Days after Samsung introduced the Galaxy Fold, Huawei has revealed its own foldable smartphone.
The Huawei Mate X is a new foldable with 5G support. One notable difference about the Mate X compared to the Galaxy Fold is the way that Huawei's phone folds; rather than opening to reveal its large screen on the inside, the Mate X is an "outie" that has its screens on the front and back that combine for one large display when unfolded.
When folded, the Mate X has a 6.6-inch 2480x1148 screen on its front and 6.38-inch 2480x892 display on its back. Those two screens combine to form an 8-inch 2480x2200 OLED display when unfolded. Huawei calls its folding mechanism a Falcon Wing Mechanical Hinge, and the company says that its design "ensures the screen will not over stretch while folding or bulge in unfolding."
Another notable feature of the Huawei Mate X is its 5G connectivity. The device includes a Balong 5000, a 7nm 5G multi-mode modem chipset that supports download speeds up to 4.6Gbps on the sub-6GHz band. The modem includes 2G/3G/4G/5G support as well as standalone and non-standalone support. There are dual SIM slots on the Mate X, too, though 5G is only supported on the primary SIM card.
The Huawei Mate X appears to have a triple camera setup. There's a 40MP wide angle lens on there, a 16MP ultra wide angle snapper, and an 8MP telephoto lens. Because it's got screens on the front and back, you can use the rear display as a viewfinder when you're taking selfies with the Leica-branded camera system.
Other notable features of the Huawei Mate X include an octa-core Kirin 980 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 512GB of built-in storage. There's NM card support that'll let you add up to 256GB of additional storage and a fingerprint reader built into the power button on the side of the device. Also included is a 4500mAh battery that you recharge using USB-C, and Huawei touts that with its 55W SuperCharge tech, you can get an 85 percent charge in 30 minutes.
On the software side, the Mate X runs Android 9 Pie below Huawei's custom EMUI 9.1.1 user interface.
The Huawei Mate X will launch in the middle of 2019 with a price of €2299 EUR ($2,600 USD). That's pretty pricey, but the Mate X is a first gen foldable phone that also has top-end specs as well as 5G connectivity. Now we just have to wait until the middle of the year so we can see how the Mate X and its foldable design performs.
What do you think of the Huawei Mate X?
