Huawei's new smartphone has a 180-degree rotating camera

Huawei's newest smartphone has a rotating rear camera that can flip forward to take high quality selfie photos.

The Chinese company unveiled in Beijing on Thursday the Honor 7i product, which comes with a Sony 13-megapixel camera attached by a hinge.

The hinge lets the camera rotate at 180-degrees, allowing users to take photos from both the device's rear and the front. Once the camera is flipped to face forward, the phone's software will automatically enter into a selfie-taking mode.

Huawei isn't the first to come up with the concept. Over a year ago, rival Chinese handset maker Oppo also launched its own smartphone with a rotating camera called the N1. 

Users might be concerned about the camera's durability, but Huawei claims its phone can be rotated over 100,000 times, and can withstand 50 kilograms of weight.

Huawei declined to disclose its international plans for the phone. But the company's Honor brand is striving to become a bigger name on the global marketplace.

Products under the Honor name are already available in 74 markets, and the brand is preparing to enter the U.S.

As for the Honor 7i, the phone runs Android 5.1 and comes with some higher-end specs, including a 1080p 5.2-inch screen. Inside is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 processor that uses eight-cores, and the phone will have 2GB or 3GB of RAM.

In terms of memory, it can have either 16GB or 32GB, but has a microSD card slot for expandable storage. The Honor 7i also has a 3100 mAh battery.

To give the phone a sleek look, the product is fitted in a metal frame. On the left side of the phone there is also a fingerprint scanner.

Huawei is pricing the product in the range of 1599 yuan (US$250) to 1899 yuan. It will be available in China on Sept. 1.