Here's when to expect Huawei's next flagship series; specs for the phones leak

Last August Huawei stunned the smartphone world when it announced the Mate 60 Pro. What was shocking about the introduction? It was the first Huawei handset to feature an applications processor (AP) able to support 5G since the Mate 40 was released in 2020. U.S. lawmakers were sure that they had prevented the Chinese manufacturer from obtaining 5G chipsets when it banned foundries using American technology from shipping cutting-edge chips to Huawei in 2020.

The Mate 60 Pro is powered by the 7nm Kirin 9000s AP built by SMIC, China's largest foundry. The previous three flagship phones released by Huawei, the P50, the Mate 50, and the P60, were all powered by Snapdragon chipsets tweaked to prevent them from working with 5G networks. Huawei was able to receive a license from the U.S. Customs Department to buy those chips from Qualcomm.

The next flagship series coming from Huawei is the photography-based P70 series. Because it still cannot buy cutting-edge chipsets from other foundries (at one time Huawei was TSMC's second-largest customer after Apple), the P70 series will also be powered by the Kirin 9000s. Without access to the extreme ultraviolet lithography machines that other foundries can buy, SMIC is limited to building chips using its 7nm node or higher, unable to compete with the 3nm node that TSMC and Samsung Foundry currently use.

According to posts and images seen on the Chinese social media site Weibo, the P70 line will be introduced by Huawei on April 2nd. Four models are expected to be available: Huawei P70, P70 Pro, P70 Pro+, and P70 Art. The P70 is expected to sport a 6.58-inch LTPO OLED display with a 50MP main camera on the back (using an OmniVision50H sensor) and a 13MP front-facing selfie camera. A 5000mAh battery will keep the lights on and will support 88W wired and 50W wireless charging.

The P70 Pro, P70 Pro+, and P70 Art will all feature a 6.76-inch LTPO OLED screen. The P70 Pro will use the same 50MP OmniVision sensor for its main camera while the P70 Pro+ and P70 Art will use the Sony IMX989 sensor. All three will be equipped with a 13MP front-facing camera. The P70 Pro will have a 5200mAh battery while a 5100mAh battery will power the P70 Pro+ and the P70 Art. The batteries on all three of the Pro series handsets will deliver 88W wired charging and 80W wireless charging.

The Huawei P70 will be priced at 4,999 CNY (equivalent to $700) for the model with 12GB RAM and 512GB of storage. The P70 Pro will cost CNY6,999 ($970) for the variant with 12GB  RAM and 256 GB of storage. The P70 Pro+ will cost CNY8,999 ($1,200) for the phone sporting 16GB RAM and 512 GB of storage, and the P70 Art will run you CNY9,999 ($1,400) for the version with 16GB RAM and 512 GB of storage.

The Mate 60 series has revitalized Huawei and the company believes that the P70 line will continue its amazing comeback.