Huawei Mate X foldable 5G phone with 55W SuperCharge announced

Welcome to the era of foldable smartphones. The MWC19 in Barcelona is already beaming off excitement, with Huawei unveiling the Huawei Mate X this afternoon at its press event in Barcelona. The Huawei Mate X is Huawei’s first foldable phones and is coming hot on the heels of the launch of the Galaxy Fold.

The Huawei Mate X foldable phone as the name suggests folds but unlike Samsungs Foldable Galaxy Fold with two discrete screens and one that folds internally, the Huawei Mate X screen folds externally around the hinge taking up the function of a dual-screen smartphone, with the second display on the rear allowing you to shoot selfies with the main camera or to share what’s on your primary display with a person on the other side. Flip open the Mate X and what you get is entirely a larger 8-inch OLED tablet screen with a 2,480 x 2,200-pixel resolution with minimal bezels on the three sides. One of the three sides has a pane that is home to the power button, USB-C port, and a four-camera Leica system.

Folded in the phone form, the Huawei Mate X gets a dual screen – an outer 6.6-inches with a 2,480 x 1,148-pixel resolution, and a rear 6.38-inch screen with 2,480 x 892-pixel resolution. When in this form, the Mate X results in a very slim profile of just 11mm thick, while it slims down to just 5.4mm thick when unfolded.

• 6.6-inch (19.5:9 aspect ratio, 2480 x 1148 resolution) main display, when folded.
• 6.4-inch (25:9, 2480 x 892) rear display, when folded.
• 8-inch (8:7.1, 2480 x 2200) main display, when unfolded.

The Mate X not only outpaced the Galaxy Fold in the design but also in terms of the internals. Huawei is touting the Mate X as the fastest 5G phone thanks to Huawei’s Baolong 5000 modem, while it is powered by the Kirin 980 processor coupled with 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage. Other specs and features worth mentioning is the 4500mAh battery with support for 55W SuperCharge which can jack up the battery to 85% in 30 minutes, dual SIM support -one for 5G SIM and another for 4G SIM, a side-mounted fingerprint scanner embedded into the power button as well as a triple rear Leica Camera setup comprising of – a 40MP main camera, a 16MP ultra-wide-angle camera, and an 8MP telephoto camera.

HUAWEI Mate X specifications

• 6.6-inch (2480 x 1148 pixels) 19.5:9 OLED display when folded,  6.38-inch (2480 x 892 pixels)  OLED 25:9 display for back panel, 8-inch (2480 x 2200 pixels) OLED 8:7.1 display when unfolded
• HUAWEI Kirin 980 (2 x Cortex A76 2.6 GHz + 2 x Cortex A76 1.92 GHz + 4 x Cortex A55 1.8 GHz) processor with  720 MHz ARM Mali-G76MP10 GPU, Balong 5000 5G modem
• 8GB LPDDR4x RAM, 512GB storage, expandable memory up to 256GB with NM card
• Android 9.0 (Pie) with EMUI 9.1.1
• 40MP rear camera with f/1.8 aperture, 16MP Ultra Wide Angle lens, 8MP Telephoto lens with f/2.4 aperture
• Hybrid Dual SIM (nano + nano / NM card)
• Side-mounted fingerprint sensor
• Dual Speakers
• Dimensions: 161.3 x 78.3 (146.2 unfolded) x 5.4-11mm; Weight: 295g
• 5G Multi-mode,Dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4GHz and 5GHz) (wave2), Bluetooth 5 LE, GPS (L1 + L5 dual band), NFC, USB Type-C (GEN1)
• 4500 mAh (typical) battery with 55W SuperCharge

The device will hit the shelves much later in 2019 in Interstellar Blue at €2,299 / $2,600.