP telephoto that uses periscope lenses to reach 5x optical zoom in this relatively slim chassis.

The usual accoutrements are included, too, with 4K video recording available at 30 or 60fps.

Perhaps most notable about the camera setup is that its rectangular in its layout, rising from the chassis on a circular bump.

The Huawei Mate X3 comes packing a 4,800mAh lithium-polymer battery, which is a fraction smaller than the P60 & P60 Pro's 4,815mAh cell.

While we've not gone hands-on to test how long it'll last, we do know that it supports 66W fast charging through a wired connection or up to 50W wirelessly.

Once the battery hits 1%, Low-Battery Emergency Mode can eke out 12 minutes of call time, or three hours of standby – something you'll never want to use, but it's good to have it there.

There's reverse charging, too, with 7.5W wireless power output to charge other devices.

Huawei Mate X3: specs and features

While there are a trio of P60 devices, outside of storage options, the Huawei Mate X3 comes in just one flavor; including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset.

It's the same silicon found in the P60, with the 4nm chip paired with 12GB of RAM. Sadly, that means that there's no 5G connectivity here, which may be a deal-breaker for those looking for the fastest connection.

That chip suggests similar power to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 or the Realme GT 3, neither of which is any slouch.

Here's the full spec breakdown across models:

The HarmonyOS 3.1 release come preloaded on Chinese versions of the Huawei Mate X3, but the international version offers EMUI.

That means that – regardless of which version you buy – you'll be missing the Google Play Store and associated Google services.

The China variant maintains the Mate 50's BDS Satellite connectivity for messaging and calls, primarily intended for emergency situations. It's not currently an option internationally, however.

Huawei is launching the foldable Huawei Mate X3 tomorrow (March 23) alongside the flagship Huawei P60, but, as is often the case with smartphone launches, there might not be much to reveal, as many of the Huawei Mate X3’s specs have already been leaked.

The latest on that front comes from reputable leaker Digital Chat Station, who, posting on Weibo (via GSMArena), claims that the Mate X3 has a 7.8-inch foldable screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, along with a triple-lens camera setup that includes a 50MP primary sensor and a periscope zoom lens.

They also claim that the Huawei Mate X3 offers wireless charging and IPX8 water resistance, meaning it’s got the same sort of water resistance rating as most high-end phones, but no dust resistance. This is also the same rating as the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 have.

Finally, Digital Chat Station claims that the hinge will allow this phone to open at multiple different angles – so you won’t have to choose between fully open and fully closed.

This only provides a partial picture of the Huawei Mate X3, but PriceBaba has additionally spotted a supposed benchmark listing for this phone, which mentions a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset and 12GB of RAM.

That should make this a powerful phone, but one that's a step behind the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 flagships we’re now seeing. So, the Huawei Mate X3 will probably be more of a rival to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 than the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5.

Earlier leaks fill in the gaps

These aren’t the first Huawei Mate X3 specs leaks, with earlier leaks pointing to a 6.45-inch OLED cover screen and a 4,800mAh battery with 66W charging.

What this phone almost certainly won’t have is 5G, as sanctions against Huawei have prevented it from putting 5G capabilities in its devices. So, you’ll probably be limited to 4G connectivity, which is a shame on a high-end device in 2023.

Still, if the price is right, then that could be a sacrifice worth making. We should have a clearer idea of that once this phone is unveiled on Wednesday, March 23, though this appears to just be a launch for China, so global pricing and availability details probably won’t be shared.

Hopefully, a global launch will soon follow, because even without 5G, the Huawei Mate X3 could rank among the best foldable phones.

In many ways, Huawei is one of the most exciting and accomplished smartphone makers on Earth. As such, its new flagships are always worth paying attention to, and the Huawei P60 series has now officially broken cover in the UK, Europe and China. 

The new flagship line consists of the standard Huawei P60, along with the Huawei P60 Pro and – rather than an expected Huawei P60 Ultra or Huawei P60 Pro Plus – a top-tier model called the Huawei P60 Art. However, only the P60 Pro is available in Western markets, with the other two models reserved for China.  

There might also be a more affordable Huawei P60E or P60 Lite coming down the pipeline, but no such device has yet materialized and we haven't heard anything about its existence. Below, then, you’ll find everything you need to know about the Huawei P60 series, including the line's release date, price, and specs.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? Huawei's latest flagship phone series
• When is it out? March 23 in China, May 9 in the UK and Europe (for the Pro)
• How much does it cost? From £1,199.99 for the P60 Pro

Huawei P60: release date and price

Let's start with UK and European pricing for the Huawei P60 Pro, which went on sale at Huawei on May 9, 2023 in two storage configurations:

• 8GB RAM/256GB: £1199.99 / €1199
• 12GB RAM/512GB: £1299.99 / €1399

Incidentally, Huawei says that anyone purchasing the P60 Pro from the UK Huawei store by June 5 will also be rewarded with a free Huawei Watch GT 3. Customers purchasing the 512GB storage variant (also by June 5) can claim an additional £100 voucher which can be redeemed on the UK Huawei store.

It's worth noting, though, that the 8GB/256GB variant of the P60 Pro is only available in black, while the larger 12GB/512GB variant is only be available in Rococo Pearl.

Below, we've highlighted Chinese pricing for the rest of the Huawei P60 series.

Huawei P60

• 128GB = CNY¥4,488 (approximately $660 / £535 / AU$980)
• 256GB = CNY¥4,988 (approximately $730 / £595 / AU$1,090)
• 512GB = CNY¥5,988 (approximately $880 / £715 / AU$1,305)

Huawei P60 Pro

• 256GB = CNY¥6,988 (approximately $1,025 / £830 / AU$1,525)
• 512GB = CNY¥7,988 (approximately $1,170 / £950 / AU$1,745)

Huawei P60 Art

• 512GB = CNY¥8,988 (approximately $1,315 / £1,070 / AU$1,960)
• 1TB = CNY¥10,988 (approximately $1,610 / £1,310 / AU$2,400)

It should go without saying at this point that these phones won’t land in the US and there’s a high chance that they won't make it to Australia, either.

Huawei P60: design and display

As it turns out, the leaks and interpretative renders that we saw in the lead-up to the P60 series' reveal look to have been right on the money.

All three phones share a near-identical design, centered around a 6.67-inch 1220 x 2700 LTPO OLED display with an adaptive refresh rate which can scale from 1Hz to 120Hz (with a 300Hz touch response rate and 1440Hz PWM dimming for reduced eye fatigue) and an in-display optical fingerprint sensor.

The most notable design element across all versions of the P60 is unquestionably its camera array, with a large central element playing host to the phone's primary 48MP sensor (true across all models), while an ultrawide and periscopic telephoto sensor lie offset on the camera bump above and below. It's not a sensor arrangement we've seen before and should make the P60 series instantly recognisable, even at a distance.

As for the rest of the hardware, the IP68-certified bodywork consists of a four-way curved-edge front, covered in the same toughened KunLun glass that Huawei introduced on the Mate 50 Pro, last year (at least on the P60 Pro and Art). Meanwhile, a polished, color-matched metal frame and a glass back.

Speaking of color, the P60 and P60 Pro come in a choice of four: Rococo Pearl, violet, black and green, with the white finish being particularly eye-catching, resembling the white nacre on the inside of an oyster's shell. The P60 Art boasts a bespoke finish all its own, in either Azure Blue or Seashore Gold, with a more organic-looking camera bump to boot.

Huawei P60: camera and battery

The Dual Matrix camera design of the P50 series is gone and in its place is that new discreet triple rear sensor setup. Across all three models of P60, you get the same 48MP primary RYYB-arrangement sensor (a favorite of Huawei's, that this time promises increased light sensitivity), supported by OIS (optical image stabilization). Like the Mate 50 Pro, it also boasts a physical ten-speed variable aperture, which can step up to f/4.0 and all the way down to an impressive f/1.4.

In the case of the P60, the XMAGE camera system also includes a 13MP f/2.2 ultrawide and a 12MP f/3.4 5x optical zoom periscope telephoto lens that tops out at 50x magnification. Meanwhile, the P60 Pro and P60 Art both trade up to a superior 48MP optically-stabilized 'night vision' periscope telephoto camera, with a significantly wider f/2.1 aperture that should enable far better telephoto zoomed shots in low light than practically any other phone out there, while also delivering a maximum 100x zoom range.

On the processing side, the company's XD Fusion Pro system has reportedly been gifted a new 'texture engine' to help restore lost detail in images, with examples like the facets of a light-backed crystal, the texture of a plant stems and the dark lines naturally set into materials like leather and metal.

Video capture tops out at 4K resolution, with up to 960fps Full HD slow motion recording (using AI interpolation), while a 13MP f/2.4 punch-hole front-facing camera persists across all versions of the P60 too.

The P60 and P60 Pro possess 4,815mAh lithium-polymer batteries, while the P60 Art boasts a larger a more energy-dense 5,100mAh silicon-oxide power source (a technology former bedfellow Honor introduced to the mobile market first with the Chinese launch of the Honor Magic 5 Pro, claiming 12.8% higher energy density compared to lithium-based alternatives). In essence, even if all three models packed in the same capacity battery, the P60 Art's cell should still last longer thanks to the newer, more advanced technology at play.

As for charging, while all three P60s make room for 50W wireless charging, it's the P60 Pro and P60 Art that again stand apart, with their 88W wired charging speeds (Huawei claims the P60 Pro can reach 50% charge after just ten minutes), while the standard P60 still delivers unquestionably-rapid 66W wired fast charging.

Huawei P60: specs and features

What's nice about the P60 series is that there isn't a huge amount of variation between the three tiers of devices in the lineup (they all share the same dimensions, display and chipset, for example), meaning you still get some of Huawei's best work to date, even if you opt for the base Huawei P60.

All three phones run on a 4G-only variant of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset from 2022 (no sign of a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2-powered Huawei phone just yet), just like the Mate 50 Pro and implying comparable performance to devices like the 5G-toting 8 Plus Gen 1-powered Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 or the latest Realme GT 3.

Here's the full spec breakdown across models:

Interestingly, HongMeng OS 3.1 is the the software experience users in China will encounter, but rather than HarmonyOS, Huawei's global website lists the international version of the P60 line as running on EMUI 13.1 (likely based on Android 13 but without the Google Play Store).

We reported back in September last year that Huawei actually managed to beat Apple to the punch with regards to bringing satellite connectivity to the Mate 50 series and that technology persists on the P60 line too, at least in China – with the system relying on the Chinese Beidou satellite network – to support what is now two-way satellite messaging.

If you're keen on foldable phones but aren't fully convinced by the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, then there should soon be another of these innovative devices available to buy: the Huawei Mate X3 is apparently now ready for mass production and should show up soon.

That's according to tipster Wangzai Knows Everything (via Notebookcheck), and the word is that it will follow the design aesthetic laid down by Samsung quite closely – as well as potentially cost significantly less than its rival.

There may be some compromises along the way, with rumors that the handset will have to make do with 4G rather than 5G. It should come running the latest high-end Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor though.

What we know so far

We don't actually know much at all about what the Huawei Mate X3 is going to bring with it, though some clues might be offered up by what we've previously seen on the Huawei Mate X2, which made its debut in February 2021.

That's nearly two years ago, so the Mate X3 follow up is somewhat overdue at this point. The Mate X2 came with an 8-inch screen for its main display, and carried the Kirin 9000 processor as well as up to 12GB of RAM and a quad-lens rear camera.

Those are premium-level specs and it looks as though the Mate X3 will continue that trend, apart from, perhaps, the absence of 5G connectivity. Based on the new leak, the phone might appear at some point in the first half of 2023.

Analysis: more competition please

While we really like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and indeed the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, we would also like to see a few more options out there for consumers who want to pick up a foldable phone without having to part with a significant chunk of their savings.

There are of course decent alternatives out there already – like the Motorola Razr and the Xiaomi Mix Fold – but no one else seems to be prepared to invest quite so much into the future of foldables as Samsung are at the moment.

The Huawei Mate X3 could well go some way to giving Samsung more to contend with in the foldables space, but Huawei needs to improve in terms of its international distribution. The Mate X2 isn't easy to get if you live outside of China.

We're hoping that the foldable iPhone and the Pixel Fold show up sooner rather than later, which will go a long way to improve the choice available. There's a good chance that both of these high-profile handsets will make an appearance in 2023.

• These are the best foldable phones of 2022

Just a week ago we were reporting on how the iPhone 14 might be the first smartphone to offer satellite communication, but as it turns out it won’t – because Huawei just got there first with the Huawei Mate 50 and Mate 50 Pro.

These two newly announced smartphones both allow for texts to be sent via China’s global BeiDou satellite network. It’s a feature designed for emergencies, so you can get in touch with emergency services or loved ones when mobile networks are down, as they might be at times when they’re most needed – such as in war zones or natural disasters.

So it’s a niche feature – and one you’ll hopefully never need to use – but it could also be a life-saving one. Huawei’s implementation of it sounds very limited, with just text messages supported by the sounds of things – so you can’t make calls, and seemingly you can only send texts, not receive them, using this system. But still, it’s the first to offer this, and that counts for something.

It will likely soon have some serious competition though, since the iPhone 14 line is expected to land today (September 7) and will reportedly offer a similar system. In fact, Apple’s approach might allow for calls as well, so it could immediately one-up Huawei’s. Not to mention the fact that the iPhone 14 and its siblings will actually be available in the US, while the Huawei Mate 50 line won’t be.

But with T-Mobile partnering with Starlink for a similar service in the near future, and other companies likely also now considering satellite communication services, we might not be far off this becoming a mainstream feature, available on a wide range of smartphones, and that can only be a good thing.

Analysis: what else the Huawei Mate 50 offers

While its satellite communication feature is perhaps the most eye-catching of the Huawei Mate 50’s specs, this phone – and even more so the Huawei Mate 50 Pro – isn’t lacking for tech.

The Mate 50 Pro has a 6.74-inch 1212 x 2616 OLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset, 8GB of RAM, up to 256GB of storage, water resistance, and a 4,700mAh battery with 66W charging.

It also has a triple-lens camera, with a 50MP main sensor, a 13MP ultra-wide, and a 64MP telephoto, offering up to 200x digital zoom. Interestingly, the main lens also has an adjustable aperture, which can range from f/1.4 to f/4.0. Adjustable apertures are a very rare sight on phones, and never that variable.

The standard Huawei Mate 50 is a step down in some ways. It has the same chipset, RAM amount, and main and ultra-wide cameras, but the telephoto snapper is 12MP, and the phone has a 6.7-inch 1224 x 2700 90Hz display, and a smaller 4,460mAh battery with 66W charging.

As noted above these phones won’t be landing in the US, but it’s possible they’ll be sold in the UK and Australia. Note, however, that neither model offers 5G, so they’re probably unlikely to make our list of the best phones.

While the iPhone 14 might be the biggest new phone coming out very soon, it might not be the best; we've just heard that the Huawei Mate 50 is set to debut literally the day before Apple's newest.

This comes from Huawei itself, which has confirmed the news via Chinese social media platform Weibo – this alone suggests that the launch is China-only, but we could see global availability provided in the next few months.

This phone is... late, to say the least. We used to see Huawei's P-series phones at the beginning of each year and the Mate at the end, but after the 40-series in 2020, the Huawei P50 only went on sale in January 2022, and the Mate 50 was rumored to be canceled.

We don't now exactly what will show up, beyond the Mate 50, as while we'll likely see a standard and Pro device, some leaks think budget and super-premium versions could come along too.

Analysis: a contender for best camera phone

Huawei's phones are known for being great camera phones, with the company often debuting innovative new features to give them the edge over rivals like Samsung, Google and, most relevantly to this article, Apple.

In particular, we'll likely see the Mate 50 phones come with much a better main camera than the iPhone 14, as Huawei has previously used RYYB sensors which, to cut lots of tech jargon short, are better at capturing more light and color than the RGB that most phones have.

Plus, we'll likely see better zoom photography too – no iPhone has had optical zoom over 3x, while the Mate 40 Pro had 5x, and other phones from the brand have hit 10x.

