Huawei's P50 Pocket is a fancier Galaxy Z Flip 3 alternative that costs $1,400

[Humza]

What just happened? Huawei has just launched the P50 Pocket foldable for the Chinese market. Priced at 8,988 yuan (~$1,411) for the 8GB/256GB base model, the P50 Pocket is an expensive rival to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 3, but with some added design flair and powerful specs that match or beat Samsung’s foldable.

Huawei touts a proprietary hinge for the P50 Pocket, enabling a zero-gap design when the phone is folded and opening up a 6.9-inch OLED screen to display 2,790 x 1,188 pixels at 120Hz. As with almost all 2021 Android flagships, the P50 Pocket is powered by an SD 888 SoC that's paired with either 8GB/256GB or 12GB/512GB of memory and storage. It also has Huawei’s Nano Memory card support for expanding up to a further 256GB.

On the outside, the P50 Pocket has two big circles that house its triple-array camera system and a one-inch cover screen. The latter can show date/time, display from a variety of widgets like weather, alarm, calendar and music player, or configured to show info from third-party apps.

The cameras, meanwhile, include a 40MP wide main sensor, a 13MP ultrawide and a 32MP ‘Ultra Spectrum’ sensor to enable what Huawei calls ‘Fluorescence Photography.’ The selfie camera is a 10.7MP unit housed in the centrally positioned punch-hole display.

Like the Z Flip 3, the P50 Pocket uses a side-mounted fingerprint sensor but has a slightly larger 4,000mAh battery (vs. 3,300mAh) and 40W fast charging support. Huawei’s much higher price tag than its main Samsung rival could make it a tough sell, but the lack of Google apps and services is what might hold it back from becoming a mainstream option in the foldables category.

Huawei’s Android-based HarmonyOS is also fairly behind in terms of OS market share, and if the OEM ever decides on a global launch, the P50 Pocket will have an uphill task of competing with established rivals like Galaxy Z Flip 3 or newer foldables like the Oppo Find N that have Google services on board.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/92741-huawei-p50-pocket-fancier-galaxy-z-flip-3.html

 

[Geralt]

Crazy price. No, thanks.

 

[VitalyT]

Cheap Chinese knock-off. A good foldable phone would cost 10 times as much.

 

[Hardware Geek]

I like the concept of a foldable like this but there is no way in hell I'm paying that much for a damn phone. Eventually the tech will make it's way into cheaper phones. Let the early adopters be the beta testers. I just want something that can last all day and fits easily in my pocket.

 

[nismo91]

People typically say no to short android major updates. well with huawei you're almost guaranteed to have no major updates of sort, and also you don't have access to google services.

want to backup your whatsapp contact using google drive? nah. wanted to sign in to google maps? nah. probably okay for some people in certain regions but it's a dealbreaker for me and a lot of people. I ain't scouting xda-dev to find workaround just to be able to sign in to google maps on a $1400 android phone.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Still don't think this technology is suitable for phones... I want it for a laptop though!

Imagine a tiny 11" laptop that could unfold to have a 22" screen....

 

[pcnthuziast]

Best thing about a foldable screen is that when it's folded up, the screen is fully protected. My cousin and Aunt bought z's and I can see the crease. Hard pass on that alone, but also the fact that although the footprint is small when folded, they feel heavy and clunky.

 

[Uncle Al]

What a laugh .... with so many high quality, low priced phones on the market these days it's hard to believe anyone would throw away their money on one of these $1,000+ phones ......

 

[Brodude1]

Looks like trash

 

[Tams80]

A lot of hate for foldables here.

I've been using an OG Fold for over two years now. It's a bit dinged up, but only part of that is due to it being foldable. And sure there's a crease; it never bothers me. On the whole it has been great to use. Expensive, but just about worth it.

This though, being a Huawei device... Well, putting morals and ethics aside (supporting the CCP), HarmonyOS is a poor derivative of Android and the lack of Google Play services kills it. Of course, those moral and ethical reasons are partly why it has that rubbish and lacks useful software.