HUAWEI has been at the forefront of developing foldable smartphones alongside Samsung, despite the fact that its Mate X-series has not been as widely available as the Galaxy Fold series phones. But HUAWEI took a different take on the foldable phone concept by adopting a single panel outward-folding design, while Samsung went for a dual-display inward folding approach. But as per a recent patent filing, it looks like HUAWEI is trying to shake things up by opting for an inward folding design for its next foldable phone – tentatively called the Mate X2.

The patent filed before China’s CNIPA features rough schematics of a foldable phone that has an inner foldable display without any camera whatsoever. There’s neither a hole-punch cutout, nor a notch, and all you get is an expansive screen real estate on the HUAWEI Mate X2’s inner side. Over at the back, one half of the device is occupied by a large cover display with a pill-shaped cutout in the top-left corner for housing the camera sensors. The rear camera module is present on the other half and it features five cutouts for imaging lenses. The one at the top has a rectangular lens that will most likely be a part of a periscope-style telephoto lens system. 

The folks over at LetsGoDigital added a dash of colors and depth effect to the HUAWEI Mate X2 design schematics, giving us a rough idea of how the device might actually look like. Concept designer Ben Geskin went a step further and created a life-like version of the HUAWEI Mate X2 from the patent schematics, and it looks pretty darn impressive.  The design similarities with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 are almost impossible to overlook. But hey, this is just an artistic rendition we are talking about and the final product might end up looking much different. Also, HUAWEI is yet to officially reveal anything about its next foldable phone project, so process these HUAWEI Mate X2 renders with a bit of skepticism.