Huawei has been a steady player in the foldable phone market, recently launching the Pocket 2, the first clamshell design with a quad-camera array on the exterior. Now, patents filed with China’s CNIPA offer a glimpse into what future Huawei flip phones might hold.
While patents don’t guarantee their use in final products, they can provide clues about a company’s design direction. These patents, unearthed by 91mobiles, show five variations Huawei might be exploring for their future clamshell foldable design. The core folding mechanism remains consistent across all the models, with the variations primarily focusing on camera placement.
Huawei’s current Pocket 2 features a vertically stacked design with a quad-camera module and a separate circular cutout for the cover display. The new patents show what could be the future alternatives for it:
One design proposes two circular rings on the phone’s exterior like the Huawei Pocket 2 but they are placed horizontally. Another patent shows the same format but this one has a strip around the upper section of the rear side.
The third is an interesting one that shows a clamshell phone with two cutouts of different sizes positioned diagonally. The larger one presumably houses the cover display and the smaller ring might be for the cameras.
Huawei also appears to be experimenting with square camera modules in place of circular ones. As you can see in the patent below, the flip phone features two square frames on the rear (arranged horizontally) instead of in a circular configuration.
Another design shows the square frames arranged diagonally in a larger and smaller layout, similar to the circular design.
These patents suggest Huawei is considering a shift away from the dual-ring design of the Pocket 2. Whether these layouts translate into real-world devices remains to be seen, but they offer an interesting look at the company’s foldable phone development.
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