Admittedly, we're speculating about two unreleased phones, so we can't say for sure whether the Huawei Mate 50 or iPhone 14 will be better for photography (or in general). We'll test both when we can, but hopefully, both will find their way onto our list of the best phones.

When Huawei and Samsung served up their first consumer-ready foldables to the world in 2019, once tech enthusiasts had picked their jaws up off the floor, the first question on many people's lips was, 'how fragile are they?'

Despite being among the most expensive and technologically advanced phones on the market, these glass cannons are far more susceptible to breaking than your average 'candy bar' handset.

Just look at the original Samsung Galaxy Fold. The company had to go back to the drawing board after only a day or so of the device being out in the wild, with reports of a problematic hinge that let grit sneak in under the screen causing instant irreparable damage, alongside a pre-fitted protector that started to come away of its own accord, similarly stopping the display dead in its tracks.

Manufacturers are well-versed in the problems that conventional smartphones face, but creating foldables has presented their engineers with an entirely new set of challenges, and the innovation employed to ensure these devices' durability approaches that of their rigid-bodied rivals and continues to evolve and astound with each new generation.

The foldable age is finally here

There are still only a very small pool of phone makers with the resources and technical know-how to successfully design and release a consumer-ready folding phone. Samsung remains the leader in the space, yet Huawei, Motorola, Oppo, Xiaomi and Honor all offer at least one form of foldable phone to call their own.

If you're reading this around the time of the Samsung's August 2022 Unpacked event, the foldables of the moment are undoubtedly the new Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4. The timing of their release actually means they arrive sandwiched between other high-profile foldable phones from ambitious rivals.

The international launch of Huawei's intriguing Mate Xs 2 still feels fresh, and the dust has barely settled on the Chinese launch of both Motorola's long-awaited 2022 Razr and Xiaomi's new Mix Fold 2.

The increase in foldable competition at this point in 2022 suggests that much of the technical adversity that those early folding phones faced has already been overcome; making the creation of such products more accessible and more worthwhile from a cost standpoint for a wider breadth of phone makers.

The new Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Huawei's Mate Xs 2 represent two very different solutions to the big-screened foldable form factor (Samsung's features two displays, with the larger folding panel being inward-facing, while the Mate Xs 2 uses a single, larger external panel). And thanks to new technical insight from both companies, we can see what's going on behind the scenes to make this newest generation of foldables slimmer, lighter, stronger and more durable.

Honing the hinge

Generally speaking, the more moving parts a machine has, the greater the number of potential failure points it suffers from. Standard smartphones may contain a trio of buttons, perhaps an OIS (optical image stabilization) system supporting at least one of their cameras and a haptic motor inside for vibration, but that's about it.

The hinge systems in vertically folding phones like the Z Fold and Mate Xs series are brimming with tens (if not hundreds) of interlocking pieces that work in concert to give the device they're a part of a rigid spine. This key assembly evenly distributes the force applied when the phone is opened or closed, while also protecting the delicate ribbon cables and other components running between the device's two halves.

We spoke to Huawei directly about the improvements made to the hinge system that facilitates the Mate Xs 2's 'double-rotating Falcon Wing Design' to learn what was being done to give the company's newest handset a better chance at foldable phone supremacy.

When talking about the hinge, the main upgrade seems to be the choice of materials that the majority of the Mate Xs 2's hinge is made from and how it's produced.

Using a process called MIM (metal injection molding), the hinge is hewn from a high-density stainless steel that Huawei claims is 50% stronger than what you'd get from 'more conventional production techniques', paired with a composite support structure that uses new lower density materials, rendering the Mate Xs 2 both 1.4 times more crush-resistant, compared to the previous Mate Xs but also lighter than before too.

As shown in the above segment from its August Unpacked event, Samsung has taken a decidedly different approach with the hinge on the Z Fold 4, essentially scrapping the long-standing gear system that lies inside every previous Fold and instead building a thinner, lighter mechanism that relies on linear motion. It's been tested to withstand past 200,000 folds in its lifetime, the company claims.

It's an approach that looks as though it was carried across to the Z Flip 4 too, with the hinge protruding far less compared to 2021's Flip 3.

Samsung has previously shown the lengths that it's gone to to prevent dust getting into that intricate hinge mechanism, with silicon brushes being a key component of the assembly.

Samsung's last two generations of foldables also score extra points for being the only devices of their kind to boast IPX8-certified water resistance.

Strengthening the screen

There's little point making the backbone of these high-end handsets stronger if those all-important flexible displays can't keep up.

Composite layers are the name of the game here, with Huawei's Mate Xs 2 supposedly taking inspiration for its display construction from the screens of cars with anti-collision systems.

The single folding 7.8-inch flexible OLED on the Xs 2 is comprised of a protective layer, a buffer layer, a barrier layer and the display layer, that relies on titanium alloy within its construction, while the back battery cover utilizes fiberglass that's less than 0.5mm thick to help support the phone's thing but string construction.

For its efforts, Huawei claims that the Mate Xs 2 is both 2.5x more drop resistant and 2.8x more impact resistant than its predecessor.

On the Z Fold 3, the display's digitizer (the piece that converts your analogue touch into a digital input signal) is supported by a metal layer, whereas the Z Fold 4 skips this layer, instead relying on a thin lining of FRP (fiber-reinforced plastic), now directly bonded to the digitizer for additional strength.

The Z Fold 4's primary display also boasts the company's second-generation UTG (ultra-thin glass), which Samsung promises delivers 20% better scratch resistance.

A revised sponge layer helps absorb shock more efficiently too, while S Pen support also endures, facilitated by the sprung nib of the Fold Edition S Pen, which exerts less pressure on the panel than a conventional stylus.

Shedding the weight

You'd think that in order to make these latest foldables hardier – with their reinforced hinges and toughened displays – they'd end up weighing the same as a small car.

However, as was already touched on, thanks to smart component redistribution and a better use of composite materials across both devices, the Z Fold 4 and Mate Xs 2 end up both thinner and lighter than their respective predecessors.

The Galaxy Z Fold 4 clocks in at 8g lighter than 2021's Z Fold 3 (making it 263g), and it's also 0.1mm thinner when unfolded; making it the thinnest and lightest of Samsung's Fold devices to date.

Huawei's efforts, meanwhile, render the Mate Xs 2 the thinnest and lightest foldable of its kind; measuring in at 5.4mm at its thinnest point, when opened (the Z Fold 4 clocks in at 6.3mm thick), and a relatively featherweight 255g.

Room for improvement

Although the efforts of foldable makers like Samsung and Huawei are clearly leading to stronger, thinner and lighter devices with each new generation, foldables continue to face many of the same challenges that they did when the category first appeared on the scene in late 2018/early 2019.

The hope is that by the time foldable prices do come down, manufacturers will have managed to all but eliminate the durability gap that we're currently seeing close before our eyes.

If you're already convinced by the current assortment of foldables, check out our list of the best foldable phones or if not, our more general rundown of the best phones overall might fit the bill.

Huawei pioneered a breed of foldable that was thought to have been retired until we found out about the Mate Xs 2. The original Huawei Mate X, followed by the Huawei Mate Xs, is a phone series that folds the opposite way to the popular Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3, placing the folding, wraparound screen on the front of the closed phone. 

This unique, wraparound foldable design opens up a wealth of advantages, showcased by the Mate Xs 2's predecessor. These include a thinner body, a larger tablet screen, and a comfortable front display when in smartphone mode. That's versus the hyper-tall 25:9 cover screen on the Galaxy Z Fold 2 and Z Fold 3 that's super-narrow.

Despite its advantages, however, there's no getting around the fact that an outer folding screen is more susceptible to damage than an inner-folding screen. Huawei's phones have also been plagued by limitations in recent years – no Google services or 5G, and the Mate Xs series has been reliably more expensive than the Z Fold series. 

With all this in mind, can Huawei's new, improved, hardier foldable convince category skeptics (and Huawei skeptics alike) that the brand is really pushing the envelope in a meaningful way, or does it all feel like expensive filler from a brand that's struggling to keep a footing in mobile, despite excelling in other product categories?

Huawei Mate Xs 2 price and availability

Launch timings for the Huawei Mate Xs 2 are yet to be confirmed, but we do know it's coming to Europe in June or shortly after – specific details are yet to be confirmed. 

Set to cost around €1,999 – roughly £1,700 / $2,710 / AUS $3,000, it's one of the priciest foldables we've seen to date and demonstrates Huawei bucking the trend toward more affordable folding phones seen from Samsung.

Design and display

The Huawei Mate Xs 2 is thin unfolded – just 5.4mm across most of its body, with a wedge at the end where the brains of the phone live. That's even thinner than the already waif-like, 6.4mm Galaxy Z Fold 3. 

The main design improvement we noticed as soon as we started playing with it was the clasp. It's now much easier to lock the phone closed – there's no big 'click' when you press it into place as on the Mate Xs, just a smooth, unnoticeable mechanism that secures it shut. 

The Mate Xs 2 still bounces back when unlatched from closed to open, and so doesn't offer the range of folding angles available on Samsung's foldables. Its Falcon Wing hinge isn't designed to be half-open. 

The big flexible display is both the tablet screen and the phone screen, which means when in phone mode, the back of the phone is partly screen. This is handy in some instances – you can fire up a preview when in the camera app so your subject can see what you're shooting. That said, it's also a point of weakness, after all, foldable screens are historically fragile.

On the thick strip on the right side of the Xs 2, a USB-C port for charging lives at the base, a volume rocker and power button which doubles up as a fingerprint scanner along the side, and the cameras on the back. 

The phone's back, on the reverse of the screen, is a cross-hatch textured fiberglass material that's both light and durable according to Huawei, and the rest of the frame is free from buttons and ports. 

As for the display, this is where Huawei claims it has upped its durability. The screen benefits from a four-layer system that protects it from dings, and it looks and feels more like glass than the more warped Mate Xs.

The screen measures 7.8 inches when open, and 6.5 inches when closed, and bests the Z Fold 3 when it comes to size and clarity. The fact you're swiping the same display whether in phone or tablet mode means you get the same screen experience whichever way you're using the phone. That means a 120Hz OLED screen with a pixel density of 424 pixels per inch. 

In the flesh, it looks seriously zingy and colorful, with 10-bit visuals and deep, OLED blacks. There's a noticeable bump down the middle, but  it's less pronounced than the crease of the Galaxy Z Fold 3.

Performance and software

Unlike Huawei's tablets and smartwatches, the Mate Xs 2 and its entire phone line runs EMUI, Huawei's layer over the top of Android.

Just like other Huawei phones, the Mate Xs 2 lacks access to the Google Play Store and Google Play services, however, it benefits from some of Huawei's enhancements to help eke out more from its large, unfolding screen. It's easy to fire up multi-tasking, with both split-screen apps and floating window apps available. 

Huawei tries to take the sting off the missing Play Store by investing heavily in its AppGallery, which integrates a feature called Petal Search. This gives you access to most of the apps you'll probably need, with the likes of Disney Plus, Netflix, and Instagram available.

As for the phone's internals, it's using a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 4G – a 2021 flagship processor with 5G disabled. This dialed back power and connectivity puts the Mate Xs 2 on the back foot from a performance point of view, and the lack of 5G (which is down to sanctions placed on Huawei) is another tough pill to swallow, given the phone's price.

As for the battery, it's a 4,600mAh cell, with the phone charging at up to 66W. Unlike the Z Fold 3, Huawei's folding flagship misses out on wireless charging, however, its slightly larger battery is a boon.

Camera

Huawei's known for its great camera tech, and a 50MP main camera with an f/1.8 lens leads the charge for the Mate Xs 2. There's also an 8MP telephoto camera with a 3.4x optical zoom, matched with an f/2.4 lens, and a 13MP ultra-wide camera with an f/2.2 lens.

Most notable is the fact Huawei has added a punch-hole selfie camera to the phone's display. On the one hand, this interrupts what was an expansive, all-screen design on the last-gen Mate Xs. On the other, as a phone, it should all work a lot better – you won't have to open it up for video calls or to take a selfie. 

Early verdict

It's always difficult summarising Huawei kit. The tech in the Mate Xs – its screen, the design and the engineering that brings it all together is exceptional. But the fact Huawei's not able to use Google services or 5G in its phones is a serious blow. 

The Mate Xs 2 is also super expensive. So, while it's the most exciting smartphone design of 2022 so far, and no doubt a powerful, capable phone likely to have strong cameras and a smooth, optimized interface, it will still be an incredibly tough sell. 

This all means the Mate Xs 2 is a mighty demonstration of Huawei's engineering excellence and resilience. What it probably isn't, however, is your next smartphone (unless you're very, very rich).

Huawei hasn’t had the easiest time of it in recent years, with political restrictions cutting off its access to Google’s services.

However, with the Huawei P50 Pro and the Huawei P40 Pro the company still managed to produce a pair of high-quality flagship phones, brimming with top specifications wrapped in classy designs.

The question is, just how much has Huawei been able to improve upon last year’s flagship given its well-documented troubles? Is the P50 Pro a genuine upgrade?

Huawei P50 Pro vs Huawei P40 Pro price and availability

The Huawei P50 Pro was announced in China on July 29, 2021, with an initial rollout to the local market on August 12 that year. It commenced rolling out to other regions from January 12, and finally arrived in Europe on January 26. The phone won’t be launching in the US.

In terms of UK and European pricing, the P50 Pro costs £1,099.99 / €1,199 for 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. That works out to around $1,500.

The Huawei P40 Pro was announced at an event at the end of March 2020, with the phone hitting shops on April 7 in the UK and April 16 in Australia. Again, Huawei released the P40 Pro in just the one 8GB RAM/256GB storage configuration, with initial pricing of £899 / AU$1,599 (around $1,100).

As you can see, the Huawei P50 Pro has received a hefty price bump over its predecessor, which isn’t a great start.

Design

Huawei always makes stylish, well-built flagship phones. The Huawei P50 Pro looks sleek, and it sits well in the hand.

At 158.8 x 72.8 x 8.5mm, it’s roughly the same size as the 158.2 x 72.6 x 9mm Huawei P40 Pro. Interestingly, though, it’s a little lighter at 195g, whereas the Huawei P40 Pro feels a little hefty at 209g.

Both phones benefit from IP68 dust/water resistance. Both phones also go with dual-curved displays, but only the Huawei P50 Pro gives you stereo speakers. This was always a puzzling omission in the P40 Pro, so it’s good to see the mistake corrected.

But the biggest design difference can be found when you flip both phones over. While the P40 Pro has a fairly traditional camera configuration, the P50 Pro goes for something quite bold.

In place of the P40 Pro’s bog standard rectangular mounting, the P50 Pro goes with two oversized circles arranged vertically on a lozenge-shaped mounting. It’s quite distinctive.

The P50 Pro is available in four colors: Golden Black, Pearl White, Charm Pink, and Cocoa Gold. The P40 Pro gave you five color options: Silver Frost, Ice White, Deep Sea Blue, Blush Gold, and black. In both cases, the availability of these colors will depend on your particular region.

Display

The Huawei P50 Pro gives you a 6.6-inch OLED display, which is about the same size as the P40 Pro’s 6.58-inch OLED. However, the P50 Pro steps up the maximum refresh rate from 90Hz to 120Hz, so it’s the smoother panel of the two.

Our reviewers found both the P50 Pro and P40 Pro screens to have excellent color reproduction and brightness, while both reviews noted how good they were to watch video on.

In terms of resolutions, both phones hit a point somewhere in between FHD+ and the QHD+ of many rival flagship Androids.

Both are somewhere in the region of the iPhone 13 Pro Max for sheer pixel density, which is far from a negative point, but you will get sharper from the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra and the OnePlus 10 Pro.

Camera

The Huawei P50 Pro gives you a feature-packed quad-camera setup, while the Huawei P40 Pro supplies a triple-camera system.

Both are led by large 50MP wide sensors, and both phones utilize Leica optics. That’s about where the similarities end.

While the P50 Pro goes with a 13MP ultra-wide, the P40 Pro gives you a 40MP ultra-wide. On the telephoto front, the Huawei P50 Pro supplies a 64MP 3.5x optical zoom. The P40 Pro goes with a 12MP periscope telephoto offering 5x optical zoom.

