What you need to know
- Huawei posted several teasers for a new clamshell foldable on Weibo called the P50 Pocket.
- We first saw patents for a Huawei vertical foldable last summer, with a small touchscreen next to the rear camera module.
- The Chinese company will announce the phone on December 23.
Huawei was one of the first smartphone makers to dive into foldable phones, but even if you live in a territory where Huawei sells phones, you probably couldn't afford one. Its most recent foldable, the Huawei Mate X2, will cost you upwards of $3,000 in exchange for premium specs.
But Huawei's new foldable will likely fall into a much more affordable range. The company teased a December 23 announcement of the Huawei P50 Pocket in a series of Weibo social media posts; roughly translated, this will be the company's "winter flagship" phone, which suggests we'll see powerful specs.
The teasers show a tall, narrow display, similar to the Motorola RAZR 2, plus a textured back. Different teaser images show white and gold variants, though we'll have to wait and see if these colors end up on the final product.
Its name, the Huawei P50 Pocket, evokes the Huawei P50 Pro that launched earlier this summer. It has a 6.6-inch OLED display with 2700 x 1228 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and 300Hz touch sampling; a Snapdragon 888 CPU; 8GB of RAM; and four rear cameras. In theory, the P50 Pocket could have very similar performance and display quality, only in narrow foldable form.
The Huawei P50 Pocket could also have a small touchscreen on its rear. Huawei clamshell foldable patents discovered last summer showed one directly underneath the rear camera module. We speculated this touchscreen could be used as a quick shortcut for taking photos. Of course, Huawei may not use this patented design at all; we'll find out more next week.
Right now, the P50 Pocket has major competition in the Galaxy Z Flip 3. Samsung has sold several million units by making it very affordable, especially with trade-in deals; we'll have to see if Huawei can sell the P50 Pocket at a competitive price.
We're also expecting to see a new Moto Razr 3rd-gen in mid-2022. Evidently, clamshell foldable smartphones are on the rise.
An excellent option available now
Huawei phones aren't available everywhere, and you may prefer One UI to HarmonyOS. The Galaxy Z Flip 3 is available now and is a proven quantity, with fast performance, a stylish design, water and scratch resistance, and excellent cameras.
