Huawei has launched a brand new flip telephone that upends the shape issue, opening sideways relatively than vertically to create a wider system with a tablet-esque facet ratio. It’s the primary Huawei telephone to ship with out Android app compatibility, and debuts the corporate’s in-house AI assistant, Concord Intelligence — one thing the trade shouldn’t ignore, Nvidia’s CEO admits.
The Pura X appears much like a Samsung Galaxy Flip or Motorola Razr when it’s closed, with a palm-sized design and a sq. cowl display screen beneath its triple digital camera. The giveaway that one thing’s up is that the hinge is on the telephone’s aspect, not its high — flip that and also you discover a 6.3-inch display in a 16:10 facet ratio, wider than different flip telephones and nearer to tablets in its proportions. It appears to be a method of splitting the distinction between flip telephones and bigger book-style foldables.
That is additionally the primary Huawei telephone to go away Android behind for good. It runs the brand new HarmonyOS Subsequent, which doesn’t use Android Open Supply Mission code and isn’t suitable with Android apps. The OS launched in November 2024 alongside the Mate 70 sequence, however house owners of these telephones got a selection between Subsequent or the Android-based HarmonyOS, whereas the Pura X is just accessible with the brand new software program.
The Pura X can also be the primary telephone to ship with Concord Intelligence, an AI assistant based mostly on Huawei’s in-house Pangu mannequin and enhanced by DeepSeek. Huawei can also be growing its personal in-house Ascend AI chips, and this week Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang admitted that Huawei’s “presence in AI is rising each single 12 months,” including that “We will’t assume that they don’t seem to be going to be an element.” He additionally famous that US commerce restrictions on the corporate have “achieved poorly,” calling Huawei “the only most formidable know-how firm in China.”
The Pura X is just accessible in China for now, the place it begins at 7,499 yuan (round $1,037). Early teasers for the Pura X highlighting its wider facet ratio appeared that it is likely to be Huawei’s first industrial rollable telephone. Lenovo has confirmed that its rollable laptop computer will go on sale this 12 months, however the anticipate a rolling telephone continues.