Huawei’s Pura X, a foldable smartphone launched Thursday, is the first to run the tech giant’s own operating system as it looks to create a viable alternative to Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.
When unfolded, the Pura X has a 6.3-inch display, but its 16:10 aspect ratio gives it a wider screen area than most other smartphones on the market. The device folds in half into a compact square and has a 3.5-inch display with a camera at the front.
The Pura X starts at 7,499 Chinese yuan ($1,037).
The device is important for Huawei for two reasons.
Firstly, since the end of 2023, Huawei has seen a revival in its smartphone business in China following U.S. sanctions which had crippled its sales.
Huawei has aggressively launched more unusual devices in an effort to differentiate itself from rivals, including a trifold smartphone.
The Shenzhen-headquartered company also poses a challenge to Apple in China.
Huawei’s market share in the fourth quarter of 2024 rose to 16.2% in China versus 13.7% a year before, according to the International Data Corporation. Apple’s market share declined from 20% to 17.4% over the same period.
The second reason is that the Pura X is the first to run HarmonyOS 5, the latest version of Huawei’s self-developed operating system. It was initially launched in November as HarmonyOS Next and reportedly no longer uses code from the open-source version of Google’s Android operating system.
This is a significant step by Huawei to remove any ties to Google and Android. In 2019, U.S. sanctions forced Google to stop working with Huawei.
The Pura X is also equipped with Xiaoyi, Huawei’s AI assistant which is underpinned by its own artificial intelligence models as well as those developed by DeepSeek.
