Huawei is one of the biggest phone makers in the world, but the company’s success, combined with China’s national security laws, has raised security concerns in the US. These concerns mean that Huawei, a Chinese manufacturer, has not been able to sell its phones in the US, and the situation has escalated. President Trump signed an executive order that blocks US companies from buying foreign-made telecoms equipment, and the US Commerce Department placed Huawei on the “Entity List,” which prevents it from buying technology from US companies without government approval. In response, Google suspended Huawei’s Android license, meaning that Google will no longer provide the Chinese firm with forthcoming Android updates. As a result, Huawei phones don’t have access to the Google Play Store (meaning no Android apps), and they can’t use Google services. But Huawei keeps building phones, and people all over the world keep buying them.
We’re still waiting for Samsung’s first trifoldable phone — last we heard it’s due “this year” — but Huawei is ready for round two. It’s announced a September 4th launch for the Mate XTs, a follow-up to the impressive Mate XT, and has already teased a major upgrade: stylus support.
[weibo.com]
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?
Founder Ren Zhengfei says Huawei’s Ascend chips are still “one generation” behind US rivals like Nvidia, and that the “US has exaggerated Huawei’s capabilities — we’re not that strong yet.”
If that sounds an odd line for a CEO to take, remember that fears over Huawei’s AI prowess have driven a US clampdown intended to boost Nvidia in its place, and that the US and China are negotiating today over export controls and more.
The MateBook Fold isn’t the first foldable laptop we’ve seen — Lenovo got there first, with plenty others since — but it might just be the thinnest, at only 7.3mm thick when unfolded. A 13-inch screen opens to 18 inches, and instead of running on Windows it’s all powered by Huawei’s own HarmonyOS 5. It’s China-only for now though, where it costs around $3,300.
6
Verge Score
This feels like a form factor that’s here to stay.
In response to US restrictions on chip exports, Chinese companies have been trying to develop their own hardware to power generative AI, but so far, have trailed behind. Now the Wall Street Journal reports that Huawei is not only preparing to ship more of its existing Ascend 910B and 910C chips, but also to start testing a new 910D AI processor.
It’s reportedly aiming to surpass the popular H100 chip Nvidia launched in 2022, although the 910D is reportedly “less power-efficient.”
[wsj.com]
The stretching video teaser posted to the company’s Weibo account mentions its Pura smartphone branding and “1610” — likely a reference to aspect ratios. Whatever it’s announcing on March 20th isn’t guaranteed to be a phone, but Huawei has notably patented several rolling phone screen concepts over the last few years.
Maybe it’s the lack of Apple Intelligence in China, or maybe it’s the Mate 70 series’ performance.
Either way, MacRumors points out these Counterpoint Research stats showing iPhone sales in China put it in third place in Q4, behind both Huawei and Oppo (which includes OnePlus), and fourth place for the full year, despite its second-place finish globally.
Huawei announced its new Mate 70 flagship and Mate X6 foldable today — the first devices running the company’s homegrown Google-less HarmonyOS NEXT operating system. Both feature this nifty transfer feature, but it’s limited to just images for now.
I’m old enough to remember Samsung’s advertising blitz against Apple back in the days when a lot of people still waited in lines for the latest iPhone. Some of those were funny.
But finding random people named Sam Sung to hype up your folding phone? Pretty weak, Honor. Tech companies have seriously lost their fastball when it comes to this stuff.
In a Weibo post announcing an event on September 10th, Huawei’s head of consumer devices Yu Chengdong says (via machine translation) that the company will be revealing its “most leading, innovative, and disruptive product” yet.
According to Bloomberg and reputable leaker Ice Universe, that’s a reference to the unnamed triple-screen folding device that Yu has been photographed using over the last few weeks.
Here’s chairman Richard Yu feeling a bit full of himself at the launch of the company’s HarmonyOS NEXT beta on Friday, according to Nikkei:
“We have seized this opportunity to overtake [the others] on a bend by building an operating system that is self-controllable and secure. In just over a decade, we have achieved some milestones that the Western countries took three to four decades to achieve.”
Something something great artists steal.
Some companies crush the tools of art in their ads, others just replace the artists.
The Pura 70 lineup has four variants: the 70, 70 Plus, 70 Pro, and the 70 Ultra. Hundreds of fans lined at Huawei stores across China as stock of the top-end models sold out, according to Reuters.
A resurgent Huawei has reportedly been developing its own advanced chips in spite of US sanctions, but we won’t know what secrets the Pura 70 hides until the first teardown.
Despite US sanctions the company continues to pump out interesting (HarmonyOS 4) handsets including this new clamshell with folding 6.94-inch 2690 × 1136 (420ppi) OLED display and a cluster of four cameras on the outside, one of which measures UV light for sun protection. It’s got satellite messaging, 66W wired and 40W wireless fast charging, and hands-free gesture controls.
Prices start at ¥7,499 (about $1,000) for the 12GB/256GB model.
A couple of months after releasing in China, Honor’s latest tablet is coming to international markets like the UK, where it’ll cost £299.99 (around $380) or £349.99 (~$443) with an included keyboard. The 12.1-inch tablet comes with a 2560x1600 120Hz display, 8GB RAM, 256GB storage, a 8300mAh battery, and a lower mid-range Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 processor. It’ll go on sale in the UK on February 25th.
HarmonyOS Next can only run apps specifically developed for it, the company announced today as it released a developer preview ahead of its Q4 release, South China Morning Post reports. It’s a big shift for HarmonyOS, which has maintained some level of compatibility with Android software since its launch in 2019 even as US sanctions prevented Huawei from using Google’s full-fat Android. Huawei also appears to have overcome sanctions preventing access to high-end chips.
[South China Morning Post]
There was a big shock earlier this year about Huawei’s development, but Nvidia’s CEO doesn’t see it as a huge deal.
“These are just numbers. Is it really 7? Did they shrink it down to something sufficiently good that you can make a phone from? There’s no magic in these numbers. It’s just 7.”
It opened a few years ago, but this post by a travel vlogger put the “mini Europe” project back on my radar. Housing the Huawei R&D department (which is probably where it designs new chips) and reportedly costing over $1.5 billion to build, it has replicas of 12 European cities, including Gothenburg and Prague.
However, despite the travel reels from invited and/or sponsored visitors circulating on social platforms, you won’t just casually access the Huawei Dongguan Campus in Shenzhen — it’s only for “Huawei employees, family, and clients.”
But that’s never a good thing for smartphone battery life and performance. According to a new FT report:
“Huawei’s chips also consume more power than its competitors’, according to measurements, and can cause the phone to heat up.”
While those sanction-skirting chips made by Huawei’s HiSilicon chip design business might be a source of national pride in China and consternation in the US, they’re not necessarily any good.
[Financial Times]
The Kirin 9000s chip made by SMIC in China inside the new Mate 60 Pro is still a few generations behind what TSMC is producing for current iPhones (4nm), expected to move to 3nm next week. And without access to advanced machines from ASML it’s going to be very hard for China to advance efforts further.
The teardown does not confirm 5G, although the phone is certainly capable of 5G-like speeds.
Before TikTok and semiconductors, the US was fighting a war against Chinese telecom. What happened?
