Despite nailing the reveal at MWC last year, Huawei’s impressive foldable phone, the Mate X, never made it any farther than briefings, press conferences and early adopters — there is a reason it wasn’t reviewed by us. The Mate X was not cheap, it was not ideal but it looked like the strongest alternative that is foldable at the time. (And we all know just how Samsung’s first effort turned out.)
The remade Galaxy Fold of samsung is the best analog for Huawei’s Mate Xs 5G, a telephone which should be better ready for time. Nothing particularly major has shifted because the Mate X. There’s still an 8-inch unfolded display, transforming into a 6.6-inch phone in smartphone mode.
So what has changed about the Mate Xs? The hinge itself has been updated, although there is still a release button to unfurl the smartphone. According to Huawei, elements and parts inside the hinge’s amount is up from around 100 to 150. I can feel the difference — I believe? Huawei did not have last year’s Mate X round for comparisons, but it seems as though it has more heft to it something which the first Mate X was lacking.
The camera array, located again on the hinge unit, includes a 40-megapixel main camera, with an 8-megapixel telephoto camera and an ultra-wide 20-megapixel shooter. There’s a time-of-flight sensor, too, for Portrait effects and such. Nothing has particularly changed here; Huawei’s mobile cameras are still among the best — even if a lot of people will never get to try them.
Beyond the hardware upgrades, Huawei outlined some new scalable app capabilities that should make the most of buying a foldable phone. The best example I saw in my limited time was how Huawei’s email app would switch UI dependent on whether the Mate Xs was unfolded or not. At full-size, you can see and interact with your inbox tabs — the kind of view you’d get on a proper tablet. Huawei has put work into its own apps to better fit the foldable’s unorthodox screen size and help strengthen the proposition of the thing.
The struggle remains that it’s not got the Android apps and services you expect and want to use. With Huawei’s post-Google devices, running on Android Open Source Project (AOSP), you get the Android feel, but it’s hampered by a lack of Google Maps, Gmail and all the third-party apps on Google Play.
Folding and unfolding aside, the Mate Xs made for an otherwise dry first impression. I watched YouTube through the browser, played with the camera, but then what else can I test? I could install TikTok, I guess — it’s one of the few notable apps available on Huawei’s version of Google Play.
