The cancellation of MWC 2020 due to coronavirus fears prompted Huawei to hold a virtual event to showcase its latest product offerings. The Chinese giant today launched a successor to its first foldable smartphone and it's called Huawei Mate Xs.
It was first shown last year and comes with an improved design, a more durable hinge and mounting bracket. 5G connectivity.
Huawei Mate Xs: specifications and features of the most expensive mobile phone in the world
In terms of design, Huawei Mate Xs features an improved hinge design and new durable screen technology, to bring an even better experience to foldable phone users.
Huawei is using a Falcon Wing hinge design, which is the same as the Mate X, but it's using zirconium-based liquid metal instead of titanium alloy, for added strength.
We also get better dust protection with the Mate Xs.
folding screen
Speaking of the screen, the Huawei Mate Xs has an 8-inch OLED display (2480x2200p) when unfolded. It transforms into a 6.6-inch (2480x1148p) phone when folded, and the secondary display is 6.38-inches (2480x892p).
The company has taken cues from the display debacle and its foldable display is now protected with double layer optical polyimide, which Huawei says is 80% more durable than a single layer and costs 3 times more than gold.
Processor, RAM and storage height
Under the hood, the Mate Xs is powered by Huawei's in-house Kirin 990 5G chipset. The chipset includes the company's Balong 5000 modem for 5G connectivity, offering download speeds of up to 2.3Gbps.
The company has swapped out the Kirin 980 chipset, its predecessor that was baked aboard the Mate X.
Android 10 and 5G 8 bands
The device supports eight 5G bands compared to 4 in its predecessor. This new 5G-enabled chipset is paired with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage to round out the gold bullion. The Huawei Mate Xs includes a new cooling system, which uses flexible bionic graphite that extends on both sides of the new hinge, to keep the temperature down while streaming or playing games.
The Huawei Mate Xs runs EMUI 10 based on Android 10 out of the box, but lacks support for Google apps and services. The Mate X also launched without any Google apps, but now you get improved features like the multi-window layout (which lets you drag and drop files between apps).
Mate Xs cameras
In the cameras section, the Huawei Mate Xs has a configuration of four cameras with a 40MP (f/1.8) SuperSensing RYYB primary sensor. It is paired with an 8MP (f/2.4) telephoto sensor with 3x optical zoom, 30x digital zoom, and OIS + AIS support.
There's also a 16MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide camera and 3D TOF sensor on board as well. The device is capable of capturing macro shots, capture amazing night photos without the need to switch to Night Mode.
The Mate Xs comes equipped with a 4.500mAh battery with 55W fast charging support. Huawei claims that it can consume 80% of the battery in just about 30 minutes using the port. USB Type C. There is no headphone jack on board this flip phone.
Huawei Mate Xs (Galactic) price and availability
The Huawei Mate Xs has an exorbitant price of 2499 euros for the individual variant of 8GB + 512GB. It comes only in a single blue-black color variant. There is currently no information on the availability of Huawei Mate Xs, but we will update this story once we know.
Huawei may have improved design and durability with its second foldable phone, but we would have loved to see a smaller, more affordable variant rather than an even more expensive successor to its first foldable. The company is taking the opposite path from Samsung, which tried to break down the barrier to entry for foldables with the Galaxy z flip.