Huawei has unveiled a clamshell-style folding smartphone in China — P50 Pocket — that comes with a circular, 1-inch external display for quick access to notifications and widgets.
The company teased the handset earlier this month with a photoshoot focused on the P50 Pocket Premium Edition that appeared in Harper’s Bazaar China. This version of the device was created with Dutch designer Iris van Herpen.
P50 Pocket has a gold or silver finish and a 3D pattern on the exterior surface that’s typical of van Herpen’s work, resembling feathers or leaves. It is Huawei’s third foldable phone, but it is first to use a clamshell design.
The Huawei P50 Pocket closely resembles Samsung’s Flip 3, with the same kind of clamshell form factor. However, it reduces the gap between the sides when closed to zero. It’s also thinner in this closed position at just 15.2mm thick, whereas the wedge-shaped Flip 3 ranges from 15.9mm to 17.1mm.
Once unfolded, the Huawei P50 Pocket packs a 6.9-inch 1,188 x 2,790 OLED with a 120Hz refresh rate. There’s a side-mounted fingerprint sensor house in the power button.
A highlight of the P50 Pocket is the two circular elements positioned on the outer case – one for the camera module, and the other a 1.04-inch 340 x 340 display for heads-up notifications and widgets. It’ll also show discrete turn-by-turn directions while navigating.
The Huawei P50 Pocket comes with a 40MP f/1.8 main camera, together with a 13MP f/2.2 ultra-wide.
There is also a third 32MP f/1.8 “super spectrum” camera, which lets you capture fluorescent shots that pull out typically unseen details from shots.
You also get a hole-punch front camera, but the P50 Pocket’s foldable nature and external display makes it easy to use that main camera for selfies.
It’s powered by a Snapdragon 888 SoC, which will soon look a little outdated as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 starts to hit devices. This is also the 4G version of the chip, so there’s no 5G connectivity.
Another disappointment is that the P50 Pocket only only comes with a 4,000mAh battery, which isn’t huge for a phone of these specs.
Prices start from ¥8,988 (about £1,050) for the 8GB of RAM / 256GB storage model, and move up to ¥10,988 (about £1,285) for 12GB of RAM and 512GB.
