Huawei launches first foldable smartphone running on home-grown HarmonyOS Next platform
Huawei Technologies on Thursday launched a new foldable smartphone running on its home-grown HarmonyOS operating system, as the tech giant builds on the revival of its lucrative handset business despite US sanctions.
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The Pura X, under its premium Pura brand, is a vertically-folded device that features a bigger 6.3-inch screen, with a 16:10 aspect ratio similar to a tablet. The device had a smaller 3.5-inch screen on the back, which supported features including phone calls and mobile payments, Richard Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei's consumer business group, said at the launch in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.
The phone runs on Huawei's HarmonyOS Next operating system, the latest iteration of its mobile platform that is not compatible with Android. It is the second phone built on the updated system after the Huawei Mate 70 series, unveiled in November.
Huawei's comeback in the smartphone market is a sign of Chinese resilience under US technology restrictions. Huawei surprised many industry observers with an in-house 5G chip used in the Mate 60 in 2023, and the company impressed the world with the launch of the world's first trifold phone in 2024.
The new Huawei Pura X foldable smartphone. Photo: Handout
While Huawei may not have access to the most advanced chips, Yu said HarmonyOS offered 'a 40 per cent performance improvement' over Android. Yu said earlier this month that over 20,000 native apps and services had been made available on HarmonyOS Next, with 20 apps exceeding 2 million downloads. Huawei expects all of its smartphones and tablets to run the new operating system this year.
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