If you were hoping that Huawei was going to announce its new P40 series flagship, you’re probably rather disappointed. If, on the other hand, you were expecting a new foldable phone, you’re probably only a tad disappointed. The company did announce the successor to its very late 2019 foldable phone but it’s going to be difficult to sink your teeth into one, presuming it will even be available in your market. Because while the Huawei Mate Xs does bring the hardware that its predecessor should have had in the first place, it also bears the same problems that practically barred consumers from jumping on the device.
Unlike the first Mate X, the Huawei Mate Xs, fortunately, comes with the company’s most recent Kirin 990, which also means it is 5G-capable. There’s 8 GB of RAM inside and a massive 512 GB of storage. You can add more, up to 256 GB only, but only if you have access to Huawei’s proprietary NM SD card. There are two batteries on each half of the device that together total 4,500 mAh.
The cameras also get an upgrade, of course, again with that Leica optics branding. There are three sensors once more, with a 40 megapixel wide-angle f/1.8 camera acting as the main shooter. This is joined by a 16MP f/2.2. ultra-wide-angle camera and an 8MP f/2.3 telephoto camera. There’s actually a fourth sensor, but the 3D time-of-flight (ToF) is mostly just used for depth and 3D data gathering.
Most of that may sound familiar and that’s pretty much the theme with the Mate Xs. It’s pretty much a slight refresh with a few upgrades, but not in the areas where you’d expect Huawei to really focus on. In a nutshell, that means using the same flexible screen technology it had on the Mate X, albeit with a smaller hinge, which is just begging for accidents given its “outie” folding form factor.
That’s not the only hurdle to the Huawei Mate Xs’ reception in the global mobile market. There’s also the glaring absence of Google Play Store, apps, and services, which Huawei is trying to downplay with its own Huawei Mobile Services suite. Given those factors, however, the 2,499 EUR ($2,700) price tag on this device seems pretty steep, which is yet another reason even foldable phone fans might be put off by it.
