Huawei Mate X8 foldable to launch in November with Kirin 9050 Pro chip

Why it matters: Huawei's Mate X series is the company's flagship foldable line, and its Kirin chips are watched as a marker of how far China's domestic chip design has come under US export restrictions. Premium foldables remain a small but high-margin segment where Huawei competes with Samsung globally.

Huawei's Mate X8 foldable phone will launch in November, according to tipster "Zhihui Pikachu" (智慧皮卡丘), cited by tech site Kuaikeji. The phone is positioned in the 10,000-yuan (about $1,400) high-end foldable segment.

The screen keeps the book-style horizontal fold: an outer display of about 6.5 inches and an 8.15-inch inner screen when opened, covered with UTG glass. UTG, or ultra-thin glass, is light and flexible, helping balance flatness and durability in folding displays.

The Mate X8 will carry the Kirin 9050 Pro processor, which uses a "logic folding" 3D architecture already deployed in flagship models including the Mate 90 series, according to the report. The chip has a nine-core CPU — one 3.1GHz prime core, two 2.7GHz performance cores, four 2.2GHz efficiency cores and two 1.75GHz small cores — plus a Maleon 955 GPU.

The camera setup includes a 50-megapixel main sensor, a 50-megapixel RYYB periscope telephoto lens and an ultrawide lens, with a "red maple" colour sensor for accuracy, the report said. It also supports telephoto macro and high-frame-rate slow-motion video.

The battery is rated above 6,000mAh, which the report describes as top-tier among foldables of this shape. There is also talk of a privacy version that can restrict viewing angles with one tap, aimed at business users.