The foldable design is new and immerging at a quite good speed. OEMs like Samsung are quite successful in making an actual consumer usable design whereas OEMs like Huawei were struggling to provide one. Huawei already used two attempts in creating a totally usable smartphone with a foldable design. The journey started with the Mate X and now Huwaei launched a new addition to the foldable smartphone series, the Huawei Mate X2.
Two years ago, Huawei announced the first Mate X at the World Mobile Congress, it featured an outward folding screen, 5G support, Kirin 980 chipset, and more. After that Huawei announced Mate Xs with very ineligible changes like the SoC, from Kirin 980 SoC in Mate X to Krirn 990 SoC in Mate Xs. Now, Huawei announced the new Huawei Mate X2 with a ton of hardware upgrades that includes an inward folding screen, a secondary outer display, Kirin 9000 5G SOC, a 10X Optical Zoom camera, and much more.
Perhaps the foremost significant upgrade is that the new design. Unlike previous generations where we had an outwards folding screen, the Huawei Mate X2 has an inwards folding display which is analogous to what we’ve on the Galaxy Z Fold 2. There’s no notch or hole within the inner display because all the cameras are on the surface. This offers a fantastic distraction-free experience while using the most display on the inside. But since there’s no camera on the inside, this suggests you can’t use the inner display to, let’s say, video call someone. The corporate says that it spent over 5 years perfecting the hinge design that the Mate X2 comes with.
Now, speaking of other tech specifications, the smartphones feature a dual-display configuration, the primary display is an 8-inch OLED foldable display with a screen resolution of 2480 x 2200 pixels and an aspect ratio of 8:7.1. Other than that the display has a refresh rate of 90 Hz and a touch-response rate of 180 Hz for a better display and viewing experience while using the smartphone. And on the rear side, it has a secondary 6.45-inch OLED panel with a screen resolution of 2270 x 1160 pixels and an aspect ratio of 21:9, with the same refresh rate as of the primary display, 90 Hz, and a touch-response rate of 240 Hz.
Under the hood, the Mate X2 is powered with the Kirin 9000 5G SoC paired with 8 GB of RAM and up to 512 GB of onboard storage. Kirin 9000 is an octa-core (1×3.13 GHz Cortex-A77 & 3×2.54 GHz Cortex-A77 & 4×2.05 GHz Cortex-A55) SoC with Mali-G78 GPU for a better graphical experience. The Kirin 9000 is a 5G SoC that means we will be able to use the 5G connectivity as well, when available on a commercial level.
In the camera department, the Mate X2 features a quad-rear camera setup and single-camera setup at the front. The quad rear camera setup includes a primary 50-megapixel wide 1/1.28″ camera sensor with an aperture of f/1.9, Optical Image Stabilization and laser AF, a secondary 12-megapixel telephoto sensor with an aperture of f/2.4, OIS & 3x optical zoom, a tertiary 16-megapixel ultrawide sensor with an aperture of f/2.2 which can be used as a macro sensor as well, and finally an 8-megapixel periscope telephoto sensor with an aperture of f/4.4, with 10X Optical, 20X Hybrid and up to 100X Digital Zoom. And the front, the smartphones houses a single 16-megapixel sensor for selfies with is located at the secondary display, which means you will not able to take selfies while using the primary display.
The smartphone is fueled with a 4,500mAh battery that can be charged using the 55-watt fast charger. The Mate X2 runs on the EMUI based on Android 10. Other than that it has all the basic connectivity options and sensors like WiFi, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS, NFC, Infrared, fingerprint sensor (side-mounted), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer, color spectrum, etc.
Speaking of the price, the Huawei Mate X2 is available in two different variants with four color options. The base 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage variant comes with a price tag of 17,999 Yuan and the final top 8 GB RAM and 512 Gb storage variant is priced at 18,999 Yuan. The color options include Black, White, Light Blue, Rose Gold. It will be available from 25t February onwards.
