Retreat into a new direction



[ad_1]

Today, at the Huawei press conference at the MWC in Barcelona, ​​Huawei has something special to share with us. It's been just a few days since Samsung announced its own foldable phone, the Galaxy Fold, sparking much debate and hype around the new form factor. Of course, Huawei has not moved and has long been an innovator, introducing many new exclusive features in the past two years. This year, Huawei is ready to steal Samsung's thunder with the consecutive announcement of the new Mate X – the company's own take on a foldable smartphone.

From the front, you may have problems identifying the Mate X from any other phone with a bigger screen. While the camera is folded on itself and you are facing the big screen, there is not much that really sets it apart from any other modern camera without a bezel.

It is when you look at the device from the top or the bottom that it becomes obvious that this is not the usual design of your phone. The Mate X is defined as a foldable phone with a foldable screen on the outer surface (while the Galaxy Fold's screen is on the inner surface).

Huawei has opted for a new asymmetrical design where one half of the screen is narrower than the other. This allows the company to create a thicker phone edge, in which we locate the quad-camera configuration of the phone. The cameras are all aligned on this "bar", which means that the phone does not distinguish between the rear and front cameras. However, because when the phone is folded, we have screens on both sides of the phone and you can still take selfie photos and see you in the viewfinder. The bar is also used to house the USB-C connector and the 2-in-1 power button / fingerprint sensor.

The full-screen display on the wide side of the phone when folded up acts as a 6.6-inch device with a resolution of 2480 x 1148. This results in a relatively modern 19: 5: 9 aspect ratio, which we find in many new flagship devices. Turning the phone with the "bar" in front of us, we have a narrower screen that displays a resolution of 6.38 inches, a resolution of 2480 x 892 and a format of 25: 9.

Finally, when you deploy the Mate X, the AMOLED display reveals its true physical dimensions. Here we see all the clutter of the 8-inch flexible panel, with a native resolution of 2480 x 2200 and its fairly square 8: 7 frame size.

What is remarkable in the design of the Mate X, is how Huawei managed to make it slim: the unfolded parts of the phone only measure 5.4 mm, which is thinner than almost any other phone today, and much thinner than what Samsung had been. able to achieve in the Galaxy Fold. The "sidebar" and the thickness of the folded phone are 11 mm, which is a reasonable thickness.

Huawei calls the new hinge system a "Falcon hinge". It should be noted that this seems to be the weak point of Huawei's design as it does not seem as refined as Samsung's attempt. During the information session, we could not get hold of the phone, but the presenter's unit had a noticeable "ripple" on the screen where the hinge was. It also seemed that the hinge locks into place via a kind of magnetic system, as was the case when unfolding the phone. It should be noted that the devices presented were still at the origin – Huawei could therefore be able to iterate here and provide something more robust in business units.

Although a segment of the Mate X is only 5.4 mm thick, the company still managed to insert a lot of batteries in the phone. We see here a battery cell in each segment, which gives a total capacity of 4500mAh. Thanks to the two batteries, they can be charged at the same time at high charge rates. Huawei says for the first time that it is able to charge its phone with a power of 55W, reaching 85% of its capacity to empty in just 30 minutes.

The number one concern of Mate X is that it is a folding phone to the outside. Because of its flexible nature, this means that we are dealing with a polymeric material that is softer than glass and therefore more susceptible to scratching. Samsung's design for inward folding will be much less exposed to scratches, but the Mate X will be a much more fragile phone in this regard. In fact, it seems that Huawei is aware of this, because they have also introduced a protective case in which you can insert the entire device, trying to solve the problem of this compromise of this design surely more aesthetic, but probably less practical.

Samsung Galaxy Fold Huawei Mate X
Galaxy Fold
SoC HiSilicon Kirin 980
Display Flexible AMOLED

Unfolded: 8 "2480 x 2200 8: 7

Short side folded: 6.38 "2480 x 892 25: 9
Big folded side: 6.6 "2480 x 1148 19: 5: 9

Dimensions Screen unfolded: 5.4mm – Camera / Folded: 11mm
RAM 8GB
NAND 512 GB
+ nanoMemory slot
Drums 4500mAh
Main rear camera Yes
Secondary rear camera Yes
Tertiary rear camera Yes
Size of the SIM card Dual SIM nanoSIM (or NM card)
Cellular capacity 5G NR NSA / SA
4×4 MIMO 256QAM (4.6Gbps sub-6Ghz)
mmWave able
connectivity USB Type-C
Characteristics (He bends)
Start the OS Android 9.0
Launch price $ 2299

In terms of specifications, the Mate X is really a premium phone. Powered by the Kirin 980, the device supports the best on the market in terms of processing power.

What sets the Mate X apart is that it's not only Huawei's first folding phone, it's also Huawei's first 5G phone. Thanks to the connectivity provided by the HiSilicon Balong 5G01 Modem, Huawei is able to provide 5G NR NSA / SA connectivity and speeds up to 4.6GHz at 200MHz bandwidth in 4×4 and 256QAM MIMO in the range below 6 GHz. We do not know if the phone supports mmWave connectivity.

This article is news – we will update it as Huawei CEO Richard Yu details the phone's hardware.

[ad_2]

Source link