Latest news with #PuraX
The Verge
3 days ago
- The Verge
Check out Huawei's extra-wide flip phone.
Posted Aug 8, 2025 at 11:45 AM UTC Check out Huawei's extra-wide flip phone. The Pura X arrived this week, and I'm ready to test this unique flip phone form factor, which opens to the side for a wider main display. And yes, those are Android apps on the post-Android HarmonyOS Next. What do you want to know ahead of my hands-on? 1/4 The Pura X looks like a flip phone turned on its side. Image: Dominic Preston / The Verge Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates. Dominic Preston Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Dominic Preston Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Foldable Phones Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Gadgets Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Huawei Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Mobile Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Phones Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Tech
The Star
05-06-2025
- The Star
Huawei's Pura X is an intriguing new foldable – if you're outside the US
In most of the world, the smartphone market is dominated by two players: Alphabet Inc's Android and Apple Inc's iOS. But China's Huawei Technologies Co is looking to challenge that long-held reality with its in-house mobile platform, HarmonyOS. Since launching late last year, the software has already become the most credible contender to that duopoly in China. The company has even unveiled a companion laptop-grade operating system to replace Windows. Huawei's new phone embodies Beijing's efforts to reduce its reliance on the US tech industry. But its efforts to establish independence in the software realm won't mean much without cutting-edge devices that can serve as vehicles to showcase its new platform. The recently launched Pura X foldable isn't just a hardware novelty; it's also the company's first flagship smartphone to run HarmonyOS out of the box, making it an early test of how willing users will be to jump ship for a largely untested – and still incomplete – ecosystem. The Pura X is only being sold in China, a market where most of the top-selling smartphone brands are local players. The way some Huawei salespeople are pitching the Pura X to consumers is to suggest they think of this as their second phone. At least to begin with. Stick with whatever you already have, add the Pura X as a multimedia and content consumption device, and give Huawei time to flesh out the HarmonyOS experience. That requires a measure of faith. The hardware With a 3.5-inch external screen (that's small, even for a foldable), the 7,499 yuan (US$1,042/RM4,420) Pura X looks at first glance like a pocket-friendly clamshell. But unlike modern flip phones, which unfold into the same rectangular shape as a flat handset, the Pura X opens to a significantly wider 6.3-inch display with a 16:10 aspect ratio. The novel ergonomics take some getting used to – the device's hinge and external display are arranged so that it opens like a book – but there are benefits to the squarer shape, whose expansive screen real estate is useful for viewing photos, browsing the web, going through notes, playing video games, watching video and reading. For those using the device as an e-reader, Huawei's built-in ebook app flips pages automatically by tracking when the reader's eyes move from the bottom of a page back to the top. It's an example of how Huawei sees itself marrying hardware and software development in the new operating system. The screen has benefits for third-party apps, too. The popular Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, displays content on the Pura X in three columns simultaneously, compared with the standard two-column layout on conventional smartphones. The smaller exterior panel allows users to handle calls, watch video or show their Alipay QR code for making payments. With WeChat, for example, it's easy to send a text message or take video calls without unfolding the device. In that scenario, the rear camera acts as a selfie shooter. The downside of the wider screen is that it's not easy to fold or unfold the phone with one hand. Typing on the enlarged keyboard one-handed is also tricky. Huawei offers a single-handed mode on the Pura X for typing on a smaller layout, but that's not much of an improvement. The Huawei-designed processor inside the Pura X is an upgraded Kirin chip, which makes the device feel smooth and quick during use. The 4,610mAh battery lasts for a full day with typical usage. The Pura X has three cameras on the back plus a fourth lens for gauging color temperature. The image quality feels natural, with low-light performance being a standout compared with other flip phones. The software Huawei debuted an earlier version of the OS on Mate 70 smartphones last year and has since been migrating more of its existing device lineup to the platform. Every new gadget from the company will run the software. Unlike with the new Pura X, people who own older handsets can still choose between the in-house OS and an Android-compatible system. When Bloomberg tested out the earliest publicly available iteration of HarmonyOS four months ago, it was evident Huawei had work to do behind the scenes to get more app makers and service providers on board. Since then, more developers have joined the ecosystem. And for some apps that were already in place, their engineers added missing features to bring them closer to the fuller-featured versions offered on iOS and Android. Yet challenges still lie ahead. The most used consumer apps in China are on HarmonyOS, including selections for online shopping, messaging, food delivery, banking, ride-hailing and train tickets. Messaging apps commonly used at workplaces in China are here, and so are popular live-streaming platforms and some video games. As electric vehicles gain ubiquity across China, EV drivers can also download apps connecting to their cars. Progress since Bloomberg's last review of the OS includes the