Forget the iPhone Duo: A new wide non-folding phone is setting sales records

The Huawei Pura X View marks the return of the phablet

Huawei Pura X View
Are people fed up with tall and narrow phones? | Image by Huawei
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The Galaxy Z Fold 8 and the iPhone Duo seem to have ignited a wide-fold revolution, but there's another market shift happening as I write this. Apparently, people just love the wide form factor—even when it's applied to a non-folding phone.

The Huawei Pura X View smashes sales records



Huawei was actually the first company to launch a wide-folding phone with the Pura X, even though the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and the iPhone Duo are much more popular. The company took a huge gamble earlier this month, unveiling a wide, non-folding phone at the Enjoy G9 SUV launch event.

Now it seems that this gamble is paying off. The Pura X View recorded a record-breaking opening week, showing that people are hungry for new form factors. According to data posted by the famous Chinese tipster Digital Chat Station, the Pura X View sold more than 280,000 units in just five days.

The sales performance of the Pura X View skyrocketed it to the top spot in sales volume for all individual wide-screen phones across all brands during week 37 of 2026.

The Pura X View is more than a phablet reincarnated



In the early 2010s, when phones started to grow in display size, the term "phablet" was coined to describe devices with screens between 5 and 6.9 inches.

This term quickly fell out of fashion because almost all smartphone brands moved toward bigger screens, while small 6–7 inch tablets disappeared.

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The Pura X View reminds me of that era, and when I first saw the renders, I wrote to our colleagues in our group chat: "Welcome back, phablet."

But the Pura X View is more than a reheat of an old idea—it's actually a non-folding Pura X Max. Huawei is trying to assess the market and see if people want a wider form factor, not just in foldables.

What do you think of this wide, non-folding form factor?
7 Votes


The Pura X View is a true flagship in a super-thin body



Let's start with the obvious. The Pura X View features a 6.39-inch screen with an aspect ratio of 5:3. The screen supports a 120 Hz refresh rate and, according to the spec sheet, it can reach up to 6,500 nits of peak brightness.

The phone uses a 5nm Kirin 9030S chip paired with HarmonyOS 7, and it's available in various memory configurations all the way up to 12GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

The camera system is also top-notch: the main camera is a 200MP snapper with an f/1.8 aperture and OIS, accompanied by a 50MP periscope telephoto lens with 3.7x optical zoom and an 8MP ultrawide.

The phone is just 6.68 mm thick, but Huawei managed to squeeze a massive 7,000 mAh battery inside the thin chassis.

A new era for wide non-folding phones?


The initial success of the Pura X View could be a hint of something much bigger. Are people fed up with tall and narrow phones? This new wide format is better for reading and browsing, and you can even watch IMAX movies with no black bands on the screen—even though IMAX doesn't recommend watching movies on a phone.

The aspect ratio of the new Huawei Pura X View is almost identical to that of the original Amazon Kindle (1.6:1 versus 1.66:1). The latter has been the reading device of choice for millions of people.

Granted, no one holds their Kindle to their ear to make a call, but there's something in this new wide format. Maybe the next foldables will use this wide form factor, just folded in the middle like a wide flip? What do you think about it? Are we getting a new smartphone form factor, or is the tall and narrow phone still the best option?

Read more about cool new, experimental gadgets here:

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