Huawei P50 dummy units appear with unusual camera design and HarmonyOS marketing

Huawei has pioneered camera hardware with its P series, as we have covered when reviewing the P20 Pro and P30 Pro a few years ago. This year, Huawei is alleged to have equipped some P50 models with 1-inch camera sensors, which would be a first in the smartphone market. Initially, CAD renders suggested that the P50 and P50 Pro would have two huge rear-facing camera lenses, but the reality may be slightly different.

Based on multiple leaked dummy handsets that have leaked on Weibo, it looks like Huawei has included two cameras per circular housing, giving the P50 four rear-facing cameras. The P50 also has a centred punch-hole, unlike the Mate 40 and P40 before it.

Additionally, the dummy unit has 'Powered by HarmonyOS' printed on it, rather than EMUI. While this would appear to be the direction Huawei is headed with smartphone OSes, the inclusion of HarmonyOS on the P50 series is at odds with Huawei's HarmonyOS 2.0 roadmap. At last year's Huawei Developer Conference, the company announced that HarmonyOS 2.0 would not support devices with more than 4 GB of RAM until October 2021. Perhaps, Huawei has brought forward its roadmap since then, but we cannot find anything that confirms this speculation.

Huawei is expected to launch the P50 series next month. However, it is unclear if the company will sell any SKUs outside of China.

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