Less than a week after Samsung unveiled its first foldable phone, the Galaxy Fold, Huawei is out with its first foldable phone as well. The Mate X makes the Galaxy Fold look like a first-generation product. It not only has a more practical design and a slimmer chassis but also comes with plenty of other meaningful features.
The Mate X has an 8-inch foldable display with a thickness of 11mm when folded. Unlike the Galaxy Fold, the Mate X display folds on the outside instead of inside. Plus, it has three different functionalities. The device has one thick side meant for gripping purposes. It also incorporates three cameras along with a push-button latch which secures the tablet when it is folded. The triple-camera setup carries the Lecia branding, though Huawei did not talk much about its performance and capabilities.
Huawei has worked on the hinge of the Mate X for over three years and calls it the Falcon Wing design. It is made up of more than 100 components.
When folded, the Mate X has a primary 6.6-inch display, with a 6.4-inch display at the rear. The rear display is used as a viewfinder to click selfies using the primary camera. When unfolded, the device has an 8-inch display with a resolution of 2480 x 2200.
Like other recent Huawei devices, the Mate X is powered by a 7nm Kirin 980 chipset. For 5G connectivity, it has Huawei’s own Balong 5000 5G modem which offers dual-SIM connectivity as well. There’s a massive 4500mAh battery inside the device. What’s even more impressive is that the Mate X comes with a new version of Huawei’s SuperCharge technology that can charge the device to 85 percent in just 30 minutes.
The Huawei Mate X launches in Q2 this year for €2,299. It will feature 8GB RAM and 512GB storage. That’s roughly $2,500 making it a fair bit costlier than the Galaxy Fold. But then the Mate X does seem like a much better product than the Galaxy Fold.
Foldable phones are still a concept but the Mate X definitely seems like a more refined and well-developed product than the Galaxy Fold. It now remains to be seen as to how well it fares in real life when compared to the Galaxy Fold.
