A new Huawei patent has surfaced. This is a design patent that shows a rather interesting smartphone. Based on this, Huawei may release a smartphone with three flip-up cameras in the future.
This patent had been filed with WIPO (World Intellectual Property Office) back on January 9, 2019. The patent was approved only a couple of days ago, on December 17.
The Galaxy A80 already debuted a triple rotating camera setup, though that system is considerably different from this. The Galaxy A80’s camera setup turns around its axis, inside the housing.
This Huawei smartphone with three flip-up cameras reminds us of the ASUS ZenFone 6
The flip-up camera system inside of this Huawei phone is more regular. It actually seems to be quite similar to what we’ve seen on the ASUS ZenFone 6.
You can see three horizontally-aligned cameras on the back of this phone, with an LED flash next to them. Now, those three cameras serve as both the phone’s rear-facing, and front-facing units.
Those cameras will flip-up when you switch to a selfie camera in the camera app on this Huawei device, presuming it ever becomes a reality, of course. Therefore, we’re looking at the motorized camera setup here.
These cameras can rotate up to 180 degrees, and we presume that Huawei will offer you a chance to control the rotation manually. The ASUS ZenFone 6 does allow for that, and it can even take landscape shots on its own.
The device that is shown in these sketches has extremely thin bezels, they’re almost non-existent. All of its physical keys are located on the right, while the SIM card tray sits on the left.
This could be just a reference design
Do note that this could just be a reference device, though. The main emphasis here is on that flip-up camera system, which protrudes a bit, by the way.
It is also worth noting that this is just a random patent at this point. It is possible that it will become a reality in the future, but that doesn’t have to be the case, we’ll see.
Chances are that Huawei will include such a setup in a mid-range phone, though, not a flagship. It is almost certain that the Huawei P40 (Pro) will not include such a camera setup, but we’ll see.
Speaking of which, the Huawei P40 and P40 Pro will become official at the end of March. Huawei’s CEO, Richard Yu, confirmed that quite recently, during an interview.
