Huawei’s most recent smartphone launch was quite heavily signposted. The Pocket S, a successor to the P50 Pocket handset, is now official. As expected, it’s cheap. Surprisingly cheap, for a folding smartphone. Based on Chinese pricing (the only country where it’s official), there’s no cheaper folding smartphone anywhere else.
If you were to opt for the 128GB version of the phone — you can’t, but if you could — it would set you back R15,000. Its official price is about CNY6,000, while the 256GB version costs CNY6,500 (R16,300). A later 512GB version will launch towards the end of the year for CNY7,500 (R18,830). Even that’s pretty cheap, as these things go.
Not out of Pocket S
Since it’s official, we can finally list exactly what the Huawei Pocket S entails. Amazingly, there are actually two displays. Unsurprisingly, the second one is a dinky little circular 1.04in 340 x 340 effort. We’re almost 100% certain that it was originally supposed to live in a smartwatch. The company has used the form factor in a wearable before, at a lower resolution.
The main, foldable 6.9in screen sports a 2,790 x 1,188 resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate, and a 300Hz touch sample rate. The Pocket S is powered by a Snapdragon 778G, an LTE chipset that the Chinese company is very fond of just lately. The new folding handset doesn’t feature 5G. It’s LTE only, we’re afraid.
The rear/cover camera is a dual setup comprising a 40MP main sensor and a 13MP ultrawide. A laser autofocus sensor sits where a third camera lens would be. Up front, there’s a 10.7MP selfie shooter, doubtless with Huawei’s enthusiastic smoothing tech enabled.
The Huawei Pocket S uses a 4,000mAh lithium-polymer battery that supports up to 40W fast charging. Amazingly, the handset is able to wirelessly charge another device (at a paltry 5W, but still).
There are concessions here that bring the price of the Pocket S down, which might make it an attractive buy when it gets to South Africa. When the P50 Pocket launched in China, it took a few months to get to other countries. We’re expecting this one locally sometime in April next year, provided the pattern holds up. Keep an eye out for updates and a review, as soon as we’re able to provide it.