There’s a fourth sensor with the newer P50 Pro, which takes the form of a 40MP black and white sensor. The P40 Pro also has a fourth sensor, as it happens, but it’s a TOF 3D sensor for dedicated depth sensing.

Even the selfie cameras are different, and P40 Pro has the bragging rights. The Huawei P50 Pro gives you a single 13MP sensor, while the P40 Pro goes with a 32MP sensor backed by a secondary TOF 3D depth sensor.

The latter doesn’t just work to bolster portrait selfies, it also serves as a secure biometric authentication system. It’s not as secure as Apple’s Face ID or the Huawei Mate 30 Pro, but it’s still a feature the P50 Pro lacks.

When it comes to image quality, our reviewer found that the P50 Pro can take “stunning images” that are “sharp, detailed and with a wide dynamic range.” We were similarly impressed with the P40 Pro back at launch, particularly its advanced AI assistant, which does an awful lot of heavy lifting. It also “performed phenomenally well in low-light conditions.”

One advantage with the Huawei P50 Pro is that its colors tend to look truer to life than previous Huawei flagships, which could look a little false.

Specs and performance

The Huawei P50 Pro is powered by a Snapdragon 888 4G in western markets, having initially launched in China with the Kirin 9000.

This means that while the phone hit the west in 2022, it’s running on 2021 hardware. Still, that makes it faster than the Huawei P40 Pro, which runs on the 7nm+ Kirin 990 5G, which was a contemporary of the Snapdragon 865.

Not that there’s a huge difference in raw CPU power. The P40 Pro scored an average of 2,997 in our Geekbench 5 benchmarking, while the P50 Pro scored 3,018. The P50 Pro’s Snapdragon 888 has the more capable GPU, however, and of course it’s more efficient.

There is one major way in which the Huawei P40 Pro’s chip beats the P50 Pro’s. It’s right there in the chip names: only the P40 Pro supports 5G.

The lack of up-to-date network connectivity is a major omission from the Huawei P50 Pro, and seemingly comes due to those restrictions Huawei is facing. Whatever the reason, it makes the P50 Pro feel somewhat out of touch with its flagship peers.

Elsewhere, but phones offer 8GB of RAM as standard, but there’s also a 12GB version of the P50 Pro in some regions. Meanwhile, both phones offer 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB storage options. Again, though, this depends on your region.

Battery

Neither of these phones has a particularly huge battery by modern standards. The Huawei P50 Pro has the larger cell of the two at 4,360mAh, while the Huawei P40 Pro's battery is a mere 4,200mAh.

Given that most of their rivals are packing a full 5,000mAh, this isn’t very impressive.

Of course, in the P50 Pro’s case, it doesn’t have to support 5G connectivity, while the P40 Pro doesn’t have to power a full 120Hz display. That makes a difference.

As a result, both phones will get you through at least a full day of light to moderate usage. Our reviewer found that the P40 Pro could stand up to a little more, and praised it for its “phenomenal battery life.”

The Huawei P50 Pro wins on charging speeds, however. With support for 66W wired, it supersedes the 40W on the P40 Pro. It’s a similar story with wireless charging, where the P50 Pro supports 50W and the P40 Pro supports 27W.

Takeaway

The Huawei P50 Pro is clearly a better phone than its predecessor, the Huawei P40 Pro. It has a more appealing design, stereo sound, superior power, faster charging, and a more fluid design.

Not that the newer phone gets its own way in every regard. The P40 Pro has 5G connectivity and a much lower price tag, even if we’re just considering the RRP.

Ultimately, it’s a bold choice opting for either of these phones with no Google Play support. But if you’re hungering for something a little different from the usual brands, and money is no object, then the P50 Pro gets the nod.

• Check out the best Huawei phones

Computational photography has transformed how we take pictures with our phones. You may not have noticed, though, because the final effect is we simply no longer need to think about the limitations of phone cameras, and whether a particular scene is too much for them to handle.   

When we look back to the early years of smartphones, what we used to think represented a "good" phone camera seems almost comical today. 

Overexposed parts of pictures appeared more often than not, and even the best cameras took dismal low-light pictures compared to an affordable mid-range smartphone in 2022. 

It's all down to radical dynamic range enhancement and multi-exposure night modes, powered by computational techniques. They often let phones with camera sensors the size of a baby's fingernail produce results comparable with a DSLR image, after it has been edited and fine-tuned in Photoshop too. 

The key scene types that benefit the most are low-light environments and those with ultra-high contrast, where in the old days parts of the picture would be too bright or dim. Sunsets, for example. 

Waiting for the computational video revolution

However, until now we have not really had the same experience in video. High-end phones are exceptional for stills, but most fall down when capturing video in trickier lighting. The great photo experience only highlights the issue. It's what computational video is here to solve. 

Computational video poses a fresh set of challenges, because time is not on our side. A phone can take several seconds work out how a still image from its camera should look, construct it out of a dozen separate exposures and spend significant time putting them together. 

We don't have that luxury with video, where each second of footage might contain 30 or 60 separate images per second. A phone can't make each frame of a video out of multiple exposures because there simply is no time to capture them, let alone process them. 

Finding a fresh set of solutions for computational video is a top goal for every major manufacturer of higher-end phones at present. And this has become one of the big jobs for NPU processors, which are scaling up in power faster than any other part of phones at the moment.

The tech behind the software

An NPU is a neural processing unit, which handles machine learning and "AI" workloads. When they first started appearing, we though they would be used to power augmented reality experiences, like games where play pieces are rendered into the view of the real world seen by the camera. They are, but it turns out the ways AI, machine learning and neural processing can be used for photography are actually far more important. 

The specific strength of these neural processors is they can handle a huge number of instructions in a short window of time while using very little power. As we've already discovered, this is exactly what we need for computational video. 

However, that is just the resource. What can phone-makers do with it and which techniques can make computational video as strong as stills? Let's look at some of the techniques they can use. 

A set of techniques

Stripping right back to the essentials we have 2DNR and 3DNR, two dimensional and three-dimensional noise reduction. This is the process of separating detail from noise, in an attempt to smooth out noise without reducing genuine visual information in the picture. 

All cameras use noise reduction already, but greater neural processing power lets new phones employ more advanced NR algorithms to do the job more effectively. 

What's the difference between 2D and 3D NR? In 2D noise reduction you analyze a frame on its own. You may bring to bear machine learning techniques informed by millions of similar-looking pictures others have taken, but each frame is effectively treated as a still picture. Pixels are compared to nearby clusters of pixels to identify and zap image noise.

The additional dimension added by 3DNR is not depth but time. Noise reduction is based on what appears in successive frames, not just the image data from a single one. 

Computational video's task is to make both types of noise reduction happen, at the same time, but using the right technique in the correct parts of the scene. 3DNR works beautifully for relatively still areas of the image. 

When shooting in low light, the high sensitivity levels required can make the picture appear to fizz with noise. Temporal 3D noise reduction gives a phone a much better chance of keeping genuine detail without making it appear to zap in and out of existence frame-to-frame. 

However, 3DNR is not a great solution for moving objects, because you end up trying to compare sets of fundamentally different image data. The phone needs to separate parts of the image in motion, still areas, apply different forms of processing and be ready to change those areas from half-second to half-second. 

And, of course, the intensity of the processing also has to switch gears as the light level changes mid-clip. 

Going to the source

We also need the phone to capture better data, to generate less noise in the first instance. How do we do that without just employing a larger sensor with higher native-light sensitivity?

Better use of optical stabilization (OIS) is one route. In phones this typically involves a motor that moves the lens slightly to compensate for any motion in the user's hands, although sensor shift stabilization in phones now exists too. The latter is a core feature of high-end mirrorless cameras. 

This motion compensation lets a phone use a slower shutter speed while avoiding blurred image data. When filming at night, the longer the exposure, the better data a phone camera has to construct a frame. And when shooting at 30fps, the maximum theoretical window is 1/30 of a second, obviously. 

Computational video can make dynamic use of this concept of the maximum exposure window, with the help of lens-stabilizing OIS.

In some low-light situations a phone will benefit from reducing the frame rate to 30fps even when you selected 60fps capture. This doubles the maximum exposure time, letting the camera capture frames with greater detail and less noise.

The "missing" frames can then be generated through interpolation, where interstitial images are generated by looking at the difference in image data between the frames we do have. This may sound like heresy to traditional photographers, but it gets to the heart of what a computational approach to imaging is all about. 

The results matter. How you get there matters less. 

Why stop at 30fps? A phone could even drop to a much lower frame rate like 15fps and still create a 60fps video, which could look great if the scene is reasonably still. 

The lower the frame rate, the longer the maximum exposure window becomes. At that point we're talking about theoretical techniques, though. To our knowledge no phone goes that far yet. 

Exposing problems

However, there is a problem. OIS, the tech we're relying on to make a slow shutter speed viable, can only compensate for motion on one end. It can avoid handshake blur, not the motion blur of someone running across the frame. 

Just as we saw with noise reduction, the best computational solution may change from moment to moment depending on what's happening in the frame. One of computational video's roles is dealing with this, varying the rate of capture on the fly. 

There is also a hardware technique that can help, called DOL-HDR. You may well be familiar with "normal" HDR modes for stills. It's where several frames are collated to make one picture. In the phone world this could mean anything from three to 36 images. 

With video there's no time for this, and minimal time to account for the subtle changes that happened in the scene as those exposures were captured — which causes an effect called ghosting in poorly handled HDR modes. DOL-HDR avoids these issues by taking two pictures at the same time, using a single camera sensor.

How? The data from a typical camera sensor is read line by line, like a printer head working its way across a piece of paper. One row of pixels follows the next.

DOL-HDR records two versions of each line at a time, one of a longer exposure image, another of a shorter exposure image. This kind of HDR can be put to great use in scenes where there's masses of contrast in the light level, such as a sunset. 

However, if it can be used to capture sets of video frames with different shutter speeds, rather than just differing sensitivity settings (ISO), DOL-HDR can also be used to maximize the motion detail and dynamic range of night video. 

Picture the scene we mentioned earlier. We are shooting a relatively still low-light video, but a person runs through the frame and we don't want them to appear a motion-blurred mess. 

With DOL-HDR, we could use the short exposure to get a sharper view of our moving figure, the longer exposure to yield better results for the result of the scene. The "HDR" in DOL-HDR may stand for high dynamic range, but it can be useful in other ways.

Computational video's job is to cycle seamlessly between countless different shooting style and techniques, and take on their ever-increasing processing burden.

The ones we have outlined are likely just a few of the ones phone-makers will employ too. The question now is which phones will handle computational video best in 2022 and beyond?

• How AI scene optimization works on your phone's camera

Huawei used to be the biggest Chinese phone brand, though while it used to be the second biggest manufacturer after only Samsung, some consider it to be in its twilight years now.

Huawei frequently makes the news, both the tech news and global, whether that’s for launching new, super-powerful camera phones, or for getting banned from the US by Donald Trump.

Much of the company’s business concerns hardware, including smartphones, watches, tablets and more, but it’s also big on infrastructure, since it’s part of the push to set up 5G networks in countries around the globe. 

We won’t be delving into the infrastructure side of Huawei, nor will we explore accusations levelled at the company for spying for the Chinese government or other such allegations. Here, the focus will be the brand’s smartphones and consumer tech.

• These are the best Huawei phones you can buy

A brief history of Huawei

Huawei was formed in China as a telecoms company in 1987, but brought its first smartphone to market in 2004. However, it took until 2009 for the company to release an Android phone, and from there we’ve seen a steady stream of the handset types you see today.

In 2013, Huawei created sub-brand Honor, which produces much of the same tech. Huawei sold Honor in late 2020. We have a separate guide to Honor phones, which you can read here.

In 2019, Huawei revealed HarmonyOS, its own operating system to rival Android and iOS, and 2021 has seen the company begin user testing by smartphone users – although, at the time of writing, there haven’t been any handsets to appear with it. Alongside smartphones, Huawei entered the markets for wearables in 2015, laptops in 2016, and tablets in 2019.

The biggest change for Huawei in recent years came in early 2019, in what has been dubbed the ‘Huawei ban’. This is when then-US-president Donald Trump placed Huawei on the ‘entity list’ of companies that US corporations could no longer work with – and this included such firms as Google. 

Until that point, Huawei phones – like all Android handsets – had come with Google apps installed including Maps, Gmail and, most importantly of all, the Play Store for downloading new apps. The ban meant that Huawei phones were barred from these apps, a situation that has continued to this day. 

As a result, the company’s market share has dwindled, although Huawei has taken steps to mitigate the damage. These include introducing the AppGallery, the company’s own take on the Play Store that holds a limited number of apps; and Petal Search, which on occasion will let you download apps that aren’t available on AppGallery.

Since the Huawei ban, new phones from the company haven’t been met with the level of fanfare they once were, and we’re still waiting for the company to make a big comeback.

What phones does Huawei make?

Huawei has a number of phone lines across the globe, but here we’ll detail only those that make their way to the West – and, for reasons described above, we’re not including Honor phones.

The company’s main line of phones is the P series. These fantastic camera phones typically come with a standard device as well as a Pro, Lite and even Pro Plus model. Their launch will often see the introduction of new camera tech.

There’s also the Huawei Mate series. Typically higher-end than the P series, these handsets are known for presenting supercharged specs and designs, and are intended for professional users. A good comparison is to view these as Samsung’s Note phones, which again are for pro users, although the Mate devices don’t have styli.

Huawei puts out foldable phones, too, under its Mate X banner – in fact, after Samsung it’s the most prolific maker of folding handsets. So far, all Mate X devices have been ‘book-style’ foldables; Huawei hasn’t yet put out a clamshell-style phone.

Fans of budget devices have found plenty to like in Huawei’s P Smart line, whose models have previously topped our list of the best cheap phones. These low-cost devices bring specs from the P series but at lower prices than those phones.

Huawei phone availability information

Huawei tends to follow fairly predictable release schedules, which makes this section easy to write.

The Huawei P series usually launches around April or May, although the Lite device is often unveiled a few weeks ahead of the main phone. The Mate device then follows around six months later, near the end of the year.

There’s less of a pattern for the Mate X phones, since these are fairly new – but, so far we’ve usually seen them near the beginning of the year, in close proximity to the P phones.

The Huawei P Smart handsets aren’t accompanied by big launch events, and it’s harder to pin-point their release. Typically we see a new model each year, and it tends to be named after the year – for example, the Huawei P Smart (2019).

Other tech Huawei sells

Huawei is a huge tech company, and as such launches numerous products all the time – but we’ll look at its consumer ones.

When it comes to wearables, the company sells both fitness trackers such as the Huawei Band line, and smartwatches such as the Huawei Watch Fit and Watch GT Pro. In the past, the company’s wearables have been near-identical to those launched by Honor, but with the latter now sold, future products are likely to have more differences.

Huawei started selling tablets in 2019, under the MatePad line – but, like its phones, these tablets don’t have Google apps.

Finally, there’s the MateBook line of laptops. These devices tend to be quite stylish and premium-looking, and sometimes offer extra functionality if you also own a phone from the brand. Here at TechRadar, Huawei MateBook laptops have impressed, earning very high scores in our reviews.

• Huawei denies rumor that says it's looking to sell off its P and Mate series smartphones

Two-minute review 

Huawei doesn’t really need to keep proving that it can make flagship phones that can go head to head with handsets from any other manufacturer. We’ve seen Huawei do it repeatedly with its Mate and P series of phones, which have pushed boundaries in terms of design, features and mobile photography year after year. The Huawei P50 Pro continues in that vein.

The challenge – and you’ve heard this before – comes on the software side. Ever since the United States imposed a ban on Huawei using Google services, Huawei has been working to develop its own platform based on Android, to persuade app developers to publish their apps on its own App Gallery.

Depending on which part of the world you live in, Huawei has made decent progress in this respect, with many of the popular regional apps and services available in the App Gallery. It’s the bigger developers that Huawei needs to win over: while major apps such as  Snapchat and TikTok are in the App Gallery, the likes of Instagram and WhatsApp are still missing.

Leaving the software aside, though, with the P50 Pro Huawei has once again made an impressive phone that can compete with flagships from any leading manufacturer.

