Huawei Mate X priced at €2,299 hands-on review
Last updated on: 26 February,2019 12:04 pm
Huawei's Mate X dropped with gusto at Mobile World Congress 2019.
(Web Desk) – The Huawei Mate X is a tablet-phone hybrid with an exterior folding display that Huawei has termed a “full view display,” which is wrapped around the outside of the device.
The Huawei Mate X costs €2,299, which converts to about $2,600, £2,000, AU$4,770 with 512GB of internal storage and 8GB of RAM, while Huawei has hinted that there will be other variants.
Huawei’s Mate X dropped with gusto at Mobile World Congress 2019, and with a price tag that makes Samsung’s Galaxy Fold look almost affordable.
The single flexible 8-inch OLED display provides experience similar to tablet when open. The Mate X in tablet mode is not quite square with an aspect ratio of 8:7.1.
Its 2,480 x 2,200 resolution results in 414 pixels per inch.
A New Design
When the tablet is closed to use the Mate X as a phone, the screen works as a dual-display and shows a typical front-display that is illuminated with a 6.6-inch panel with the more familiar 19.5:9 aspect ratio.
This provides a bezel-free experience with no notch or display cut-out.
The rear part of the display turns on when the phone is flipped around, with the Mate X offering a slightly smaller 6.38-inch panel with 25:9 aspect ratio.
The reason the Mate X’s rear display has a different aspect ratio to the front is that there is a thick hand grip on one side of the back of the phone. This side bezel simultaneously provides easier handling of the otherwise bezel-free device but also houses various cameras and sensors.
Features
The main benefit of putting the cameras in a side bezel is that there’s no notch to be found anywhere on the Mate X’s display.
At first glance, this might seem much better than the huge notch on Samsung’s Galaxy Fold but it’s not quite that clear-cut.
The most obvious downside of Huawei’s approach is that when you’re in tablet mode there is no camera directed at you, meaning that the video calling along with selfies feature is only possible when using the rear display in phone mode.
The Galaxy Fold, by contrast, doesn’t suffer from this “problem.”
There are other pros and cons to the new approach of Huawei – like the fact that the Mate X’s display folds perfectly flat when it’s open and lies flush against itself when closed, but the grip means it doesn’t lay flat on a table when open.
Huawei Mate X Specifications
Display 6.6-inch front screen (when closed), 19.5:9, 2480 x 1148 6.38-inch rear screen (when closed), 25:9, 2480 x 892 8-inch full view screen, 8:7.1, 2480 x 2200
SoC HiSilicon Kirin 980 GPU Arm Mali-G76 MP10 RAM 8GB Storage 512GB Cameras Leica triple camera Battery 4,500mAh dual batteries, 55W SuperCharge charging Sensors Side-mounted fingerprint sensor Network 4.6Gbps 5G Software EMUI Colors Interstellar Blue
According to Huawei, the Kirin 980 and Balong 5000 modem are capable of 4.6Gbps downlink speeds, which are double the industry standard for 5G and ten times what’s currently available with 4G networks.
That bandwidth means you can download a 1GB movie in just three seconds at sub-6GHz speeds. The phone features 8GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage.
The Mate X battery is 4,500mAh and supports 55W Huawei SuperCharge, which promises an 85 percent charge in just 30 minutes and there are two separate batteries on either side of the fold, alike the Galaxy Fold.
The open display is perfect for watching movies, looking at photos, reading books, or general media consumption. Like a tablet though, it didn’t feel natural to do anything like typing while holding it with one hand. However, like understanding where to grip the phone, learning new ways to use and interact with a folding smartphone comes with the territory.
Closing the Mate X requires a degree of force, in that the Falcon Hinge is mechanical and doesn’t flop about. It’s stiff in a high-quality, reassuring way that dissuades you from absentmindedly opening and closing the screen.
Stay tuned for more on Huawei Mate X.