All doubt has been removed, the era of the folding smartphone is here. On February 20, Samsung showed off the Galaxy Fold, and if you got excited over that, wait until you see the Huawei Mate X. Huawei has been open about making a folding phone for a while, and even mentioned that it will support 5G before, but now we’ve seen it — from a distance — and it’s even more intriguing than Samsung’s phone.
Here’s everything we know about the Huawei Mate X folding smartphone.
Huawei describes the Mate X as a product that will redefine the smartphone space, the future of design and the future of technology, all in one. The body folds in a similar way to the Royale Flexpai, and not like the Samsung Galaxy Fold, meaning the large tablet screen becomes the front and the rear screen when folded.
When in this configuration, the main screen measures 6.6-inches and has a 2,480 x 1,148 pixel resolution. Huawei makes a point of calling this the main screen, and says it’s the part of the phone people will use most often, hence the size. The Samsung Galaxy Fold’s outer screen is 4.6-inches, for comparison. On the back of the Mate X is a 6.38-inch, 2,480 x 892 pixel resolution screen. Fold the device open and you get an 8-inch OLED tablet screen with a 2,480 x 2,200 pixel resolution.
The unfolding process is facilitated by what Huawei calls a Falcon Hinge, which hides beneath the curvature of the screen, ensuring both sides of the phone lay flat when folded. This results in a very slim profile of just 11mm thick. Unfolded, it’s 5.4mm thick. Samsung informed us during the launch event the Galaxy Fold will be around 17mm thick.
Despite the wrap-around screen, Huawei cleverly differentiates between the front and rear screens when folded with a blacked-out spine, making it look like a regular — just thicker — smartphone. On one side of the Mate X is a bar which contains components, the camera lenses, and the power button which also contains a fingerprint sensor. This bar has been ergonomically shaped to make one-handed use of the Mate X much easier.
We have seen the Huawei Mate X close up, but not held or interacted with the phone yet. We cannot comment on its weight, how it feels to use, or how the screen looks. From a distance, the product looks polished and exciting, but it was clear while the phone was being shown off that the software still needs work. Additionally, when the phone was unfolded, there were ripples across the screen suggesting it may not look as smooth as glass. However, these are only impressions gained from a short time in the presence of the device.
SPECIFICATION
Huawei promised a folding 5G phone, and it has delivered. The Mate X uses the Kirin 980 processor with the new Balong 5000 5G modem, plus a quad 5G antenna inside. Huawei boasted about testing its 5G modem on live 5G networks, and said it has twice the performance of Qualcomm’s old X50 chip. It says a 1GB video file can be downloaded in three seconds on a 5G network.
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