The design of the P50 Pro is striking: it looks gorgeous, it’s thin and light, and it sits really nicely in your hand. It looks and feels every inch like a luxury product.

Performance is impressive thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor, with apps launching quickly and running smoothly. The 8GB of RAM on offer isn’t a class-leading spec, but it’s enough to ensure that the phone feels zippy. Storage options differ across regions – our review model has 256GB, which is plenty for the average user. The phone does, however, lack 5G support, another consequence of US restrictions.

Where the Huawei P50 Pro really shines is photography, which isn’t surprising as Huawei has long been at the forefront of mobile photography, especially with its P series. The main camera on the Huawei P50 Pro is fantastic, and capable of capturing brilliant shots in any lighting conditions. We were, however, slightly disappointed with the ultrawide and telephoto cameras, which don’t offer the best color fidelity compared to the primary shooter.

The battery capacity on the Huawei P50 Pro isn’t the biggest we’ve seen, but it’s good enough to see you through a day of moderate use. Huawei offers fast 66W wired charging, and almost as fast 50W wireless charging, enabling you to top up quickly when needed.

Overall the Huawei P50 Pro has everything you’d expect of a flagship phone in 2022, and the progress that Huawei has made with getting apps on its platform is commendable. Ultimately though, which apps you use regularly, and in particular the extent to which you rely on Google services such as Gmail, Google Photos, Maps and YouTube, will dictate whether or not the P50 Pro is a phone you should be looking at.

Huawei P50 Pro release date and price  

The Huawei P50 was announced for China last year, and is now being rolled out internationally. The phone is currently available in the UK, among other regions such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia. 

Huawei doesn’t usually sell its phones in the US or Australia, so don’t expect to be able to buy it there.

In the UK and the UAE there’s a single configuration of the Huawei P50 Pro – 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage – which is priced at £1,099.99 / AED3,999. Capacity-wise at least, for what you get the Huawei P50 Pro is better value than the iPhone 13 Pro Max and the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra.

The Huawei P50 Pro was originally announced in four colors, and availability varies by region. In the UK though it's available in Golden Black and Cocoa Gold colors.

Design and display 

Huawei is no stranger to releasing good-looking and premium-feeling phones, and the P50 Pro looks sleek and stylish, and sits well in the hand. Measuring 158.8 x 72.8mm and weighing 195g, the P50 Pro is neither too big nor too heavy. 

Like most Huawei flagship phones of recent years, the volume buttons and the power button sit on the right side while the USB Type-C port and the SIM tray are located at the bottom. 

Speakers are located on the top and bottom while the fingerprint sensor is behind the screen, which has curved edges that wrap into the metallic frame.

The Huawei P50 Pro is available in four colors: Golden Black, Pearl White, Charm Pink and Cocoa Gold, although which colors are available to you may depend on which part of the world you live in. We reviewed the Cocoa Gold model, which you can see pictured throughout this article. 

The rear of the phone has a polished metallic surface with a subtle gold appearance. It looks slick, but it does attract fingerprints.The back of the phone is also home to two rather large camera ring modules housed inside a pill bump which doesn’t stick out as much as those on some of the recent flagship phones we’ve seen. 

Nevertheless, the ‘dual matrix camera’ as Huawei likes to call it certainly stands out, and will elicit varying reactions, from intimidating to intriguing.

The screen on the Huawei P50 Pro is 6.6 inches in size with a resolution of 1228 x 2700 with a pixel density of 450ppi. For comparison the Samsung S21 Ultra comes in at 1440 x 3200 for 515ppi and the iPhone 13 Pro Max at 1284 x 2778 for 458ppi. Don’t get too wrapped up in the numbers though – all these phones have very high-resolution screens that look sharp.

Color reproduction is excellent, and the OLED screen is great for watching movies and videos on. Huawei has also increased the refresh rate to 120Hz, up from 90Hz on the P40 Pro, which makes navigating the UI or scrolling through apps super-smooth. You can set the refresh rate to Dynamic, which adjusts the refresh rate depending on what you’re doing on your phone, to save battery life, but you’ll get  the smoothest all-round experience by setting it to High.

Specs and performance

The Huawei P50 Pro is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset found in most of last year’s flagship phones of last year, with one omission: it only comes with an LTE/4G connectivity.

The chipset is teamed up with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage on our review model, which should be sufficient storage for most people, but 128GB and 512GB versions are available in other markets, with the latter also getting a bump in RAM to 12GB. 

You can also expand the storage capacity through Huawei’s Nano Memory (NM) card. While this format isn’t as popular as microSD cards, NM cards have the same shape and size as a Nano SIM card, making it easy to use a secondary SIM or a Nano Memory card on the SIM tray of Huawei phones.

Like all other flagship phones, the Huawei P50 Pro proved to be extremely smooth and zippy in day-to-day use. The phone scored 3018 in Geekbench 5, which is pretty much around what other Snapdragon 888-based phones have scored.

As to the lack of 5G, as mentioned this is down to the restrictions imposed on Huawei, and how important is 5G is something you’ll need to decide on. We ran a speed test using 4G and got a download speed of 292 Mbps on the Huawei P50 Pro. 

For comparison, the iPhone 13 Pro Max in 5G mode managed a download speed of 586Mbps. So the iPhone has double the speed, and will surely download things more quickly, but to put things in perspective you only need 25Mbps to stream a 4K video.

Huawei has also gotten very good at facilitating connectivity between devices in its own ecosystem – so if you have a Huawei laptop or tablet, or a MateView monitor, these devices can easily connect with your Huawei phone, and with each other, and can share data seamlessly. 

Camera

The Huawei P50 Pro is equipped with quite an intimidating pill-shaped camera bump, which is home to four AI-powered Leica cameras. The primary wide camera has a 50MP sensor, and this is teamed with a 64MP periscope telephoto lens capable of 3.5x optical zoom, a 13MP ultra-wide lens, and a 40MP monochrome sensor.

Given this hardware, it comes as no surprise that the P50 Pro can take stunning images. We were rarely left disappointed with the cameras, especially during the day. Pictures came out sharp, detailed and with a wide dynamic range. 

Huawei smartphones have in the past been known to boost colors to make images look more vibrant and appealing. But with the P50 Pro, the image processing is such that colors, including those all-important skin tones, look truer to life. Moreover, the dedicated AI mode has been fine-tuned to make more subtle and targeted adjustments to pictures rather than just cranking up the vibrancy.

The P50 Pro camera setup gives you plenty of shooting options Being able to get an ultra-wide view of a scene is always useful, and so is the dedicated macro mode for close-up images. However, the color management across these modes is something Huawei still needs to work on. For instance, a picture taken using the primary wide lens will look warmer than the same picture taken with the ultra-wide lens. Given that this is a flagship experience, we’re a bit disappointed by such color shifts.

This is also noticeable when switching between from the primary wide lens to the periscope telephoto lens where you find a 3.5x optical zoom with a level of detail that is incredible. You can zoom up to 100x with the P50 Pro, and for the most part images up until 30-50x zoom are somewhat usable with the rest of the zoom range being a novelty factor. It’s a similar story with the dedicated monochrome sensor. For photography novices, this just seems like applying a B/W filter over any regular image, and for the most part, it is. However, photography buffs may be able to appreciate this feature more.

As enjoyable as day-time photography on the P50 Pro is, there are a few caveats. First, the camera’s shutter speed is on the slower side, and we often found ourselves waiting a split-second before a photo was taken. In most situations this won’t be a big deal, but if you ever find yourself trying to capture a fleeting moment you could potentially miss the shot. 

Second, the camera’s viewfinder does not depict accurately what a picture will look like once captured. When we were taking pictures that included the sky, the viewfinder showed images to be overexposed and blown out. However, once the picture is taken, the smartphone’s processing kicks in to produce a well-exposed shot. This isn’t a criticism of the image quality, it’s just something that we’d note is part of the user experience.

When it comes to low-light photography, Huawei has always been at the forefront. However, while low-light images from the P50 Pro do look impressive, they’re not as sharp as we’ve seen from some competitors recently. Certain low-light images, especially of buildings, often have a slight softness to them. 

And oddly, enabling night mode made things worse, as the longer exposure introduced blur into photos, even though in most cases the night mode timer was only one second. We also encountered some glitches where the timer stayed on for 10-12 seconds, with the resulting photo being a blurry mess. We hope that these are anomalies that can be ironed out with software updates.

Low-light results from using the ultra-wide camera are relatively disappointing. Modern day flagships employ a setup where both the primary and the ultra-wide lens are of similar calibre. But in the case of the P50 Pro, the lower-resolution sensor, combined with the inconsistencies in color we’ve mentioned, make for a less-than-ideal low-light experience. Even when you want to use the ultra-wide lens for a 0.8x or 0.9x zoomed-out view, the resulting quality loss is quite noticeable. You can make up for it to a certain extent by using night-mode; however this leads to purple fringing in the resulting image.

When it comes to video capture, the P50 Pro can record up to 4K video at 60fps. Both the primary wide lens and the periscope telephoto lens have optical image stabilization, (OIS) but there is no such assistance for the ultra-wide lens. Moreover, the ultra-wide lens is capped at 4K 30fps. If you’re smooth with your movements and don’t switch lenses mid-recording, the video experience from the P50 Pro camera is good. But when you want to use multiple lenses, the transitions are jagged and rough. 

On the front, the P50 Pro sports a single 13MP selfie snapper. Its quality is adequate for most situations and for social media posting, thanks in large part to its wider field of view. You can also take advantage of night mode in low light, although images come out a little softer than we’d like. As with the primary camera, the selfie camera also supports an array of portrait mode options, although while these work well when it comes to edge detection for background blur effects, the camera does have the tendency to beautify your face a bit much, even when beauty mode is toggled off.

Software

As is the case with all Huawei phones of late, the P50 Pro runs Android but without Google services due to restrictions imposed by the US government. Interestingly, Huawei has chosen to release the P50 Pro in international markets with EMUI which is more of a skin on Android 10 rather than HarmonyOS - a fork on Android, which is what’s being used in China. 

The lack of Google services and the Play Store is something users will need to reckon with, and depending on where in the world you live, and how heavily you depend on Google services, it could be anywhere between a minor annoyance and a reason to not even consider this phone.

Huawei has put a lot of effort getting app developers to port their apps to App Gallery, which is Huawei’s equivalent of the Play Store, and again, depending on the region, your mileage may vary. In the Middle East, many of the most popular apps – from banking to food delivery and utility services – have been available on App Gallery. But support for some of the larger apps, like Instagram and WhatsApp, is still missing. While there are ways of getting around that by sideloading such apps – and Huawei makes it easy to do so, getting Google apps onto your Huawei phone is seemingly impossible.

If you rely on Gmail or Google Photos or YouTube, for example, your only option is to access these services using a web browser which isn’t an ideal experience. It’s a frustrating situation, and something that’s beyond Huawei’s control, which is a shame as the phone’s UI looks great and is smooth to use.

With EMUI 12, which is built upon Android 10, Huawei has polished the UI to look beautiful. The icons have been redesigned and the fonts look good. Interface tweaks such as large folders on the home screen or widget access via long-pressing an app icon help with everyday usability.

Battery life

The P50 Pro is powered by a 4,360mAh battery, which is somewhat on the small side considering the phone’s 8.5mm thickness. However, with the phone not supporting 5G, the battery capacity and endurance are adequate for a full day of moderate use. 

This translates to around 6-7 hours of screen-on time before you need to juice up your phone. If you’re a heavy user who’s constantly online, using the GPS and taking pictures and videos, screen-on time may dip below six hours, and a recharge might be necessary before the end of the day.

Thankfully, Huawei has a suite of in-built charging features that mean you should be able to avoid battery-life issues. For one, its 66W charging speed via the included brick means you’ll be able to go from 0-70% in about 30 minutes, with a full charge possible in just under an hour. 

More impressively, the P50 Pro also supports 50W wireless charging with the optional proprietary charger. If you’re used to placing your smartphone on a wireless pad when working, you’re unlikely to run out of charge at important moments. Unfortunately, there’s no support for reverse wireless charging on the flagship, which is surprising as we’ve seen this on previous Huawei phones.

Should you buy the Huawei P50 Pro?

Buy it if...

Don’t buy it if...

First reviewed: January 2022

The Huawei P50 and P50 Pro were both officially unveiled in July 2021, which was already late compared to when we expected, but as of October they still haven't been put on sale for global buyers.

At the moment, you can only buy the phones in China and Malaysia. But Huawei has now confirmed it'll be bringing its smartphones to other countries, with some parts of Europe being next in line, but it remains unclear if and when key regions like the UK and Australia will get them.

It's possible the ongoing global chipset shortage is to blame, and we've heard the Huawei Mate 50 series could be delayed or canceled as a result too.

The Huawei P50 and P50 Pro are the 2021 entries into the company's long-running line of photography-focused smartphones, with top specs across the board but particularly in the camera department. You can find out everything there is to know about the devices below.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? Huawei's new line of top-end smartphones
• When is it out? Out now in China, later elsewhere
• How much will it cost? Mid-range pricing for the P50 and top-end for the Pro

Huawei P50 series release date and price

Huawei has now unveiled European pricing for the Huawei P50 Pro and the Huawei P50 Pocket (a foldable phone), with the P50 Pro starting at €1199 (around $1,350 / £1,000 / AU$1,890), while the P50 Pocket starts at €1299 (roughly $1,465 / £1,085 / AU$2,045).

There's also a Huawei P50 Pocket Premium Edition (made in collaboration with haute couture designer Iris van Herpen), which costs €1599 (approximately $1,800 / £1,335 / AU$2,520).

Given that we have European pricing for these phones there's a good chance that they will come to the UK, but that's not yet been confirmed, which means a release date there also hasn't. There's also no word on an Australian release, and a US launch is unlikely.

There's no mention of the standard Huawei P50 here either, which might mean that doesn't get a wide launch.

Prior to the European prices being revealed though, the Huawei P50 and P50 Pro prices had also been confirmed for China, and in more detail than Europe, as there are a few different price points for different storage sizes. Firstly, let's look at the standard Huawei P50 prices, as well as conversions in different regions (these won't necessarily be the on-sale prices in those regions).

So that's a fairly typical mid-range price in most regions, though we don't expect the conversions will prove fully accurate if or when the device lands in markets outside China.

Now on to the Huawei P50 Pro price.

Those conversions suggest some pretty high prices for the Huawei P50 Pro, especially the 12GB RAM version.

The Huawei P50 Pro release date was August 12, 2021 in China. We expected a global launch for both the Pro and the Pro Plus at some point in August or September, but it was instead delayed until early 2022.

Design and display

The Huawei P50 has a flat-edge OLED screen that's 6.5 inches diagonally, and broken up by a central cutout for the front camera on the top edge. The resolution is 1228 x 2700, while the refresh rate is 90Hz and the touch input is 300Hz.

The Huawei P50 Pro has mostly the same display specs, but it's slightly bigger at 6.6 inches, and has a 120Hz refresh rate. Unlike the 'vanilla' phone, its screen curves at the edges.

The phones look pretty similar (other than the display) with the rear cameras housed in two large circles on the back. The devices have USB-C ports, but no 3.5mm headphone jacks.

Huawei made a point of stating that the devices are IP68 resistant against dust and water, and also that they're both fairly lightweight, with the standard model weighing 181g and the Pro 195g – that's a fair bit less than your average iPhone, for example.

Cameras and battery life

Now onto the department Huawei phones are known for: their cameras. The standard P50 has three rear shooters, with a 50MP main, 12MP periscope zoom and 12MP ultra-wide snapper. That's a fair complement of cameras, with the periscope module supporting 5x optical zoom.

The P50 Pro has 64MP telephoto , 50MP main, 40MP monochrome and 13MP ultra-wide cameras – that's a series of very high-res snappers, with the periscope one apparently facilitating a head-scratching 200x digital zoom (as well as 3.5x optical).

The front-facing camera on both those phones is 13MP, so a little low-res compared to the other snappers, but more than you'll need for selfies.

