Talk about a foldable Honor handset started all the way back in February of this year when we passed along a report that the former Huawei sub-brand would release a foldable model later this year. Then in June, we let you know that the Honor Magic Fold was going to be inward folding like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3.
The Magic Fold is expected to be introduced sometime in the first quarter of 2022. But that doesn’t stop us from showing you renders of the device which were posted on Twitter. Similar to Samsung’s last two Galaxy Z Fold models, the exterior screen runs the complete length of the back of the phone’s left panel (when fully opened with the large tablet-sized display showing).
Rumored specs for the device include an 8-inch display when the phone is fully unfolded, sporting a resolution of 2200 x 2480. An octa-core CPU is reportedly under the hood featuring one Cortex A-77 core running at a clock speed of 3.13GHz, three Cortex A-77 cores running at a clock speed of 2.54GHz, and four Cortex A-55 cores running at a clock speed of 2.05GHz.
The chipset will be paired with 8GB of memory and 256GB of storage. The render shows a rear camera with a 108MP sensor for the primary snapper. After taking into account the likelihood of 9:1 pixel binning, it would appear that the device will deliver 12MP images. Besides the obligatory ultra-wide and telephoto cameras, we could see a 16MP camera grace the front of the handset for selfies and video chats.
A 4500mAh battery could be called on to keep the lights on, and Android 11 will be pre-installed. No word on when to expect an update to Android 12.
You might recall that Huawei ended up selling Honor last year to prevent the firm from having to abide by all of the restrictions placed on Huawei by the U.S. While it was a Huawei sub-brand, Honor could not access its U.S. supply chain which forced it to stop using Google mobile services (GMS). It also prevented the company from purchasing cutting-edge chips after a revised U.S. export rule prevented foundries using American tech from shipping cutting-edge chips to Honor.
But once Honor became free after its sale to a consortium for a reported $15.2 billion, Honor was free to use the Google version of Android, and could receive shipments of any chip it wanted to buy. As a result, the Honor 50 Series was launched with the GMS version of Android and was powered by the Snapdragon 778G allowing the device to support 5G.
Honor is rapidly growing in China with its third-quarter handset shipments in the country rising a whopping 96% on an annual basis. It now has a 15% slice of the Chinese smartphone market which is good enough for third place after Vivo’s leading 23% and Oppo’s 20%. Xiaomi is fourth, followed by Apple.
While last year Huawei was the top smartphone brand in China with 30% of the market, the U.S. restrictions are biting and biting hard. Now, the beleaguered manufacturer has seen its share of the Chinese smartphone market declined to just 8%.
Some Huawei executives are surprised that they continue to be on the U.S. Entity List. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump cited security as his reason for placing Huawei on the list. After all, both Huawei and ZTE are considered national security threats to the U.S. Exactly a year to the day that its inclusion on the Entity List had been announced, the U.S. changed its Export Rules that prevent a foundry using American technology to manufacture chips from shipping cutting-edge components to Huawei.
It doesn’t appear that Huawei will be removed from U.S. restrictions for some time. Meanwhile, we should continue to see Honor go from strength to strength as it takes the knowledge it gained from being a Huawei sub-brand and uses it to move up the league tables in China.