Honor plans international release for its foldables

Source: Honor

Chinese smartphone maker Honor has plans to bring its foldables to markets outside of its home country. Its CEO George Zhao confirmed the news at IFA 2022 in Berlin. We expect its next foldable device to come out in the first quarter of 2023. Zhao hasn't shared specifics about the upcoming device, but the brand's focus for its foldables is to make them thinner, lighter, and more affordable. Europe seems to be the target market, but we're keeping an eye out if it'll make its way to this side of the world.

As The Verge pointed out, the first quarter release will come roughly a year after Honor debuted its first foldable, the Honor Magic V.

Honor launches Magic V foldable smartphone

Source: Honor

Former Huawei sub-brand Honor is the newest company to release its first foldable. The new Honor Magic V bears similar looks to Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold devices. It folds inward and has an external on one side. 

The internal screen measures 7.9 inches with a 2,272 x 1984 resolution, 90Hz refresh rate, and 10:9 aspect ratio. Honor claims the inner display is like having two 21:9 screens side by side. Meanwhile, its outer display is slightly larger than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 at 6.45 inches (compared to Samsung's 6.2 inches) with a 2,560 x 1,080 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and a 21:9 aspect ratio. That somewhat more standard screen size will make it more usable even when you don't unfold the handset.

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Rumoured Google Pixel foldable tipped to get four cameras, expected to launch in 2022

Mitchell Luo/Unsplash

Google's first foldable device is expected to arrive in 2022, but it might not get the camera setup you'd want. 9to5Google reported in a recent APK teardown that the rumoured device will most likely get four cameras. A 12.2-megapixel IMX363 primary lens, 12-megapixel IMX386 ultrawide camera, and two 8-megapixel IMX355 front-facing cameras. The identical sensors are said to be for the outer and inner display, probably to offer the same camera quality whether the phone is folded or not.

That primary sensor isn't what you see on the new Pixel 6 series. Instead, this foldable Pixel phone (codenamed "Pipit") will reportedly use the Pixel 5's camera. The existing Pixel flagships have a larger sensor, which led to that distinctive camera bar on the Pixel 6. But with foldables that are typically built to be slim, that extra millimetre for the camera bump might not be the best idea.

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LG's new material gets rid of creasing in foldables

One of the issues with foldables is creasing, and LG has developed a new material that addresses this and the foldable screen's durability. The company's chemical branch made a cover window, a protective part that lies on top of the display, designed to be as tough as glass and as flexible as plastic.

LG created this cover with a special coating on top of a thin polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic film. This material is said to be sturdier and more flexible than the existing crop of polyimide film and tempered glass-based solutions.

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