The Huawei P50 has a 4,100mAh battery, while if you opt for the Pro you're getting a slightly bigger 4,360mAh power pack. Both of those figures seem quite modest for a flagship phone, so we hope there are some smart software optimizations to keep the devices ticking over for a decent length of time.

There's 66W wired charging for both handsets, which is pretty fast for a smartphone, though about the same as for other flagships on the market. The Pro also has 50W wireless charging.

Performance and software

All new Huawei P50 phones run HarmonyOS 2, the company's Android rival that it unveiled earlier in the year. Admittedly the software doesn't feel a million miles from Android, but it brings a few changes.

Firstly, Huawei's AppStore has a fairly limited number of apps on it, although you can work around this by using Petal Search, a way of installing other apps you want from the web.

HarmonyOS was designed to work well in collaboration with other Huawei devices, so if you have a tablet or smartwatch from the company you should be able to make the most of it.

So what about the chipset? In the Huawei P50 it's the Snapdragon 888, the top-end processor available to Android phones – but with one change. It's a 4G version, so neither the Huawei P50 or P50 Pro let you connect to 5G networks.

A spokesperson for Huawei told TechRadar, "For reasons that are known to everyone, Huawei is left with no option but launch 4G variants for Huawei P50 Series."

• These are the best Huawei phones

Whatever happened to the Huawei Mate 50? Judging by convention, it should have come out in late 2021 as a top-end Huawei phone to complement the P50 range - but it was a total no-show.

Not only was the Huawei Mate 50 totally missing from the late-2021 launch slate, but the Huawei P50 only got a limited launch, with a wider release expected in early-to-mid 2022. So right now, it's quite hard to predict the company's release slate.

Some sources actually think the Mate 50 has been totally canceled, which would mean we'd have to wait until late 2022 to see another Mate phone, if another one is even coming.

That's a shame, because if it's real, the Huawei Mate 50 could be one of the best handsets we test. That was true of the Huawei Mate 40 range in 2020, phones which – particularly in the case the Huawei Mate 40 Pro and Pro Plus – had brilliant screens, stunning designs, class-leading cameras, good battery life, and plenty of power.

So far we don’t know much about the Huawei Mate 50 range, but we’d expect a continuation of all that – likely coupled with a high price.

Below we’ll go through everything we have heard so far, along with details of the release date and price, and then a wish list of what we want from the phones, because there’s always room for improvement.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? The phablet successor to the Huawei Mate 40
• When is it out? Possibly early 2022 - if ever
• How much will it cost? Unclear but a lot

Huawei Mate 50 release date and price

We expected the Huawei Mate 50 to show up towards the end of 2021, which obviously didn't happen, despite the fact the Mate 40 range was unveiled in late October of 2020.

A delay makes sense - the Huawei P50 series launched a lot later than expected, and still hasn't arrived outside China, so perhaps the Mate line were pushed back so the P devices have a chance to shine. That is, if the phone hasn't been canceled, as one source thinks.

Indeed, we've elsewhere heard that the Huawei Mate 50 might land in the first quarter of 2022, so sometime between January and March. This comes from leaker Digital Chat Station.

As for the price, the Huawei Mate 40 Pro was the only model of the current range to get a UK or Australian release, and that cost £1099.99 / AU$1,999 (roughly $1,430). None of the phones got released in the US, but the standard Mate 40 started at €899 (around £810 / $1,065 / AU$1,500) in Europe.

So pricing for the Huawei Mate 40 range might be similar – as might availability, but with no rumors yet we’re not at all sure. All we can be confident of is that the range probably won’t land in the US, thanks to the Huawei ban, although with a new administration in power even that might not be set in stone.

News and leaks

We don’t know much about the Huawei Mate 50 yet, but it’s possible that it will use the Kirin 9000 chipset. That’s actually the same chipset as the Huawei Mate 40 has, meaning the new phones might not get as much of a power boost as usual.

The reason this chipset is a possibility is because the US trade ban that Huawei is under means that it can’t easily source components to build chipsets. However, it’s reportedly held back enough stock of the Kirin 9000 to be able to equip the Huawei P50 range and perhaps also the Mate 50 range with it.

That said, another source claims that it will have a 4G-only version of the Snapdragon 898. That chipset hasn't even been announced at the time of writing, but it's expected to power many of 2022's flagships (though most will get a 5G version).

Elsewhere, Ross Young (a display industry expert and leaker) has tweeted that the Huawei Mate 50 Pro is among the 2021 phones that are rumored to have an LTPO (low-temperature Polycrystalline oxide) screen.

That’s a type of screen tech that we’ve seen on a few phones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, but not many. It allows the refresh rate of the display to dynamically change, without additional hardware components.

That in turn probably means two things for the Huawei Mate 50 Pro. Firstly, that it will probably have a refresh rate of above 60Hz (which is hardly surprising given that the Mate 40 range has a 90Hz refresh rate), and secondly that it will probably be a variable refresh rate, meaning it slows down when the extra refreshes aren’t needed, thereby conserving battery life.

What we want to see

We don’t know much about the Huawei Mate 50 range at the time of writing, but we know what we want.

1. More apps

The biggest problem with Huawei’s recent phones is one of software, and more specifically apps. Thanks to a US trade ban the company’s phones can’t access the Google Play Store or make use of Google apps such as Maps.

Huawei does have its own alternative store, called AppGallery, along with access on its phones to some third-party stores, but none of these can compete with Google Play, or in many cases Google’s own apps, so there are a lot of gaps in its app library.

Fixing this for the Huawei Mate 50 range would make it a lot more desirable, but short of an end to the trade ban (which might not be completely impossible now that a different government is in power) the situation probably won’t get much better.

2. Wider availability

None of the Huawei Mate 40 range landed in the US, and only the Huawei Mate 40 Pro landed in the UK or Australia, so for the Huawei Mate 50 range we want wider availability.

Specifically, we want to see every model land in the UK and Australia. The US is still likely to be out of the question given the Huawei ban there, but we want every region that can get these phones to get them.

3. A 120Hz or higher refresh rate

Every model in the Huawei Mate 40 range has a 90Hz refresh rate, which is a reasonable refresh rate for the basic model, but less impressive for the Mate 40 Pro, let alone the Mate 40 Pro Plus.

So we want the Huawei Mate 50 range to at least match the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S21 range in offering a 120Hz refresh rate on every model.

Better yet, we’d love to see an even higher refresh rate. Some gaming phones offer this, so there’s no reason a general purpose flagship can’t.

4. A lower price

The Huawei Mate 40 Pro was an expensive phone at launch, and had the rest of the phones been available in the regions we cover they likely would have been as well, so we’d like to see a price cut for the Huawei Mate 50 range.

Samsung slashed the prices for the Galaxy S21 range, so this isn’t out of the question, especially as Huawei will want to be able to rival those phones.

5. An in-screen camera

One thing that could help the Huawei Mate 50 range stand out is having an in-screen selfie camera. This is a feature we’ve now seen on the ZTE Axon 20 5G, and it’s also one that other companies are rumored to be working on, so by late this year it’s not unreasonable to start expecting flagships to have a camera in the screen.

Plus, one of our issues with the Huawei Mate 40 Pro was its large camera cut-out, which is something an in-screen camera would solve.

• Check out the best Huawei phones

The Huawei P50 Pro isn’t a new phone. In fact, it was announced all the way back in July, but if you’re not in China then you can’t easily buy it - that’s about to change though, with the more recent Huawei P50 Pocket also set to get a wider launch soon.

Huawei Malaysia’s Twitter account has shared that both phones will be unveiled for the country on January 12, and while we doubt many of our readers are in Malaysia, a launch there could mean we’ll soon start seeing the P50 Pro and P50 Pocket in other countries too.

However, we wouldn’t count on necessarily being able to buy them in the UK or Australia, or even maybe outside Asia. Certainly, you’re not going to be able to buy them in the US, thanks to the ongoing Huawei ban.

But the Huawei P40 did land in the UK and Australia so there’s hope for these phones too, we just can't be certain until there’s more concrete news, especially as the Huawei P50 Pro is getting on a bit now, and the Huawei P50 Pocket is likely to be rather niche.

The news of this Malaysian launch did come with another interesting detail though, as the Huawei P50 Pocket will run EMUI 12, meaning Android without the Google apps and services.

That’s a big shift from the Chinese model, which runs Huawei’s own HarmonyOS 2. If these phones launch elsewhere, we’d think there’s a good chance EMUI 12 will be used in other regions too.

Analysis: why you should care about the Huawei P50 Pro and P50 Pocket

While it’s too early to say for sure whether you’ll soon be able to buy these phones outside of China and now Malaysia, there are lots of reasons to want them.

Beyond typically top-end specs like a 6.6-inch 1228 x 2700 screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, the Huawei P50 Pro really looks to stand out with its cameras, which include a 50MP main snapper, a 13MP ultra-wide, a 40MP monochrome, and a 64MP telephoto, with 3.5x optical zoom and 200x digital zoom.

Huawei often packs some of the best imaging options available into its flagship phones, so these are likely to perform well.

As for the Huawei P50 Pocket, that’s a stylish foldable phone that could give the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 a run for its money, and has an even more interesting camera setup.

This includes a 40MP main camera, a 13MP ultra-wide one which doubles up as a macro snapper, and a 32MP ‘super spectrum’ camera, which allows for fluorescent photography – capturing details that the human eye can’t ordinarily see.

• These are the best Huawei phones

Via GSMArena

Following recent teasers, the Huawei P50 Pocket has now been fully unveiled, and it’s a clamshell foldable phone that does things a bit differently from its main rival – the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3.

It packs a 6.9-inch 1,188 x 2,790 foldable OLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 21:9 aspect ratio, with a hinge that supposedly offers a zero-gap design when folded shut.

At those times you’ll still be able to see any notifications using a circular 1.04-inch 340 x 340 display. This can also show the time and date, and be used to take selfies with the main cameras, but it’s not big enough to really interact with.

Speaking of the cameras, they’re one of the most interesting aspects here, as the Huawei P50 Pocket has a 40MP f/1.8 main camera, a 13MP f/2.2 ultra-wide camera (which can also be used for macro shots), and a 32MP f/1.8 ‘super spectrum’ camera.

That last sensor is something new, and it powers a fluorescent photography mode which apparently allows you to capture details and patterns that aren’t visible to the human eye. 

This lens should also improve night photography, and allows users to see if they’ve properly applied sunscreen or fully removed make-up.

So it sounds interesting, and the whole camera setup sounds potentially more capable than most foldable phone cameras, with a 10.7MP selfie snapper in a punch-hole on the main screen rounding out the camera configuration.

Moving on to other specs, the Huawei P50 Pocket has a high-end Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset – though notably this isn’t quite the top Snapdragon option anymore. It also has 8GB or 12GB of RAM, 256GB or 512GB of storage, a 4,000mAh battery, 40W wired charging, and a side-mounted fingerprint scanner.

What it doesn’t have is 5G, and nor does it run Android – instead you get Huawei’s HarmonyOS.

It’s all wrapped up in an eye-catching Premium Gold, Diamond White, or Black finish – though reportedly the last of those won’t be available outside China.

Prices start at 8988 Yuan (around $1,410/£1,055/AU$1,950) for an 8GB/256GB model, and rise to 10,988 Yuan (roughly $1,725/£1,290/AU$2,385) for a model with 12GB/512GB, though availability and pricing outside China is yet to be confirmed.

Analysis: both better and worse than the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3

The Huawei P50 Pocket has a lot of advantages over the Galaxy Z Flip 3, at least on paper. Its camera setup in particular sounds better, with the Z Flip 3 just having a pair of fairly conventional 12MP snappers, along with a 10MP one for selfies.

The Huawei P50 Pocket also has a slightly larger screen, with the Galaxy Z Flip 3’s being 6.7 inches, and Huawei’s phone arguably has a more stylish design – and certainly a more distinct one. Plus, at the top end there's more storage and RAM here, and the P50 has a bigger battery and faster charging.

But there are some marks against it. The lack of 5G or Android are big problems, and the cover screen on Huawei’s phone is slightly smaller. Based on the converted prices, the Huawei P50 Pocket is also likely to be significantly more expensive, as the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 starts at just $999 / £949 / AU$1,499.

So it could be a tough sell, but it’s nice to see a company taking foldable phone cameras seriously, and giving Samsung some competition can only be a good thing.

• These are the best foldable phones

The Huawei Mate V could well be the next foldable phone to appear, with a rumored launch date of December 23, and newly leaked images supposedly showing the phone's case suggest that it'll continue Huawei's  focus on camera quality.

The pictures were posted to Chinese social media platform Weibo (via GSMArena) and clearly show two large cut-outs on the back of the device – cut-outs which match the triple-lens rear camera setup of the Huawei P50.

It's not clear how many rear cameras the Huawei Mate V is going to have on the back, but there's plenty of room for them. Previous Huawei foldables, like the Huawei Mate X2, have also boasted some top-notch cameras alongside screens that can bend.

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Coming into the fold

The case images don't give us too many other clues about what else we can expect from the Huawei Mate V. This isn't a phone that has leaked extensively but we can see that it'll be Huawei's first clamshell foldable, in the style of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3.

Earlier rumors haven't mentioned much besides predicting that the phone is on the way. We're still waiting for an official announcement about the device, but considering Huawei's previous form for foldables, we can well believe that a new one is on the way.

Rewind a few months and there was talk that Huawei had three foldable phones in the works, and that they'd arrive at more affordable price points. Considering Huawei's ongoing trade ban in the US though, it's not clear how widely they'll be available.

Opinion: we need more than one foldable form factor

We're pleased to see Huawei embracing the clamshell foldable form factor with the upcoming Mate V handset – assuming that the leaks we've seen so far are accurate of course, and that the device will actually launch towards the end of the month.

Phones with a more conventional book-like form factor, such as the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 and the Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold, tend to grab most of the headlines – and they do offer the biggest screens around, with displays close to tablet size when they're opened out.

Clamshell phones such as the Motorola Razr and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 definitely have a role to play too though – their displays might not be as big, but they're easier to use and more compact, and make clever use of smaller secondary screens too.

WIth the Huawei Mate V on the horizon, we should have another clamshell phone to add to the mix (though worldwide availability might be an issue). When big names such as Apple and Google get around to launching their own foldables, we hope that they consider releasing these innovative devices in multiple form factors too.

• These are the best foldable phones around right now

There hasn't exactly been a flood of leaks around the Huawei Mate V – supposedly a clamshell foldable that's on the verge of launching – but we've heard some rumors about it. Now a patent has emerged detailing how Huawei might be keeping this device cool.

The patent, spotted by LetsGoDigital (via Notebookcheck.net), outlines a clever thermal management system that involves a folding heat pipe. The heat pipe is not traditionally a part of a smartphone known for its folding capabilities, but it would appear that the engineers at Huawei have found a way to pull it off.

As ever with patents, there's no indication of which device this might appear in. Considering the Huawei Mate V is rumored to be launching as early as this month, this unconventional, bendable heat pipe possibly won't be included in it.

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Huawei's foldable future

Much of the patent is made up of very technical descriptions – it stretches to 46 pages – and we learn that there's a flexible polymer layer in the middle. The heat pipe can be made of copper, titanium or aluminum, according to Huawei.

What now seems clear is that Huawei is committed to pushing out more foldable phones in the future. Huawei is one of only a handful of manufacturers that have decided to push out phones that you can fold up – see the Huawei Mate X, the Huawei Mate Xs and the Huawei Mate X2.

The Huawei Mate V looks to be something different, and is said to be adopting the clamshell form factor of phones like the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 and the Motorola Razr. If the leaks are true, we might not have to wait much longer to see it for ourselves.

Analysis: foldables are where the innovation is

The discovery of this new patent from Huawei is another reminder of where a lot of the innovation in the smartphone industry is happening: in foldable devices. While standard phones tend to just give us more of the same, foldables offer something that actually feels different – and from the future.

Of course the main innovation is that folding mechanism at the center of each device. As companies like Samsung have released more and more folding phones – like the Galaxy Z Fold 3 – the technology has matured and become more reliable over time.

However, manufacturers are also using foldables as a way to showcase other cutting-edge features – think secondary screens for notifications, selfie cameras that live under the screen, and support for styluses. And now, perhaps, folding heat pipes.

