Huawei Pura X Max: the first wide foldable on the market arrives on April 20

Huawei is accelerating the 2026 foldables calendar. The Huawei Pura X Max, officially launching on April 20 in China, debuts a format that Samsung and Apple plan to copy later in the year: the wide foldable book-style, wider than it is tall, with an internal screen that feels more tablet than smartphone. Pre-orders are already open on VMall. Chipset, resolution, and battery remain to be confirmed, but the design, colors, date, and AI stylus are official.

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What is the Huawei Pura X Max (and why it breaks with the traditional book-style)

The Pura X Max is the first passport-style foldable to reach the mass market. Unlike the Galaxy Z Fold 7 — tall, narrow, and oriented for vertical use — the Pura X Max folds along the long axis: when you open it, you get an almost square screen in landscape format, closer to an iPad mini than a book.

The journey didn't start today. The original Pura X (March 2025) had already tested this approach in a clamshell size, with a 6.3" internal screen in a 16:10 aspect ratio. The Max scales the concept to something that behaves like a compact tablet when unfolded, with the same "wider than it is tall" philosophy but in a book-style format.

The launch date was confirmed via Huawei's official Weibo, along with the parallel announcement of the Pura 90 Pro series. Pre-orders are already open on VMall, the official Chinese store.

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Design and configurations

Five official colors: Zero White, Phantom Black, Interstellar Blue, Olive Gold, and Vibrant Orange. The rear panel has a tripartite division — two sections with vertical texture and one smooth with the Huawei logo over the hinge — that breaks with the uniform panel the rest of the industry uses.

The camera module is horizontal and occupies the top quarter of the cover, with three sensors plus two LED flashes and XMAGE branding at the base. The design vocabulary is clearly that of the Pura family.

Official configurations, according to the VMall spec sheet: 12 GB RAM / 256 GB, 12 / 512, 16 / 512 (Collector's Edition), and 16 GB / 1 TB. No microSD card support.

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Screens and rumored specs

Here comes what Huawei hasn't officially confirmed yet, but was leaked by Digital Chat Station and Fixed Focus Digital, two sources with a good track record within the Chinese supply chain:

• Internal screen of 7.69" in 16:10 aspect with WQHD+ resolution
• External screen of 5.5"
• Kirin 9030 chipset (the same one that would debut the Pura 90 Pro series)
• Estimated battery at ~6000 mAh, possibly with Silicon-Carbon technology
• HarmonyOS 6.1 out of the box
• Minimal crease according to official renders — we’ll need to see it in hand

The 16:10 format is an important difference from what is rumored for Samsung and Apple (4:3): closer to a horizontal iPad mini than to a square book. For video consumption, reading, and vertical multitasking, 16:10 is more natural.

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AI stylus: the bet Samsung left behind

There’s an interesting tension between philosophies. Samsung removed the digitizer from the Galaxy Z Fold 7 to slim down the device. Huawei makes the opposite move: reintroduces support for M-Pencil in the Pura X Max, with He Gang (CEO of Consumer Business Group) confirming it last week in a promotional video.

Official demos focus on two apps. Born to Draw (灵感妙创) brings an "Inspiration Creation" tool that converts scribbles or text prompts into stylized illustrations. GoPaint is renewed with animations and styling tools by generative AI. Huawei also confirmed AI eye-tracking page-turning, which detects when your eyes reach the bottom edge of the page and advances automatically.

There’s a message in this: if you’re going to carry around a 7.7" foldable, what justifies the screen are not videos but creative and productive workflows. The stylus makes the internal tablet useful beyond consumption. It’s the same logic Samsung abandoned and which now — by rumors of the Fold 8 — seems it wants to reclaim.

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The war for the wide foldable: Huawei arrives first, but the tsunami is coming

2026 is the year the industry converges. The "tall and narrow" book-style that Samsung installed since the original Fold was the default; everyone copied that format. That consensus breaks this year, and three players are aiming for the same format at different times:

The race matters for several reasons.

Timing. Huawei arrives almost three months before Samsung and up to eight before Apple. For the Chinese market — where Huawei is dominant — that's half a season won. Globally it doesn't compete directly (HarmonyOS without Google Services, limited distribution outside China), but the symbolic effect is real: it sets the narrative that the future of foldables is horizontal.

Technical convergence. Three companies are gambling on the same format after years of different iterations. It’s no coincidence: tall and narrow foldables always had a usability issue — the external screen is too slim to operate comfortably, and the internal one ends up being an awkward vertical book. The wide format solves both. Apple, which usually defines categories by being late but right, is validating the approach Oppo and Huawei explored first.

The race to eliminate the crease. Samsung Display showcased at CES 2026 an OLED panel with no visible crease, and this very panel would be the one Apple uses in the iPhone Fold. Huawei hasn’t made specific declarations about the Pura X Max’s crease — official renders show it as minimal, but renders are renders.

What this model doesn’t finally solve is international distribution. Officially, the Pura X Max doesn’t leave China. HarmonyOS 6.1 doesn’t run Android apps natively nor has Google services. For LATAM, it's fundamentally an inaccessible product except via blind import — and without an official support network, it's not something I'd recommend jumping onto.

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Conclusion

Huawei beats Samsung and Apple on timing and conviction. The Pura X Max is not an experiment — it’s a third generation of the wide format applied at different scales (Mate X series, Pura X clamshell, now Max passport). When Samsung and Apple arrive, they will compete against a product that will have already had six months of real market presence and user feedback.

The AI stylus is the most interesting philosophical bet: the big screen as a work surface, not just for consumption. If it works, Samsung will have to respond — and rumors of an S Pen in the Galaxy Z Fold 8 suggest they’re already watching.

What remains to be defined will be resolved on April 20: confirmed chipset and battery, final price for each configuration, and first hands-on impressions about the crease and durability. Until then, it’s the most important foldable we’ll see this year.