What you need to know
- Huawei will announce its next flagship phones at a virtual event next week.
- Huawei says the P50 series phones would have "new mobile imaging technology."
- Rumors suggest the phones will feature a custom 1-inch Sony IMX800 primary sensor.
Huawei consumer group CEO Richard Yu today confirmed in a post on Weibo that the company's flagship P50 series phones will debut on July 29. The P50 and P50 Pro were first teased by the company at its mega HarmonyOS launch event last month.
According to Yu, the P50 series will set a new benchmark for smartphone cameras, thanks to a "new mobile imaging technology." Although Huawei hasn't revealed any details yet, rumors claim the P50 and P50 Pro will have a custom 1-inch Sony IMX800 main sensor. Currently, the only phone with a 1-inch camera sensor is the Sharp Aquos R6, which was launched in Japan earlier this year.
As per recent reports out of China, Huawei is planning to use Qualcomm's Snapdragon 888 for the P50 series due to a shortage of its in-house developed Kirin 9000 chipsets. The vanilla P50 is expected to be powered by a 4G-only variant of Qualcomm's flagship mobile chip.
While we'll have to wait a little longer to find out more about Huawei's answer to the best Android phones of 2021, it is quite clear that they will not offer any Google apps or services. Unlike Honor, Huawei is still subject to U.S. sanctions. Even though it was successful in limiting the impact of the ban on its smartphone business in the first year, Huawei's market share has fallen sharply in the last few quarters.
Huawei's former sub-brand Honor also plans to take the wraps off its next flagship phones very soon. The company started sending out invites to a global launch event for the Magic 3 series last week. It is being speculated that the Honor Magic 3 series could be the first to feature Qualcomm's Snapdragon 888 Plus chipset. Other rumored specs of the phones include 66W/100W fast charging and dual hole-punch screens with QHD+ resolution.