It's almost as if the folding phone form factor gives manufacturers license to be a little more experimental, and that's something we welcome. It very much seems as though we're going to get plenty more of these innovative devices in the future too, with the likes of Google and Apple rumored to be entering the fray in the next few years.

• These are the best foldable phones you can buy right now

Huawei has already dabbled in foldable phones with the Huawei Mate Xs and Mate X2, but it could be changing direction with its next effort: the latest rumor is that Huawei will soon launch a clamshell device in the vein of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3.

This leak comes via sources on Chinese social media platform Weibo (via Notebookcheck.net), and mass production has apparently already started on the new phone. That means it could be officially unveiled before the end of the year.

We don't have much more information about what this clamshell phone is going to look like, though it's apparently the manufacture of a simplified hinge that has revealed the device's existence. Let's hope a simpler hinge means a lower price too.

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A simplified hinge

The only other detail we get from this particular source is that the foldable phone will come with a "fashionable" design and a "rich" color scheme (if Google Translate can be trusted). It sounds as though the new clamshell will be made to catch the eye.

This is by no means the first time we've heard rumors of a clamshell Huawei foldable phone – we saw patents for this device over a year ago. More recent leaks have suggested that the upcoming handset could be called the Huawei Mate V when it appears.

Due to the ongoing trade restrictions that the US is imposing on Huawei, it is going to have to settle for 4G technology for the time being. The Huawei Mate V could well come running a 4G version of the Snapdragon 888 when it makes its debut.

Analysis: a tale of two form factors

However you like your foldable phone – as a clamshell you can snap shut, or as a device that opens up like an electronic book – the main appeal is the same. You've got a fully functioning, full size phone that also fits neatly in your pocket.

There's a lot that's different in terms of these two form factors though. The phone-to-tablet transformation ultimately gives you much more in the way of screen space: the display on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3, for example, measures a rather impressive 7.6 inches when opened out.

The clamshell form factor, meanwhile, is much more about keeping the dimensions of the device down and making it more convenient to use. The likes of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 and the Motorola Razr can be operated with one hand, you'll notice (and can be locked with a pleasing snap as well).

Samsung has decided that it wants to cover both bases with its foldable phone range, and it would appear that Huawei is about to follow suit – and as always, more hardware on the market means a wider choice of devices for consumers to pick from.

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To celebrate its digital Carnival, Huawei is giving you the chance to win a fantastic prize.

Download the My Huawei app, experience what the Huawei Carnival has to offer and then let Huawei know how it can make the offering even better in the form below to be in with a chance of winning a brand new smartphone.

Up for grabs are a Huawei Nova 9 and Huawei Nova 8 smartphone, and its easy to enter - just following the instructions below.

• End date: 11:59pm GMT on Nov 26
• 1 entry per household
• Full T&Cs apply*

How to enter the Huawei Carnival prize draw

1. Download My Huawei App
2. Experience the App
3. Answer the 5 questions regarding the app on the entry form below

The best camera phones are taking better pictures than ever, grabbing loads of detail in photos, shooting 4K and even 8K video, and delivering more zoom than the most versatile DSLR lenses. 

But not all camera zooms use the same technology, and there are more powerful types of zoom than others. With terms like digital zoom, optical zoom, telephoto, and periscope being used – it can be confusing, but it doesn't need to be.

Let's start with some terminology. First up – telephoto simply means a camera lens that has a far reach – no actual zooming required. Next, it's helpful to briefly spec up on digital zoom and optical zoom.

Digital vs optical

Digital zoom simply crops into a photo and has been used in digital cameras for decades. 

Digital zooms don't really have anything to do with the camera's lens – there's no actual optical magnification going on. It's all in the software. 

As a result, even if the zoom feature wasn't available in the camera, you could emulate a digital zoom by simply cropping a photo. 

Naturally, the more you crop, the lower the quality of the photo you end up with. A 12MP photo, for example, would turn into a 3MP photo if you digitally zoomed or cropped into it, thereby degrading quality. Generally speaking, therefore, digital zoom is the less desirable type of zoom. 

The second type of zoom – optical zoom – is widely seen as better. Using optics (hence the name), your camera lens magnifies the image that lands on its sensor. 

Why does optical zoom deliver more detail? Because the zoomed image is captured by the whole sensor – so while a 12MP three times digital zoom image would be reduced to about 4MP, a 12MP three times optical zoom image would be a full 12MP.

Okay, we're done with camera zoom terminology 101. It's almost time to talk about 2019 – the year of the periscope camera. But before diving into periscope zoom tech, we need to understand how zoom lenses work. 

Zoom lenses and periscope cameras

The further a camera lens is from the sensor, the further the reach of the camera or the more 'telephoto' it is. This logic is kind of like a telescope – extend the telescope > increase the distance between the lens and your eye > see further into the distance. 

So if greater distance equates to more reach, a powerful zoom on a smartphone needs a lens that's far away from its corresponding sensor – making for a thick camera. 

This is okay for a short telephoto, as found on iPhones and OnePlus flagships, however, for more than a two or three times magnification, smartphones would need to be very thick. And while thick thighs may save lives, thick phones definitely don't sell well.

This thickness/telephoto reach problem seemed insurmountable until February 2019, when Oppo, a relative unknown in Western markets, announced its first periscope camera module, which was showcased on a concept device at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. 

By creating a mini submarine-like periscope in the chassis of your smartphone with a prism, Oppo extended the distance between the lens and the camera sensor, bouncing light and creating a magnification of roughly five times that of the main camera. The periscope zoom smartphone was born.

Just a month after Oppo's announcement, Huawei unveiled the excellent P30 Pro in Paris, then Oppo launched the Reno 10X Zoom, after which Samsung launched the Galaxy S20 Ultra.

Sony, Vivo, and Xiaomi all brought their own periscope zoom smartphones to the market soon after, and Apple… well, Apple did what Apple does. 

If it isn't on an iPhone, does it even matter?

There's absolutely no doubt about it – as far as camera phone zooms go, a good periscope camera, as found on the Google Pixel 6 Pro, Huawei Mate 40 Pro, and Oppo Find X2 Pro, outperforms a good traditional optical zoom camera. 

The fact Apple hasn't incorporated a periscope zoom on its iPhone shouldn't alarm you, after all, Apple runs on Apple time. 

Wireless charging made its way onto the Nokia Lumia in 2012, for example, but the first iPhone to feature the tech was the iPhone 8 in 2017. As for water resistance, Sony had been IP-certifying its phones since 2013, but Apple just jumped on the bandwagon in 2016 with the iPhone 7.

Given this standard delay on iPhones getting certain features, we're anticipating Apple will either adopt a periscope zoom or innovate its own way of getting you closer to subjects in 2022 or 2023. 

After all, the photos you can capture with a powerful zoom lens offer advantages you simply can't replicate with the main camera or a weak telephoto.

Why would I get a periscope camera phone?

Portrait photographers love powerful periscope cameras for a few reasons. One is that the mightier the zoom, the greater the distance between photographer and subject. 

If a portrait photographer doesn't have to get close to their subject, they can take a more candid, less posed shot. This also applies to nature photography – bees and other insects, and even pets or children that might be distracted by you being very close to them generally photograph better when unaware of the photographer.

Periscope cameras also deliver more background blur than wide and ultra-wide cameras. The reason for this is that the greater reach produces a more limited focus depth. 

In the right hands, therefore, a periscope camera can capture a DSLR-style photo, complete with a sharp foreground and blurry background, even if no special effects or portrait modes are active. 

What's even more exciting about periscope cameras is that the future of the tech is so promising. 

Sony launched the Xperia 1 III in 2021. It features a periscope camera, however, unlike older modules, the Xperia 1 III's periscope camera sports two focal lengths, so takes photos at roughly three times and five times zoom. 

In August 2021, Oppo also announced a new continuous zoom lens technology that builds on Sony's two-stage variable zoom, and covers the entire zoom range in between. 

That means you can go from 85mm through to 200mm – maximum optical zoom freedom, just like with a real camera.

So in the face of smartphones having been hampered by small sensors and slender frames for years, it's incredible to see the degree of ingenuity engineers have applied to deliver excellent camera phone zooms. 

Even digital zooms today are better than ever, thanks to high-resolution sensors and intelligent photo processing; however, if you really want the champion of smartphone zoom in 2021, you'll want to pick up an excellent quality periscope camera phone. 

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The Huawei P50 and P50 Pro - the brand's top of the line, flagship phones - hit the Chinese market in July this year, and they're coming soon to a store near you. The company has confirmed to TechRadar that it plans to release them in other markets in 2022.

During a briefing on the new Huawei Nova 9, the company confirmed it would bring its flagship series of phones for 2021 to other markets in 2022. It has yet to share which markets those will be.

Huawei didn’t give a specific date on when we can expect the smartphones. A representative for the brand said, "I can confirm that, early next year we will bring P50 series to consumers overseas."

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The wording of P50 series suggests that both the Huawei P50 and Huawei P50 Pro will be launching in other markets outside of China.

Previously, the company has sold its flagship phones in the UK, but it doesn't often release its devices in the United States or Australia. We'd expect the P50 series to come to some European markets, but exact areas are yet to be confirmed.

The Huawei P50 Pro has some great specs on paper, with a 6.6-inch display, a top-end Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset and a 50MP main camera. That's paired with a 64MP telephoto camera that's capable of 3.5x optical zoom, a 13MP ultrawide shooter and a 40MP black and white camera.

Analysis: Why release six months late?

It's no secret that Huawei is in an odd situation where it's had to switch away from traditional Android software and embrace its own HarmonyOS platform after the Huawei ban.

While this new software is growing rapidly, it's still a tough sell for many who are used to the benefits of the Android platform and, perhaps more importantly, the Google Play Store. HarmonyOS is growing, but is it good enough for those who want access to as many apps as possible?

That's likely why Huawei hasn't been in a rush to sell its new flagship series outside of China. The brand is still thriving in its home market with its latest flagship smartphones, so Huawei has looked to other areas of its business such as computing, audio and wearables when pushing products in locations like Europe.

But for anyone who is keen on Huawei phones, it's a shame that the P50 hasn't been made available sooner. 

Early 2022 will likely bring the next wave of top-end Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy S22, Xiaomi 12, Oppo Find X4 and OnePlus 10, so there will be a lot of tough competition when the Huawei P50 series does land. 

• Everything you need to know about the Huawei P50

The Google Pixel 6 range unsurprisingly has all the attention right now, but these aren’t the only new phones on the block, as the Huawei Nova 9 has also just been unveiled.

Technically this was actually unveiled in September, but back then it was only announced for China, whereas now it’s getting a wider launch. That said, while we’ll likely see it in the UK and possibly Australia, a US launch won’t be on the cards.

For those who can buy it though, the Huawei Nova 9 has a lot of tempting tech inside – enough that it could even sway some buyers away from the Google Pixel 6. The Huawei Nova 9 has a 6.57-inch 1080 x 2340 OLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a mid-range Snapdragon 778G chipset, 8GB of RAM, and a choice of 128GB or 256GB of storage.

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The phone also has a 4,300mAh battery with 66W fast charging, and there’s a quad-lens rear snapper, with a 50MP f/1.9 main sensor, an 8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide camera, a 2MP f/2.4 macro one and a 2MP f/2.4 depth sensor. Then on the front there’s a 32MP f/2.0 camera.

Those rear cameras are housed in a distinctive oval camera block with two big circles – a design that’s similar to what we’ve seen on the Huawei P50. The rest of the design here includes a glossy back in Starry Blue, Crush Green or Black, and an all-screen front with a punch-hole camera.

They’re promising specs – if the price is right, but sadly that detail hasn’t been revealed yet, and nor has the release date or availability, though as noted we wouldn’t expect this in the US given the Huawei ban.

Analysis: a Pixel 6 rival with two big problems

Looking at these specs, the Huawei Nova 9 could stand up well to the Pixel 6 in many ways. It has a larger screen with a higher refresh rate, more cameras and faster charging – though its chipset is likely lesser, and it has a slightly smaller battery.

The real problems the Huawei Nova 9 face though are firstly that it doesn’t include 5G, which at this point is basically a standard feature in mid-range and above phones.

An even bigger problem though is that while the Nova 9 runs Android (with Huawei’s EMUI 12 overlay), it lacks access to the Google Play Store or Google’s apps. 

This is a problem Huawei phones have been facing for years now, and it makes them harder to recommend – though there are alternative app stores where many apps can be found.

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Other than Samsung, Huawei has arguably been the biggest force in foldable phones, but so far all of its devices – such as the Huawei Mate Xs – have had large, tablet-like screens. Now though, the company might be preparing to launch a clamshell foldable, more in line with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 and Motorola Razr 2020.

That’s according to leaker @Panda is bald, who on Weibo (a Chinese social network), claimed that just such a phone will be landing this year, with the name Huawei Mate V.

Apparently this will have a Kirin 9000 chipset like the Huawei Mate 40 Pro. That was a high-end chipset in 2020 but it’s a bit dated now, and will be even more so when the Huawei Mate V launches.

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But this could be one way to keep the cost down, in a similar way to how Motorola did with the Razr 2020, which uses a mid-range Snapdragon 765G.

This leak doesn’t include any additional details, so we don’t know when this year the Huawei Mate V might land, but there's not much year left, and the company is making some sort of announcement on October 21, so perhaps we'll see it then.

That said, we’d take this with a pinch of salt, especially as the source doesn’t have as much of a track record as some leakers, and as we'd think we'd have heard more about this phone if it was coming soon.

But this isn’t quite the first we’ve heard of the Huawei Mate V. Back in 2020, Huawei both applied to trademark the Mate V name and filed a patent application for a clamshell foldable phone. So it’s an idea that the company is at least exploring, and a name that might be used for some product or other.

Opinion: keep those foldables coming

The smartphone market has arguably started to become a bit stagnant when it comes to new features and innovation. Most phones now – particularly at the high end – perform well, and upgrades are often fairly minor or niche, but foldable phones could provide a bright future.

They’re the biggest change we’ve seen to smartphones arguably ever, and they bring whole new form factors and use cases, so they could make the industry exciting again.

Right now though, it’s mostly just Samsung forging ahead with them. Huawei, Motorola and others have dabbled, but only Samsung seems committed, and for foldables to really take off we need more than one company making them.

We need competition to ensure ever better products and – importantly – lower prices, along with just more foldable choice. So hopefully the Huawei Mate V is on the way, and hopefully it’s just the next in a long-line of Huawei foldables.

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Via GSMArena

Lots of rumors pointed to the Huawei Mate 50 series being canceled this year - Huawei's top-end Android phones, which would likely have rivaled the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max, apparently fell victim to the ongoing chipset shortages and Huawei's own struggles.

This would make sense, as the Huawei P50 series launching months late suggested the company's calendar was in disarray, but apparently the rumors aren't correct. Popular leaker Digital Chat Station has posted on Chinese social media platform Weibo to say "q1 flagship business in the test s898 4g, the model seems to be sm8425".

That might seem nonsensical, and DCS is known to write in cryptic language (a fact not helped by the fact this statement is machine-translated from Chinese) but it's saying that Huawei is testing a flagship for early 2022 using the Snapdragon 898 chipset.

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That chipset is the as-yet-unannounced successor to the Snapdragon 888, a top-end chipset lots of premium Android smartphones use. According to DCS, Huawei is testing a 4G-only version, and it did the same with its P50 phones using a non-5G Snapdragon 888.

We'd imagine this flagship is the Huawei Mate 50 as that's the next top-end phone we were expecting from Huawei, and it's too early for the P60 to show up. 

Analysis: should you take a chance on Huawei?

When the Huawei ban first happened in 2019, new phones from the company couldn't come with Google apps including the Play Store - this meant you couldn't easily download apps, making them pretty hard to use.

Over two years on, and Huawei phones have easy ways to get apps, making them much better to buy and use. However the company as a whole is on shaky ground - its market share is plummeting outside China, and its phones getting launched way off schedule is enough to be wary of what's happening for the brand.

