- Huawei is reportedly working on adding Apple’s Dynamic Island to its phone
- The feature may appear on its next flagship phone, the Nova 11
- It, however, is unlikely to be marketed anywhere apart from China
Huawei, the Chinese electronics conglomerate, is arguably only a shadow of the massive global brand that it once was, prior to US sanctions pretty much killing its global consumer-facing businesses. However, that may not stop it from making smartphones, and one new smartphone that it is allegedly working on will reportedly take a leaf out of Apple’s design playback to include the new notch design seen on the iPhone 14 Pro lineup.
What the new Huawei notch design may look like
According to the report by Huawei Central, the new notch design may appear on an upcoming flagship smartphone, the Huawei Nova 11. The notch will seemingly be shaped like a pill, and feature software optimisations that could see it shift shapes based on the notifications that you receive.
While this shape shifting occurs as extended notification bars on either side of a notch, thus making it a software optimisation feature, Apple’s implementation makes it look like an extension of the notch itself, which hosts the front camera and the face recognition apparatus. As of now, it remains unclear as to how Huawei’s implementation would work, although an edited render of the phone, which shows the pill-shaped notch at the front, looks in line with what the iPhone Dynamic Island notch looks like.
To be sure, the pill-shaped notch is not particularly new. The Huawei Nova 10 Pro from last year had the same notch design, due to accommodating two front cameras. Previous phones from other brands have done so, too. However, this could be the first time that Huawei would include software features to extend or change the notch shape, as per notifications.
The report, however, makes it more or less clear that the Nova 11 will not be a global device, or even feature 5G connectivity — factors that have plagued Huawei phones ever since the brand was slapped with sanctions against usage of US-designed technology. The latter was enforced by erstwhile US president, Donald Trump, as suspicions around the company’s cyber espionage acts for the China government emerged. The purported Huawei Nova 11, therefore, is tipped to feature a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC for performance, but without 5G support.
Huawei has denied all charges against it. However, that has not stopped the brand from not being able to use Google’s Mobile Services (and therefore its app ecosystem), 5G connectivity in modern chipsets, and other features.
