Huawei has matched rival Samsung with its own foldable smartphone, the Mate X, presented at MWC in Barcelona. Running the company’s first 5G modem chip, the Mate X will be available in mid-2019 for a recommended price of EUR 2,299.
Huawei’s device folds outwards from the tablet mode, rather than inwards like Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, offering OLED screens both on the back and front when folded to phone size. The ‘fold’, which Huawei calls the Falcon Wing Hinge, is not precisely in the middle, as part of the right back body houses the internal components, such as the processor, memory and a triple camera.
The Mate X runs Huawei’s flagship Kirin 980 processor and the Balong 5000 modem, Huawei’s first supporting 5G. This supports 5G speeds up to 4.6 Gbps, using 4×4 MIMO and 256 QAM. The battery, divided into two parts, offers a capacity of 4,500 mAh and can be 85 percent charged in 30 minutes using Huawei’s new 55W charger. It comes with 8 GB RAM and 512 GB internal storage.
The fingerprint sensor is embedded in the power button on the edge of the device. The new triple Leica camera offers the advantage of showing both the photographer and the subject of the photo the image, using the front and back screens when the Mate X is folded.
New laptops in Mate series
While Huawei will not release its next flagship smartphone until next month, the company did present in Barcelona new laptops in its Mate series. The MateBook X Pro, first presented at MWC last year, has been upgraded with the latest Intel Core i7 8565 processor and a new 13.9-inch 3K screen covering 91 percent of the body with enhanced touch and gesture controls. In addition, it comes with a range of features to make it easy to share documents, apps and screenshots between the computer and an Android smartphone.
For the mass market, Huawei offered the updated MateBook 13 and 14 laptops. These also come with FullView touchscreens, enhanced connectivity with smartphones and the latest Intel Core i7 8565U processor and Nvbidia GeForce MX250 graphics chip with 2GB GDDR5.