When you buy a new phone, you don't just want it to be great to use - you want it to be supported for years to come with frequent software updates and security patches. And with Huawei's current scattergun approach to... well, everything, it could be a little hard to have confidence that the company will keep delivering for years.

We're not saying Huawei is going to go bust in the next year, but the company's priorities seem to be drifting away from smartphones to other tech gadgets, that aren't affected by the various trade embargoes.

So if the Huawei Mate 50 does come out at the beginning of the year - which, we should note, is when we're also expecting the Samsung Galaxy S22 and Xiaomi 12 - the company is going to have to work hard to prove these are devices it'll continue to support into the future. Otherwise buyers might be more tempted by Samsung or Xiaomi's offerings.

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It's generally assumed that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 898 mobile chipset will shortly be appearing as the heir to the Snapdragon 888 and 888 Plus for top-end Android handsets, and a couple of new leaks provide more evidence that it's on the way.

First tipster Abhishek Yadav has spotted what might well be the Snapdragon 898 on the popular Geekbench benchmarking database: it appears to be inside a prototype Vivo phone, and while the posted scores are relatively low, this will be because the hardware is still in development.

Specs enthusiasts will want to know that the chipset features a Cortex-X2 Super Core running at 2.42GHz, three 2.17GHz Cortex-A710 Power cores, and four efficiency 1.79GHz Cortex-A510 cores. We should hear more about the Snapdragon 898 later this year.

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Huawei we go

The second Snapdragon 898-related leak to pop up on social media this weekend relates to the upcoming Huawei P60, with well-known leaker Digital Chat Station (via Notebookcheck) confident that the Qualcomm processor is going to show up in the 2022 flagship phones from Huawei.

It's very early days for Huawei P60 rumors, considering that the Huawei P50 models have only just made their debut in China, but it makes sense that there would be a chipset upgrade in another 12 months or so.

Huawei has been struggling to find processors to run its phones, what with the intricacies of its US trade ban to get around, but it has managed to source some Snapdragon 888 chips for the P50 series of phones, and it sounds as though it's going to repeat the trick next year with the Snapdragon 898.

Analysis: Qualcomm plots a strong 2022

You may well have noticed that Google is switching to its own silicon with the Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, and with Apple and Samsung making their own chipsets as well, that leaves Qualcomm with a slice of the market that's shrinking year after year.

There are still plenty of phones for Snapdragon chips to make their way into of course, from manufacturers including Nokia, OnePlus, Motorola and others, but Qualcomm will be hoping that its processors are going to make a big impression in 2022.

The Snapdragon 898 (if indeed that's what it ends up being called) is going to be crucial to that: it will need to boost smartphone performance and capabilities, while also cutting down on power draw and boosting battery life for the devices that it's installed in.

We got our first official look at the Snapdragon 888 back in December 2020, so December 2021 seems like a good bet for when its successor might appear – and at its unveiling we should hear a lot more about what's in store for smartphones over the course of 2022.

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Huawei has unveiled the P50 and P50 Pro, two premium smartphones running the company’s proprietary HarmonyOS platform – rather than the standard Android UI – but without 5G connectivity (via Financial Times).

We’d heard as much in specs leaks for the P50 earlier in the year. It’s something of a step back for Huawei, as an early adopter and cheerleader of 5G technology, but restrictions on trading with US companies has seemingly prevented it from accessing 5G version of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 processors (as Chinese competitor Xiaomi has done without issue in the Mi 11 handset).

In an online event, Huawei exec Richard Yu specifically called out “US sanctions” as the reason why “our new smartphones cannot run on 5G wireless connections even though we are surely the global leader in 5G technology.”

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Yu paints a positive picture still, saying that “with 4G, Wi-Fi 6 connectivity and our AI computing algorithms, we still can provide as powerful a performance as all the 5G phones” – though there is certainly a sense of Huawei’s wings having been clipped, and the capabilities of the P50 and P50 Pro being less than desired by the Huawei and its customers alike.

Analysis: Falling at the 5G hurdle

Huawei’s 5G ambitions have been somewhat dampened over the past few years, as tensions between the US and China have risen, and countries around the world have grown more wary of Huawei as a trustworthy telecommunications partner.

In the UK, Huawei was initially positioned as a low-cost provider of 5G services – although the UK government followed suit with the US in 2020, banning the sale of new Huawei phones and ordering the removal of Huawei technology from national communication networks by 2027.

Huawei’s issues on the global stage have prevented it from accessing the parts and processors other companies are currently enjoying in their products, and even restricted its ability to offer services to existing customers – with the US banning it from offering Google-run services such as Gmail and YouTube.

5G is, while a relatively technology, becoming increasingly standardised on premium smartphones, and the loss of 5G connectivity for the P50 series will no doubt be a blow to the company – as well as any Huawei fans who will be making do with 4G on these devices. 

However, with no announcement yet of these phones shipping outside of China, it’s an uncertain future for the company’s handsets worldwide, especially if it can’t access the 5G chipsets needed to compete with Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi’s flagship phones.

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When HarmonyOS 2 was unveiled as Huawei's brand-new gadget operating system to rival Android or iOS, we expected to see it in new devices from the company, and it was a surprise when older handsets were allowed to upgrade. But an even bigger surprise just landed.

Now, a selection of Honor devices has been added to the HarmonyOS 2 compatibility list (via RealmiCentral). Some of these phones were already eligible to download the operating system's beta, but now they're allowed to use the full-fat version of the software.

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These phones include the Honor 20 series and Honor View 20, which currently run Android, as they launched before the Huawei ban and prior to HarmonyOS being unveiled.

All the devices are from before Huawei sold Honor, which means it's not wholly shocking that they're now allowed to get HarmonyOS, but we still would've imagined Honor wouldn't want its legacy devices associated with its ex-parent company.

It's not clear if people using an eligible Honor phone can upgrade straight away, or if HarmonyOS 2 is rolling out to these devices slowly; current reports of people getting the upgrade are from China, which would likely be the first place to receive the upgrade.

If you've got a flagship Honor phone from the past few years, you can find out if the upgrade is available by heading to the Settings app, going into the About Phone menu, and seeing if you can find an upgrade here.

Analysis: bye-bye Android?

The older Huawei phones which were eligible for the HarmonyOS upgrade used Android, but this is the first time non-Huawei phones running Google's operating system have been granted access to the update.

Furthermore, unlike the Huawei devices, some of these Honor phones actually have access to Google Mobile Services, including the Play Store, Gmail and Maps, which the Huawei ban removed from devices from the company (including Honor) in mid-2019.

Since Huawei devices, and HarmonyOS, still don't have access to GMS, they rely on Huawei's AppGallery, as well as Petal Search, which lets you install apps straight from the web. It's a good workaround for the 'lack of apps' problem, though some popular apps are missing.

So if you upgrade from an older Honor phone to HarmonyOS, you might be losing access to some key services and platforms.

Will other brands follow Honor's suit? A while back we heard rumors that Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Meizu were all considering offering HarmonyOS on their phones. A later report suggested Nokia phones could use it too. Honor allowing its legacy devices to make the step is a big sign of confidence for the fledging operating system, albeit a confusing one given Android has far more apps than HarmonyOS.

We imagine most brands will wait until HarmonyOS has access to a bigger range of apps, including premium and paid ones, before seriously considering letting their phones use the operating system. But Honor phones getting the upgrade is a small step that increases the likelihood of that future.

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While the Huawei P50 series doesn't exactly have a boatload of 'buzz' around it - it feels like most phone fans have forgotten all about the once-great company - new information keeps popping up ahead of the July 29 China launch.

Case in point: on Chinese social media platform Weibo, Huawei posted a teaser video for the P50 Pro. While lots of the visuals are just moving versions of pictures we've already seen, a few new ones are used, and savvy watchers have spotted a few hidden details in them.

You see, most premium phones have some of the snappers' specs listed by the lenses, mainly for the purposes of bragging: '100x zoom', '108MP', and so on. As spotted by the video watchers, the Huawei P50 Pro video shows 'VARIO-SUMMILUX-H1:1.8-3.4/18-125ASPH'.

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No idea what this means? Well, Vario-Summilux is a type of lens, made by Leica. The reference to 1.8-3.4/18-125 is a reference to the aperture and lens size, so we know the various cameras will have apertures between f/1.8 and f/3.4, and sizes between 18mm (likely an ultra-wide camera) and 125mm (likely a periscope camera). 

Finally, ASPH refers to an aspherical lens, which, when used for wider apertures, takes sharper images and reduces visual issues.

So that gives us a good look at the Huawei P50 Pro's camera array, and it seems the snappers will be well-specced. The 125mm camera will likely hit 5x optical zoom, a distance which some leakers are backing up, and the aspherical lens could really improve snaps for the cameras it's attached to (though there could be more than one - P50 renders show a boatload of cameras).

There's no solid specs written on the phone, and that suggests Huawei may have tapped out of the 'specs race' to use unnecessarily high-resolution cameras, in favor of hardware that actually does the job well.

With a Huawei P50 series launch on July 29, we don't have long to wait to see what the new phones are like. That July 29 event is set for a China-only reveal, so we will have to wait longer to see when the phones will be released in the UK and other countries.

• Huawei P50 might have a surprise spec in common with the Xiaomi Mi 11

Via ITHome

Months later than expected, we now know the Huawei P50 launch date. As revealed by Huawei's CEO, Richard Yu, it's set to show up on July 29 along with some other devices.

That is a China-only launch for now, so there's no official word on whether the Huawei P50 series will be coming to markets like Europe. If it does, you can likely expect a further event after July 29 to confirm that availability.

The China launch was revealed by a post on Chinese social media platform Weibo. We still expect to learn all about the new handsets, including the specs of each individual phone, during the July 29 unveiling.

• These are the best Huawei phones
• Is the Huawei Mate 50 still coming?
• Check out our Huawei MatePad 11 review

Yu added that, as with previous Huawei P phones, photography is the main focus of the new line. 

The post reads, “The road forward has no end, this time we surpass ourselves in the field of imaging again. On July 29th, the #HuaweiP50 series will soon release a new mobile imaging technology pioneered in the industry, and the new era of mobile imaging will set sail, so stay tuned!”. 

Clearly the Huawei P50 isn't coming alone, hence the reference to a 'series'. We'd expect a P50 Pro and P50 Pro Plus, if 2020's range of devices is an example to follow, with maybe a Lite device as well.

What's next for Huawei?

Huawei is evidently trying to make a comeback after restrictions placed by the US government affected the software and components the company could use. Earlier in 2021 it launched HarmonyOS, its brand-new Android-rivaling operating system, with a few devices running it. The P50 handsets will almost definitely be the first HarmonyOS smartphones.

We don't know too many of the Huawei P50 specs or features just yet. However, rumors suggest that with this range, Huawei will introduce a 1-inch Sony sensor in the main camera that was recently seen on the Sharp Aquos R6 and Leitz Phone 1 from Leica.

Powering the device could be a Huawei-made Kirin 9000 chipset, however, it could also have a modified Snapdragon 888 chipset according to some inside sources. That said, the Snapdragon chipset that could power the phone is expected to be a 4G-only one, since the US sanctions limit 5G component supplies to Huawei.

For more information about the Huawei P50, we'll have to wait until launch - but since that's so near, we won't be waiting long. Stay tuned until July 29, and we'll bring you all the need-to-know information about the new phones.

• Huawei P50 might have a surprise spec in common with the Xiaomi Mi 11

While Huawei phones have typically used chipsets the company made itself, called Kirin processors, that tradition is apparently the latest thing to be affected by the global silicon shortage. According to a new report, the company's next phone, the Huawei P50, might use something different.

As reported by GizChina, a leaker on Chinese social media platform Weibo has suggested Huawei straight-up ran out of Kirin chipsets for its upcoming phones, and as a result, will resort to using processors from chipset giant Qualcomm instead for the standard phone in the range.

Apparently, the standard Huawei P50 will use the Snapdragon 888 chipset, the most powerful piece of Qualcomm kit which we also saw in the Xiaomi Mi 11, OnePlus 9, and versions of the Samsung Galaxy S21 in the US and Asia.

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• What's up with the Huawei Mate 50?

However, while that chipset has a 5G modem included, apparently Huawei will use a special version of it without this modem - so the P50 will apparently only be a 4G phone. This is actually something we've heard before.

Qualcomm reportedly won't run the show though, as it sounds like Huawei could rustle up enough processors for its middle phone - the Huawei P50 Pro is said to use the Kirin 9000 chipset. There's no word on the P50 Pro Plus though.

More powerful Huawei P50

Huawei has typically used its own processors for its phones, so it's quite a surprise that it'd resort to using tech from one of its big rivals.

The chipset shortage has had wide-reaching effects, though - the Samsung Galaxy Note 21 has reportedly been canceled because of it, reports suggest it delayed the Google Pixel 5a launch, and it's starting to seem like it's caused the Galaxy S21 FE to be delayed or canceled too. And that's all just in the smartphone world.

The Huawei P50 is already months late, compared to the P-series' usual launch time, and Huawei is likely using Qualcomm to ensure it can release a phone at all. And hey, looking at past Snapdragon and Kirin performance, the phone will likely be much more powerful than it could have been.

• Honor 50 leaked renders look suspiciously like the Huawei P50

We've come to expect new smartphones to be 5G phones, since the vast majority of new devices use this current generation of connectivity, but a few cheaper phones still just use 4G. In a big surprise, we could see the Huawei P50 join the 4G-phone ranks too.

According to popular leaker Digital Chat Station, posting on Chinese social media platform Weibo, chipset company Qualcomm is working on a 4G-only version of its top-end Snapdragon 888 chipset (which we've seen in the OnePlus 9, Xiaomi Mi 11, Oppo Find X3 Pro and more). On the back of that, another popular leaker Bald Panda stated that the chipset in question would be used for the Huawei P50.

If true, that would be quite a surprise - almost all flagship or big-name phones in 2021 are 5G devices, and it would seem strange for Huawei to put out a 4G version of its next flagship - though the reasons do make sense.

• These are the best Huawei phones
• What do we know about the Huawei Mate 50?
• Check out our Huawei Watch 3 review

It's possible that there will be both 4G and 5G versions of the Huawei P50, a possibility that Digital Chat Station subsequently raised, which would give people who don't live in 5G-enabled regions a more affordable model to buy.

We'll have to see what the situation is when the Huawei P50 launches, though. We don't have a solid time for when that'll happen, but it'll probably be sooner rather than later.

Why the 4G?

It's no big secret that Huawei has been affected by trade sanctions the US has put on China - but while the sanctions block many things, including the trade of 5G chipsets, apparently 4G chipsets are still on the table.

That could explain why Qualcomm is making a 5G-less version of its top chipset - it would allow the company to maintain trade with Huawei.

Still, while that would make sense for a mid-range phone, as handsets at that price tag wouldn't always be expected to have 5G, it's curious that this could affect Huawei's flagship phone, especially as the company does make its own chipsets.

As stated, we'll have to see what happens - this rumor could turn out to be totally unfounded when the phone launches.

• Honor 50 leaked renders look suspiciously like the Huawei P50

Via MyFixGuide

Many thought with the much-publicized HarmonyOS launch in early June that Huawei had found its footing in the smartphone market again, but perhaps the biggest blow is yet to come: the Huawei Mate 50 flagship smartphone may have been canceled. 

This news comes from Chinese website cnBeta, which reports that there will be no new Huawei Mate device this year, for the first time since the line launched in 2013. Apparently, the reason is component shortages due to US trade restrictions, though the global silicon shortage likely isn't helping.

• These are the best Huawei phones
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Take this information with a pinch of salt - cnBeta has correctly predicted tech events before, but it's also got some incorrect assertions under its belt. We reached out to Huawei but it declined to comment, so it's likely that we'll have to wait until the phone's rough launch window of September, to see if it actually comes along or not.

It's hard to be totally surprised by the news, though. The Huawei P50 line of phones was expected in the first few months of the year, but at time of writing in mid-June, we're yet to even hear a launch date.

The rocky road

It feels tiring to view each piece of Huawei news through the lens of the 2019 Huawei ban, which saw US companies unable to trade with the Chinese one (most notably Google, so subsequent Huawei phones didn't have Google apps). However the company's fate is tied to the event.