arrival of chatbots from Chinese artificial intelligence firms, like ByteDance Ltd.'s Doubao. For people who work for Chinese government agencies, some essential daily tools are also newly available. For everyday consumers, several public services have been added, including one for carrying digital versions of driving licenses and paying fines for traffic violations. But there are still some holdouts, like Xiaomi Corp and Tesla Inc's electric-vehicle apps, and NetEase Inc.'s email and music offerings. Meanwhile, some applications that are technically available are missing features offered on other mobile platforms. Huawei knows its ecosystem is incomplete. For certain software that isn't available yet, the company offers a tool called DroiTong for people to download Android-compatible alternatives to bridge the gap. And on the Pura X page of Huawei's e-commerce website, a warning written in red type reminds people that "This device comes pre-installed with HarmonyOS 5 and cannot be downgraded to earlier OS versions.' The takeaway The Pura X is not Huawei's first attempt at a quirky foldable. Last year, it launched the Mate XT, a device it billed as the first "trifold' phone – which is to say, depending on how you folded it up, it could be a large widescreen tablet, a smaller 8-inch one or a more regular handset. The design was intriguing as a proof-of-concept, but at US$2,800 (RM 11,877) it was a tough sell for real-world consumers. To be sure, the Pura X is more practical and affordable than the Mate XT. Even so, looking at an operating system still under construction, potential buyers will have to weigh the benefits of a unique hardware design against the tradeoffs of an incomplete ecosystem. Patience is required – but Huawei's pace of improvement shows it's at least on its way. – Bloomberg
Bloomberg
03-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Huawei's Pura X Is An Intriguing New Foldable — If You're Outside the US
In most of the world, the smartphone market is dominated by two players: Alphabet Inc. 's Android and Apple Inc. 's iOS. But China's Huawei Technologies Co. is looking to challenge that long-held reality with its in-house mobile platform, HarmonyOS. Since launching late last year, the software has already become the most credible contender to that duopoly in China. The company has even unveiled a companion laptop-grade operating system to replace Windows. Huawei's new phone embodies Beijing's efforts to reduce its reliance on the US tech industry. But its efforts to establish independence in the software realm won't mean much without cutting-edge devices that can serve as vehicles to showcase its new platform. The recently launched Pura X foldable isn't just a hardware novelty; it's also the company's first flagship smartphone to run HarmonyOS out of the box, making it an early test of how willing users will be to jump ship for a largely untested — and still incomplete — ecosystem.
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
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. 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. Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. 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 alt=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. The new Pura X, which is available in five colour options, has a starting price of 7,499 yuan (US$1,037). At that price level, it does not qualify for China's government subsidy scheme that provides a 15 per cent subsidy for purchasing smartphones, tablets and smartwatches that cost under 6,000 yuan, a sign that the company is committed to expanding its presence in the premium market. Last year, HarmonyOS saw increased adoption in the world's largest smartphone market. In the three months ended December 31, its market share reached 19 per cent, the fourth consecutive quarter that it was ahead of Apple's iOS. Android remained the dominant mobile operating system on the mainland with a fourth-quarter share of 64 per cent, while Apple's iOS held a share of 17 per cent last quarter, according to Counterpoint Research. Huawei led China's smartphone market in January, on the back of the government subsidy scheme that started on January 20. Total sales from January 20 to 26, the first week of the programme, jumped 65 per cent year on year to over 9.5 million units, according to Counterpoint data. Apple, whose latest iPhone 16 models do not qualify for the subsidies due to their premium positioning, last month introduced the budget-priced iPhone 16e, which can receive a 500-yuan discount in China if it is not the model with 512-gigabytes of storage. This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Yahoo
22-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Huawei Targets iOS and Android With $1,000 Pura X Folding Phone Running HarmonyOS
Huawei launched its new foldable smartphone, the Pura X, on Thursday. This device is the first to run Huawei's own operating system, which it hopes will create an alternative to Google's Android and Apple's iOS. The Pura X has a 6.3-inch display when unfolded, with a new 16:10 aspect ratio that gives it a wider screen area than most other smartphones on the market. The device folds in half into a compact square and has a 3.5-inch display with a camera at the front. The Pura X starts at 7,499 Chinese yuan ($1,037). Huawei's market share in the fourth quarter of 2024 rose to 16.2% in China versus 13.7% a year before, according to the International Data Corporation. Apple's market share declined from 20% to 17.4% over the same period, as reported by CNBC. It was initially launched in November as HarmonyOS Next and reportedly no longer uses code from the open-source version of Google's Android operating system. This is a big step by Huawei to cut any ties to Google and Android. In 2019, US sanctions forced Google to stop working with Huawei. The Pura X is also equipped with Xiaoyi, Huawei's AI assistant which is underpinned by its own artificial intelligence models as well as those developed by DeepSeek.
