Huawei Mate X: A foldable smartphone with single 8" Display

Unfolding Huawei Mate X

Huawei Launched Mate X in China and it sold out within a few minutes and will be available in the next sale. The news is also circulating that people who bought it the first time are taking the advantage of the out of stock situation and are re-selling the Mate X with three times the original price. 

Anyways, it is priced at 16,999 Yuan which is approx. Rs 1,74,000/- 

It is the fastest Foldable 5G phone as advertised by Huawei that calls Mate X unprecedented. 

Fold it to do use it as a smartphone, to do the tasks you usually do on a smartphone. 

Unfold it to use it as a Tablet for – Multitasking and Entertainment. 

About the Display, it’s Flexible OLED display by BOE 

When Opened – 8 inches size (2480 x 2200) 

When Closed  

Front = 6.6 inches (2480 x 1148) 

Back = 6.3 inches (2480 x 892) 

The back display is 0.3 inches short as this 0.3” is occupied by the component bar that has – 3 cameras by “Leica”, a power button, a finger print sensor and a charging port USB – Type C at the bottom. 

Backside view of Huawei Mate X - Component bar and display attached to stretchable hinges

Processor – Kirin 980 Soc, 8 GB Ram and 512 GB storage. 

Processor and Modem in Huawei Mate X

Battery – 4500 mAh split into two parts as seen in the image. 

Charging – Fast charging by “HUAWEI SuperCharge” that will charge the phone up to 85% in 30 minutes as claimed by Huawei. 

Know how does the fast charging works, how does the massive phone battery gets charged within minutes 

5G – Huawei’s own ‘Balong 5000’ modem for all models. It is the 7nm 5G chipset/modem. It is a ‘mid-band’ 5G technology which may not be suitable for the US where it is ‘mmWave’ 5G technology. Both of these are two totally different types of spectrum technologies. 

The highlighted blue color in the above image are the 4 integrated 5G antennas.  

The screen 

It’s an OLED display with edge-to-edge Full view. The 8” screen can be used for multitasking like browsing, moving files, watching video, using messenger all at the same time. 

The Display 

It has a single screen that becomes a tablet when unfolded and becomes a phone when folded. Unlike Samsung Galaxy Fold that has two screens and it opens like a book to use the secondary display. 

Huawei claims that the hinges of the phone are stretchable and very durable that they will not over stretch or Bulge when folded or unfolded and also always provide the smooth and flat display when unfolded. 

Advantage: 

Here you can do everything on the single display. No secondary screen when unfolded. And one more thing, cameras at the back can be used as a front selfie cam as well as the main camera by only flipping the phone. When it is facing you, it’s a selfie cam and when you flip it to the opposite direction it becomes a primary camera. 

The person who is clicking and the person whose picture is being clicked can also view their image on the phone and can review or direct accordingly. 

Other advantage is that the display doesn’t bend and form a crease when folded just like the New Moto Razr and unlike the Samsung Galaxy Fold that gets creased and the stress on the display has an impact on the pixels of the screen. 

Disadvantage: 

The display is a soft plastic which is delicate too. So it is prone to scratches and dents. As the screen is all outside and totally uncovered so it is most likely to get scratched and damaged unlike the Galaxy fold whose main screen is protected inside when closed. The phone will not always be in hands and will sometimes in pocket or table so the chances of getting hurt are higher. 

Foldable smartphone technology is in its initial phase so there will be imperfections and a masterpiece will be created after learning from previous mistakes. Therefore it will be an injustice to judge them for the perfection but on the other hand the new technology is expensive and not in the reach of the common people so when it does, there will be a plethora of devices to choose from with flagships all around. 

Delicate soft plastic display got scratched

Huawei seems to have a solution for this 

A leather protective case in the shape of an envelope is going to be shipped along with the phone so that the phone gets a protection when not in use. 

But when in use the user has to be very careful. As the current fashioned phones has a permanent case protection while in use or while not in use. But in case of a foldable phone it has to be taken in and out of the case numerous times a day. 

                          Protective case for Huawei Mate X Foldable 

In future the soft delicate plastic may get replaced with durable stuff like a fiber glass, flexible glass or similar sort of stuff. 

Samsung is working to bring thin flexible glass for their future foldable phone displays and also Corning is working to make flexible foldable Gorilla glass. 

Any foldable phone at this time will be very expensive as the technology is new and in experimental phase. Some are Flipable, some open like book and some just wraps around. Huawei  Mate X and Motorola Razr is just the beginning. 

Read here about Motorola Razr – a flipable smartphone that has two screens for different purposes

Now know a little bit about the Camera Brand and the Modem Brand used in Huawei Mate X

Balong 5000 Overview: 

Balong 5000 is an industry-leading 5G multi-mode chipset that supports 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G networks on a single chip and ultra-fast 5G rate in the industry. Balong 5000 leads the industry in the 5G peak download rate. It achieves 4.6 Gbps in the Sub-6GHz frequency bands, twice the industry average. It also achieves 6.5 Gbps in the mmWave frequency bands and 7.5Gbps if plus LTE dual connection, 10 times faster than top 4G LTE speeds on the market today. 

In addition, Balong 5000 is the world's first chipset to support both standalone (SA, 5G independent networking) and non-standalone (NSA, 5G network deployment on the basis of LTE) networking modes, providing a hardware foundation for enriching 5G application scenarios, and leading the 5G era.

Key features: 

2G/3G/4G/5G Multi Mode 

Fully compliant with 3GPP Release 15 

Sub-6GHz: 100MHz x 2CC CA 

Sub-6GHz：Downlink up to 4.6Gbps, Uplink up to 2.5Gbps 

mmWave：Downlink up to 6.5Gbps, Uplink up to 3.5Gbps 

NR+LTE：Downlink up to 7.5Gbps 

FDD & TDD Spectrum Access 

SA & NSA Fusion Network Architecture 

Supports 3GPP R14 V2X 

Source : HiSilicon web page

 

Leica Camera 

Leica Camera AG is a German company that manufactures cameras, lenses, binoculars, rifle scopes, microscopes and ophthalmic lenses. The company was founded by Ernst Leitz in 1914. The name Leica is derived from the first three letters of his surname and the first two of the word camera: lei-ca. 

Source : Wikipedia

A few more images

Fingerprint sensor and power button on the component bar|Huawei Mate X Foldable

Huawei FullView 8" when unfolded

Multitasking - Viewing the images Gallery while unfolded

Checking mails while on full view mode