After the ban, Huawei seemed to continue as though nothing was wrong, selling its phones at a high price all over the world, and not just in China (where the lack of Google apps isn't a deal-breaker, as they're not used there). The aforementioned HarmonyOS is a brand new operating system the company designed, intended to replace Android on its devices.

So far so good, and from a distance it would seem that the ban had barely affected Huawei. However this Mate 50 news suggests otherwise: it sounds like the company's efforts to source phone components outside the US hasn't been a total success.

Moreover, if Huawei doesn't bring a Mate 50 to market, whatever the official reason, it's the best indication yet that 'business as usual' isn't working for the company.

As previously stated, this isn't totally Huawei's fault. The world is currently wrapped up in a silicon shortage, and smartphone processors are in short supply as a result. Rumors suggest the Samsung Galaxy Note 21 has been canceled because of stock shortages, just like the Mate 50. 

However since the cnBeta report points to trade restrictions as the main reason behind the phone's cancelation, we can't use the chipset supply issues as the main scapegoat.

We'll have to wait on official comment from Huawei, or the Mate 50's likely launch window to roll around, before we know the phone is gone for sure though.

• I finally 'get' Huawei's HarmonyOS - but it's definitely not for everyone

 When Huawei’s HarmonyOS was being shown off at its launch event on June 2, I was getting a live demo of the new jack of all trades operating system in a fancy 5-star hotel, where prices for one night start at over £200 and go up to nearly £1,000.

I was shown HarmonyOS running on a tablet, on a smartwatch, on earbuds and more. One demonstration showed a YouTube video on a laptop pausing when the connected smartphone received a call, which was then sent to some paired headphones via the smartwatch. Another use case was a picture being taken of the nearby St Pancras station, which was seamlessly dropped onto a nearby PC for easy editing.

My favorite showcase was when a smartphone was paired with an action camera to record 4K footage, which had the heart rate from a worn smartwatch imposed over the top. This both looked cool, and is probably super useful for adventurers who love to record action footage.

Up until this demonstration, I hadn’t totally understood HarmonyOS - it didn’t seem like Huawei had much to gain in building its own Android rival, because it didn’t solve Huawei phones’ one major problem. 

Ever since the Huawei ban, the company’s phones haven’t been allowed to use Google Mobile Services apps, including the Play Store and the massive library it provides access to.

Now, I think I get it. Huawei’s focus isn’t in building killer new software, but it’s providing you with a reason to buy into its ecosystem of gadgets. Huawei wants you to buy more than just a smartphone.

HarmonyOS isn’t an Android copy

I was under the impression HarmonyOS was an attempt by Huawei to make its own software because of the restrictions imposed by the Huawei ban. Maybe it was, but what I was shown at the HarmonyOS demo gave me a different idea of  its purpose.

HarmonyOS’ whole schtick is that the same operating system works between gadgets. Your smartphone will run the same software, and therefore apps and systems, as your watch or tablet or headphones. It lets all your gadgets work synchronized.

Sure, this is comparable to Apple’s ecosystem of devices, or even Google’s various softwares, plus the Bluetooth connectivity standard makes it easy for most kinds of device to work together. But different Apple products, or Google gadgets, all run varying operating systems, and since HarmonyOS devices all run literally the same operating system, it should make it easier for developers to design apps that work in tandem between platforms.

Take, for example, the demonstration I described of a smartphone pulling video from an action cam, stats from a smartwatch and recording it all in 4K - that seems like something Apple or Android devices would struggle with. For HarmonyOS, that was seamless.

Huawei is one of many companies to have a 1+X+N strategy, where the ‘1’ is your smartphone which controls ‘X’ number of close products like smartwatches and headphones (in Huawei’s case it’s 8), then ‘N’ represents a wide ecosystem of other smart products like printers, games consoles and so forth. 

What does that really mean? It means your smartphone is the center of a big web of connected devices.

Having used Android phones along with Wear OS, Google Chromecast and more, which often have connection problems and issues which make them frustrating to use, I really appreciate the seamless form of connectivity that HarmonyOS offers.

Huawei clearly pictures you using all its products - having a Huawei Watch 3 on your wrist, Mate 40 Pro in your pocket, MatePad Pro 12.6 in your bag, Vision 4K TV on your wall, MateBook X Pro on your desk and FreeBuds 4 in your ears. The list of its products goes on, and once all are on HarmonyOS, they should work in beautiful… well, harmony.

But while this Huawei-centric future sounds lovely, it’s also too exclusive.

Harmony on your phone, chaos at the bank

If HarmonyOS is the ‘strength-in-numbers’ type of operating system, which becomes truly useful when you’ve got loads of gadgets, then it logically follows that you’ll only make the most of it when you’ve spent loads of money on Huawei’s tech.

But when you look at the price tags on lots of Huawei’s output - bear in mind that it’s generally a premium-priced company - you’ll soon realize the problem with this. HarmonyOS is only accessible if you’ve got plenty of money, especially since it banks on you owning not just a few core smart gadgets, but a wide web of peripheral ones.

In the UK, where I live, we’re less than a year on from a recession, and because of Covid-19 the vast majority of people globally have had their finances hit hard. The number of people who can afford Huawei’s (or any other company’s) expensive phones, tablets, TVs, monitors, smartwatches and more is pretty low.

This echoes a general problem with internet of things gadgets, which are smart connected homes and gadgets that all talk to each other. It only really works if you can afford home hubs for every room, intelligent kitchen appliances, wrist-mounted powerhouses, color-changing lighting and so on, and each of those gadgets comes with a high price compared to their non-smart counterparts (or just not owning them at all).

Standing in that London hotel, marveling at the displays and demonstrations, the thought of ‘wow, this is cool’ jostled elbows with the knowledge that this kind of tech will forever be out of reach for people like me.

I won’t ever own a smart home, and I’m okay with that. My TV will never ‘speak’ to my computer, mainly because I don’t own either of those things. Tech isn’t for everyone - lots of companies thrive by putting out high-priced gadgets that few can afford - but some of us have to settle for cheaper tools. 

That’s HarmonyOS, then - like the hotel I was standing in when I saw it, it’s not for everyone. It’s undoubtedly cool, and flashy, with loads of uses if you’re really invested. But the sheer cost of entry makes it unattainable for lots of people out there, myself included.

• Samsung's weird, stretching, wearable screen looks way too 'Cyberpunk' for us

Originally announced in August 2019, HarmonyOS is about to hit smartphones and tablets for the first time as the major version 2.0 update rolls out. In fact, Huawei has announced a host of new products with the software already on board.

HarmonyOS is related to, but not exactly the same as, the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) replacements to Google's apps that the company is working on in an effort to work past the Huawei ban. 

These are apps that would go on its smartphones like the Huawei P40 or Mate 40, and there's certainly a ticking clock element in Huawei resuscitating its phone division before people associate it too much with the ban from Google apps.

HarmonyOS (previously codenamed HongMeng) is a platform designed for a variety of devices. It started off on IoT devices such as smart displays or smart home equipment, then moved on to TVs, and is now coming to phones, tablets, and smartwatches too.

Given the political situation between the US and China (see: Huawei ban) and the impact it’s had on Huawei’s access to Android over the last few years, it’s little wonder that the brand is presenting a defiant, confident stance. 

Cut to the chase

• What is it? Huawei's new operating system for a variety of devices
• When is it out? Expect it on 2021 products
• How much will it cost? HarmonyOS won't cost you anything, though its products may

HarmonyOS 2 release date

HarmonyOS is free to use, as long as you've got a device running the operating system, but since even the best Huawei devices are relatively affordable, that shouldn't be too hard.

You can buy HarmonyOS devices right now in China, but the rest of us are still waiting to try out the software. Huawei has announced new products such as the Huawei MatePad Pro 2021 and the Huawei Watch 3 with the software, but we've yet to find out about any smartphones.

Smartphones like the Huawei Mate 40 and Huawei P40 series are receiving the update in China, but we've yet to hear about devices around the rest of the world.

We expect to see HarmonyOS on almost all Huawei products going forward, including the long-awaited Huawei P50 and the Huawei Mate 50 range too. It might even come to devices currently running Android that aren't made by Huawei.

How does HarmonyOS work?

Huawei claims that with the rise of the IoT device, a more efficient operating system is needed. With these IoT devices packing less memory and storage than even basic handsets, let alone the best smartphones, they need significantly more streamlined code, and for 100 lines of Android code, you could just have one line of HarmonyOS code. 

Despite this, HarmonyOS is still able to deliver powerful functionality across devices.

By taking a 'single kernel across devices approach', Huawei also aims to create a shared ecosystem of different devices, break through silos and in turn save developers time. One app can be deployed across a car head unit, smartwatch, fitness tracker and speaker, working perfectly. 

We’ve seen similar ideas before, most notably on Windows Phone, which had a shared Kernel with Windows 10. While that wasn’t a hit, Huawei’s could have a silver bullet in its gun - Android compatibility.

In practice, much seems similar to other smartphone software, with a similar look to EMUI 12 (the latest version of Huawei's Android software), but with some extra features such as Service Widgets that allow you to better customize your device's home screen.

HarmonyOS started life as a TV OS, to create opportunities for seamless casting and fluid movement across devices, so a user could be on a video call on their phone, cast it to a TV in the kitchen, then continue it in the living room. After that, they could take a phone call, moving from room to room, with the call following them around jumping from one smart speaker to another.

A new Control Panel in HarmonyOS 2 shows how this can be done, and you'll be able to drag a logo onto different elements on the phone's display to use further devices. For example, Huawei showed how you can drag a smart screen icon onto a phone icon so a film would jump up to a HarmonyOS TV.

You'll need to have a compatible device for this to work alongside your phone, but it's an interesting idea if your home is full of devices that will be compatible with HarmonyOS.

A new Task Center feature also allows you to use apps on different devices without having them installed on each one. For example, you could play a game on your smartphone and then transfer it to a HarmonyOS tablet without having to redownload the app.

HarmonyOS will also feature on watches, speakers and car head units, but isn't limited to these device categories. What’s more, it’s open source, with Huawei making promises for plenty of developer support down the line.

During the HarmonyOS 2 unveiling, the company showed a variety of app developers that are working with the company, including services like Weibo in China.

As HarmonyOS is an open source platform, developers will be able to provide apps for the platform, and other manufacturers of smartphones may even choose to use the operating system.

Huawei also claims that both speed and battery life are improved through HarmonyOS, but we won't be able to test that claim until a later date when we've tried out further devices.

Ben Wood, Chief Analyst at CCS Insight told TechRadar, "Huawei’s announcements reflect its need to pivot away from a reliance on smartphones to other hardware categories such as tablets, smart speakers, headphones, wearables, displays and more. Many of these devices are able to use Wi-Fi rather than a cellular connection making it easier to get around the sanctions related to 5G chips.” 

“HarmonyOS is designed to provide the glue between a growing array of connected devices that Huawei is targeting. Huawei will be hoping that it can follow Apple’s lead, by having a single software platform that extends in all directions, providing a seamless experience to customers that buy into its ecosystem of products.”

• Huawei is planning more HarmonyOS devices - but not smartphones

The Huawei P50 wasn't unveiled during the HarmonyOS 2 launch today, but the company did provide our first look at the upcoming phone with a teaser trailer looking at the rear of the handset.

We've seen similar imagery in previous leaks, but this is the first time we've seen the Huawei P50's design confirmed by the company itself.

A short trailer during the announcement revealed a few angles of the Huawei P50, but most of them focused on the rear of the phone, and specifically the company's new large camera blocks on the back of the handset.

• What we know about Huawei P50
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• Our time with the Huawei Watch 3

As you can see in the images above, the company has changed its design language for its next handset with some remarkably large looking circles on the rear of the phone, housing fairly large camera lenses. The top circle houses three lenses, and the bottom looks to include one particularly big lens along with a flash.

We've yet to officially find out many specs, or why those cameras are going to be so big - though it's rumored that at least one of them will use a 1-inch sensor, which would explain it. In any case, this tease suggests a big focus on the camera, which is normally a highlight of Huawei phones.

An inscription on the rear of the phone confirms the partnership with Leica is continuing, and it also suggests that one of the lenses has an f/1.8 aperture and another f/3.4.

Which of the camera elements this refers to is unclear, but we'd anticipate the former to be for the ultra-wide camera and the latter to be for the telephoto shooter.

What else can we learn?

The company said the handset will "lift mobile photography to a new level" but there weren't any more specifics. One of those teaser images confirms the company's partnership with Leica is continuing.

It's also not clear which model this is pictured - it may well be that this is the top-end Huawei P50 Pro Plus (or whatever the company calls it) and that cheaper versions of its flagship line will look different.

Huawei Consumer Business Group CEO Richard Yu said, "I'm speaking of the Huawei P50 series that is supposed to be launch this spring. It is a sheer beauty with an ultra-thin and lightweight design and an iconic design language.

"For reasons you are aware of, a launch date has not yet been set but we are trying to figure out how to make this product available to you."

We should expect to hear more about the Huawei P50 in the coming months. It's likely that the handset will come running the company's new HarmonyOS software, but that has yet to be confirmed.

Today Huawei unveiled a whole host of new gadgets, including the new Huawei MatePad Pro 12.6 and the Huawei Watch 3 alongside its new software announcement.

• What we know about Huawei P50

Huawei has a big event happening in just a few hours time. At 5am PT / 8am ET / 1pm BST / 10pm ACT, the company is set to unveil HarmonyOS, its new Android-rivalling operating system - though it seems a lot more could show up.

Huawei has been posting teasers for the event for ages, which hint at various products that could be shown off at the HarmonyOS event.

One tease suggests the Huawei Watch 3 will show up, and it's been strongly implied the Huawei MatePad Pro 2 (a high-end tablet to rival the iPad Pro) will debut too. We've even seen one post which could indicate the Huawei P50 series of smartphones could show up, though this seems unlikely.

With that roster of products, the Huawei HarmonyOS event is set to be busy enough to make a Samsung Unpacked or Apple Event look tepid, with plenty of new devices for tech fans to get excited about.

So how do you watch along? Easy - scroll down.

How to watch the Huawei HarmonyOS event

The event kicks off on June 2 at 5am PT / 8am ET / 1pm BST / 10pm ACT. You can stream the event live via YouTube.

Huawei posted this live stream five days in advance of the kick-off event - you can easily find it above. If you want, you can click through to YouTube and select 'Set reminder' so your computer, mobile or tablet will alert you just before the event starts.

TechRadar will be reporting on all the gadgets and software unveiled at the event, so check back nearer the time for all the coverage you need.

• Huawei Watch 3 images show HarmonyOS looks a lot like watchOS

June 2 might be a very busy day for Huawei, because we were already expecting to see both the Huawei Watch 3 and Huawei MatePad Pro 2 at a launch event on that date, and now it looks like the Huawei P50 range will be landing alongside them.

While this hasn’t been officially confirmed, it has been heavily hinted at in a teaser image shared by @UniverseIce (a reputable leaker) on Twitter.

The image follows the pattern of other teasers we’ve seen for the event, and along with the June 2 date it includes a side view of what looks to be the circular camera bumps that have been rumored for the Huawei P50.

• Check out the best Huawei phones
• Read our full Huawei P40 Pro review
• The Honor 50 is also on the way

It’s not clear whether this image has been officially shared yet or whether @UniverseIce obtained it some other way, but it looks convincing, and the Huawei P50 is our best guess for what it teases. Plus, the leaker posted alongside the image that “it seems that Huawei P50 is coming soon.”

It’s worth noting however that beyond the date, all of these teasers just say “HarmonyOS” rather than including product names. We’re expecting the phone, tablet and smartwatch to all run Huawei’s HarmonyOS, but it’s possible that the focus will be on the software, with the devices themselves getting fully unveiled at a later date.

Still, at the very least we should get a first look at them on June 2, and hopefully this will be the full announcement, as the Huawei P50 in particular looks like an exciting device. Rumors point to it packing a massive 1-inch camera sensor, and suggest that it will be joined by an even more premium Huawei P50 Pro and P50 Pro Plus.

TechRadar will cover the June 2 event in full, so whatever ends up being announced you’ll find all the details here.

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