The phone is on sale in China for the price of $2,421 (16,999 yuan).
Just like that other foldable smartphone on the market, the Galaxy Fold, the Mate X had a very issues on the road to its way to market full of delays and setbacks. The phone was originally scheduled for release in “the middle of the year,” but in the midst of the US’ Huawei export ban and the Galaxy Fold’s initial delay, Huawei opted to delay the Mate X. The new launch target was September, but when September rolled around, the phone was delayed again to yesterday November 15 launch date.
The internals are a Huawei Kirin 980 SoC, 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a huge 4500mAh battery. 5G support is mandatory in this phone, thanks to the “Balong 5000” modem included in all models. Keep in mind this is only for China’s (and the rest of the world’s) “mid” 5G, not the US’ “mmWave” 5G. They are two totally different technologies on different chunks of the spectrum.
The panel is an 8-inch 2480×2200 tablet when open. When closed, it splits into a 2480×1148, 6.6-inch display on the front and a 6.3-inch, 2480×892 display on the back. The back is a bit smaller because it also houses the component bar, which is the one section of the phone that doesn’t split in half. This thicker section houses important components like the three cameras, a power button, a fingerprint reader, and a USB-C port on the bottom.
The Mate X wraps the display around the outside of the device. The Mate X design has a few advantages: it can be a phone when folded up and a tablet when unfolded, and it does this all with a single screen, unlike the two screens (inside and outside) that are on the Galaxy Fold. By wrapping the display around the outside of the phone body, the Mate X doesn’t put a hard crease in the display, like the Galaxy Fold does. A single camera can act as both the “front” selfie camera and “rear” main camera, just by flipping the phone around.
This It’s not clear if the Mate X will ever leave China. Any foldable at this point is going to be a very expensive, borderline experimentation device with limited appeal. For Huawei specifically, it is still dealing with the fallout from the US export ban.
This article was partially taken from www.arstechnica.com