Huawei unveiled its latest foldable flagship, the Mate X2, and it features an inward folding design. Interestingly, the phone is wedge shaped – it’s thickest near the camera module and it gradually slims down to just 4.4 mm on the other end. The camera end is the thickest part and for good reason – this is the first foldable phone with a periscope lens.
Let’s talk screens first. The inner
display measures 8” in diagonal and has a squarish aspect ratio of 8:7.1 and a
resolution of 2480 x 2200. The external screen is 6.45” in diagonal and has a
21:9 aspect ratio. Both screens are OLED panels with 90Hz refresh rate. The
internal panel supports DCI-P3 colors, the external one does not. The external
one wins out in terms of touch sampling rate, 240Hz vs. 180Hz.
The inner screen boasts the industry’s
first “magnetically-controlled nano optical layer”. That’s a fancy way of
saying it minimizes light reflection and glare (reflectivity is below 1.5%,
compared to 5% or higher for the Galaxy Z Fold2). There’s no ultra thin glass,
however. The hinge design allows the phone to be closed seamlessly (i.e.
without a gap). Inside, the OLED panel forms a teardrop shape to minimize
creasing. Huawei used advanced for its hinge design – Zirconium-based liquid
metal and carbon fiber panels – which helped reduce weight. The whole thing is
still pretty heavy at 295g, however. Still, most of that weight is at the
thickest part, so you can still comfortably hold the phone without it tipping
over. You can close it with one hand.
The quad camera on the back (co-developed
with Leica) is built around the 50MP main module with a 1/1.28” RYYB sensor. It
has an f/1.9 aperture and supports OIS and can record 4K video. Thanks to the
second screen, it can be used to shoot selfies too. Next up is the 10x
periscope lens (f/4.4) with OIS and an 8 MP RYYB sensor. It offers 20x hybrid
zoom and up to 100x digital zoom. There’s also a mid-range zoom module with a
12MP sensor, 3x optical magnification, f/2.4 aperture and OIS.
An ultrawide module is available too with
a 16MP sensor. It doubles as a macro camera as well (2.5 cm distance). The
exact focal lengths for the lenses are 17mm, 23mm, 70mm and 240mm. There is
only one “front” camera and it is on the secondary display. This means that the
large inner display is free of holes and notches, but also that you can’t use
it for video calls. Also, there’s a fingerprint reader mounted on the side,
which is handy if you need biometric authentication while the phone is opened.
The Huawei Mate X2 is powered by the Kirin
9000 chipset. Unlike the competing Snapdragon and Exynos chips, this one is
fabbed at TSMC’s 5 nm foundry. It has four Cortex-A77 cores (one of which runs
at 3.13 GHz) and four A55, plus a Mali-G78 MP24 GPU. Interestingly, the
official specs list the OS as EMUI 11.0 based on Android 10. We were expecting
HarmonyOS out of the box. Anyway, the phone has 8 GB of RAM plus 256 or 512 GB
of storage.
And a 5G modem, of course. Huawei
carefully planned the antenna placement so that you get a strong signal
regardless of how you hold the phone (and whether it’s closed or opened). In
typical Huawei fashion, this is a dual SIM phone where the second SIM slot can
accept a NM memory card.
The 4,500 mAh battery supports Super Fast
charging at 55W using the supplied adapter. The retail package is actually
pretty well stocked with a USB-C cable, USB-C headset (there’s no 3.5 mm jack),
a leather protective case and screen protectors pre-applied on both screens.
The Huawei Mate X2 will be available in China from February 25. The 256GB
version will cost CNY 18,000, the 512GB version is CNY 19,000. It will be
available online and in brick and mortar stores. No word on whether it will be
available outside of China, however. Even so, the prices work out to US$ 2,780/€ 2,300 and US$ 2,940/€ 2,420, for refernce.
Four color options for the Huawei Mate X2
Four color options for the Huawei Mate X2 Four color options for the Huawei
Mate X2 Four color options for the Huawei Mate X2 A number of accessories will
be available for the X2. One is a protective case with a built-in kick stand,
another is a clever car mount that can hold the phone in both folded and
unfolded states.
