Huawei’s new $ 2,800 foldable phone copies Samsung’s Galaxy Fold lineup

Huawei won’t let a minor inconvenience like US sanctions keep it from designing new phones. Today, the company announced the next device in its flagship line of foldable smartphones: the Huawei Mate X2. While the Mate X (X1?) Of 2019 was an innovative but impractical form factor with a single wrap-around screen on the outside of the phone, the Mate X2 follows Samsung’s lead and goes with a foldable book style with a Hard phone screen on the outside and a foldable tablet screen on the inside. It looks like a Galaxy X Fold 2 but with a few interesting design changes.

Huawei has spent a lot of time saying the Mate X2 is better than the Samsung Galaxy Fold 2, highlighting larger interior and exterior screens as well as a smaller hinge area with thinner bezels on the front. One thing Huawei hasn’t compared is the price, which starts at $ 2,784, while the Galaxy Fold 2 is $ 2,000.

The outer screen is a 6.45-inch, 2700 × 1160, 90Hz OLED, while the inner screen is an 8-inch, 2480 × 2200, 90Hz OLED. Both are larger than the Fold 2, which has a 6.2 inch outer screen and a 7.6 inch inner screen. Huawei’s work on shrinking bezels is impressive, and it really feels like the company got the right aspect ratios. Huawei has managed to install a standard 21: 9 screen on the front – it looks like a normal smartphone from some angles. The interior display is made up of almost two 21: 9 screens joined together, with what Huawei has called an “8: 7.1 aspect ratio”. It’s hard to say what the interior aspect ratio “should” be, as Android tablet apps are almost non-existent, but at least it will be good for using split-screen apps.

The Mate X2’s folding action feels like a cross between Samsung’s Fold 2 and the Moto Razr. From the fold we have internal gears behind the screen for the hinge action. From the Razr, we have a hinge which results in a teardrop-shaped display crease when closed, instead of a hard crease. Much like the Razr, there are two retractable support plates to the left and right of the hinge. They sway when the device closes, allowing the phone to close without crushing the screen. Huawei says it is shutting down continuously.

A big downside to it being a Huawei device and not a Samsung device is that it won’t have Samsung’s ultra-thin glass screen cover. Samsung is currently the only company to ship a foldable screen cover that’s even slightly stiff to the touch, while everyone uses a crumpled, wavy plastic screen cover that shifts every time you touch it.

During the presentation with a live unit, a reflection of light briefly traversed the screen, highlighting how uneven the display surface is. As on the Moto Razr, there is no support above the hinge area, so the flexible screen sags above the hinge and forms a sizable trench in the middle of the hinge. screen. The light also pointed out all kinds of ripples and uneven distortions along what should be the “flat” sides of the screen.

An interesting design choice from Huawei was to make the body of the Mate X2 a wedge shape. When open, the right side of the phone measures 8.2mm, which tapers down to the left side measurement of 4.4mm. Huawei says that the right side of the phone is thicker, so it can accommodate all cameras in a normal phone body, which is around 8mm thick. The left side of the phone doesn’t need as many components, so it can be diluted as much as possible.

I’m not the type to push for ever thinner smartphones with thinner batteries and headphone jacks removal, but for foldable ones, thickness is a big concern if you want to carry one in a pocket. Many of these early devices are as thick as two smartphones stacked on top of each other, and it just doesn’t fit well in a pocket. Huawei’s tapered design and flat-folding hinge really seem like a winner here. The company offers a device with a battery that is the same size as the Galaxy Z Fold 2, 4,500mAh, but has reduced the thickness of 16.8mm by almost 2mm, making it a 14.7mm device. thick when folded.

Before we go, we should address the elephant in the room and ask if it’s even possible for Huawei to build this phone in significant quantities. Huawei is still in the midst of a stifling export ban to the United States, which has prevented it from sourcing parts from international suppliers and has driven its market share down. Huawei Consumer Business Group CEO Richard Yu kicked off the Mate X2 presentation with a few words of challenge to the US government. “2020 has been an extraordinary and difficult year for Huawei,” said Yu. “We found ourselves simultaneously attacked by the COVID-19 pandemic and the second and third round of US sanctions, which posed great difficulties for our business activities and daily work. However, thanks to the strong support of our partners, suppliers, and especially consumers around the world, we have survived 2020! “

Surviving 2020 is one thing, but Huawei’s market share continues to decline rapidly and things only look bleak in the future. There are already reports that Huawei’s smartphone output will be halved in 2021. Here is just one of the many supply issues: The Mate X2 has a Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 9000 SoC, built on the 5nm process. from TSMC, but TSMC halted shipments to Huawei in September 2020. According to supply chain reports, Huawei ordered 15 million produced chips, but TSMC was only able to deliver just over half, 8.8 million chips, before the deadline. This offer is to be extended to the Mate X2, the flagship Mate 40 Pro smartphone, and possibly another launch this year, the P50 Pro.

Keep in mind that the Mate X2 won’t have Google apps either. Speaking about Huawei’s software issues, the company ended the show by announcing that “Huawei flagship phone users” will be able to upgrade their phones to Huawei’s internal operating system, HarmonyOS from April, and the Mate X2 will be one of the first to do so. So, according to Huawei, the phone will ship with Android and upgrade to HarmonyOS. For those who missed our previous report, Huawei claims that HarmonyOS is its internal operating system, but after actually looking at it, there is no noticeable difference between HarmonyOS and Android. It should at least be an easy “update”.

With all the supply issues and the Mate X barely launching in 2019, it’s hard to treat it like a real phone, but Huawei says it will be on sale, in China only, on February 25.

Huawei ad image