Huawei’s new Mate Xs: A foldable device done right (Almost)

Huawei was supposed to have an event at MWC 2020 but since its cancellation, the Chinese tech firm organized their own event that unveiled the new Huawei Mate Xs.

The new Mate Xs is a foldable device that uses Huawei’s proprietary Falcon designed hinge system. The device is actually a smaller update to last year’s Mate X with the design basically is the same but in a much more improved way.

The display is a “quad-layer” screen that measures 8-inches when unfolded and is more like a tablet than a phone. When it’s folded though, you’ll get a typically pocketable-sized smartphone device with a 6.6-inch display. As for its fold and unfolding mechanism, the redesigned hinge uses a zirconium-based liquid metal to make it more durable. While the display got some improvements, it still uses a few layers of plastic though which is prone to scratches and damages.

Under that display, the hardware on the Mate Xs got a few bump ups beginning with the use of Huawei’s own Kirin 990 Octa-core chipset with built-in Neural-Network Processing unit and a 16-core Mali G76 GPU. The new chipset also comes with 5G support built-in with Huawei claiming its 5G solution on the Kirin 990 is faster than Qualcomm’s 5G chip for SD865.

The new chipset is coupled to an 8GB of RAM with 512GB of on-board storage. Like any of Huawei’s flagship, the Mate Xs also has no memory expansion option but with just how large a 512GB on smartphone devices at the moment, it should be able to hold a ton of stuff you could throw at it.

For imaging, the Mate Xs only includes one camera module which includes a primary 40 Megapixel sensor with a f/1.8 Aperture Wide Angle lens. Then there’s the 16 Megapixel camera with f/2.2 Ultra Wide angle lens and an 8 Megapixel Telephoto camera that features an OIS. There is a ToF camera as well to create depth and assist in focusing.

While the Mate Xs quad-camera system is the main module, it also doubles as the Selfie camera for the device because of the fact that the display wraps about 80% of the device user will be able to see themselves on the display while taking a Selfie photo or video. This has eliminated the need for a display notch or a punch-hole through the display giving users a clean and all display screen.

The Huawei Mate Xs runs on 4500 mAh battery and features Huawei SuperCharge (55W) fast charging technology. It boots Android 10 base EMUI 10 out of the box but like all the recent Huawei devices, it still misses Google Mobile Services (GMS) and instead uses Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) which basically works just like the GMS but without Google Play and all other Google services.

Without GMS, Huawei has its own AppGallery in which Huawei has invested a lot to entice developers to port their apps to the new platform.

The new Huawei Mate Xs will be available on March 5th with a price tag of $2499.