Huawei announced its futuristic foldable phone Mate X in February 2019 and released the device later in November 2019. This is the first foldable phone of this Chinese company, making it one of the leading firms in this new smartphone segment.

At the time Huawei launched this device, we had already seen other candidates like the Samsung Galaxy Fold and the Royale FlexPai. At an expected price of Rs 185,290, the Mate X is much more expensive than the Galaxy Fold (Rs 162,990) and the Royale FlexPai (Rs 110,000).

Display

The Huawei Mate X features a foldable OLED display that measures 8.0 inches when fully open and 6.6 inches when folded. Its larger screen has a resolution of 2200x2480 pixels while the smaller screen has a resolution of 1148x2480. Besides, the pixel density is 414 ppi.

When unfolded, the device opens into a large, rectangular (almost square) surface. When folded, you will get two smaller rectangular, tall screens, one of which will feature a thick bezel that houses the camera module.

As the foldable phone is still a concept thing, phone makers are trying different approaches for the folding design and the camera module. Samsung uses two camera modules on the front and the back like on a regular smartphone, hence a big notch on the top right corner of the device, but Huawei decides to use only one camera module that doesn’t interfere with the viewing experience.

The Mate Xs’ screen is OLED (organic light-emitting diode). This means the phone can display deep black levels and be lighter, thinner than an LCD screen phone. In low-light environments, the OLED display can boast a higher contrast ratio than the LCD screen.

In general, the screen looks elegant and feels good on the hand. Due to the nature of a foldable phone, there is a crease on the display where the hinge is placed but not very serious. Compared with the Galaxy Fold, the crease on the Mate X is already much less visible. However, it still feels fragile, requiring much care when in use.

With a resolution of 2200x2480 pixels for the large screen and 1148x2480 pixels for the smaller screen, a 414ppi density, and a 60Hz refresh rate, the Mate X is good enough for gaming, though not excellent as you may expect from such an expensive device. Though the 60Hz rate is nowhere near the high-quality 120Hz rate in some gaming phones, the Mate X displays good graphics for gaming.

This device provides an extremely large view for games like PUBG, especially when there isn’t a big thick notch interfering with the images. And if you’re not comfortable with such a large view, you can always fold it in half to get the screen size of the regular smartphone.

A quick gaming test shows the smooth transition of graphics details when you fold and unfold the device, and there are no lags during gameplay either.

Chip

The Mate X is powered by Huawei’s in-house Kirin 980 processor. This is a 7nm octa-core chipset consisting of dual 1.92GHz cores, dual 2.6GHz cores, and quad 1.8GHz cores. This is the first mobile chip in the world to be built based on Cortex-76, going into mass production in 2018.

The processor comes with 6.9 billion transistors, offering a 20% improvement in processing speed while consuming 40% less power. Compared with the Kirin 970, the Kirin 980 is 75% more powerful and 58% more energy-efficient.

For gaming, it features the Mali-G76 GPU that’s also improved from the Mali-G72 MP12 in the Kirin 970. As shown in testing, this processor gives you smooth, lag-free gaming experience. Besides, we didn’t record any overheating issues with this phone during game sessions.

Storage

The Huawei Mate X comes in only one storage variant, which is 8GB RAM and 512GB of internal memory.

With such RAM capacity, combined with the powerful Kirin 980 chipset, this foldable phone can easily handle any mobile game titles for you, including intensive ones like PUBG Mobile and FreeFire.

If you are concerned about the overheating issue, it’s worth noting that even the best gaming phone will warm up after long playing hours, and the Mate X is no exception though it has a dedicated cooling system. You can avoid the heating issue by playing games in an air-conditioned room, away from direct sunlight, or use a cooling fan.

Battery

The Huawei Mate X packs a non-removable 4,500mAh battery with support for 55W fast charging that can juice up 85 percent within 30 minutes.

This battery capacity is larger than the Galaxy Fold battery capacity of 4,380mAh. However, the Mate X has a bigger screen than the Fold’s, 8 inches as opposed to 7.6 inches, and its cover screen is larger than that of the Fold too. Yet, testing shows the battery life of the Mate X is a bit longer with 12 hours and 25 minutes.

This should be more than enough for gaming and productivity tasks, not to mention the fast charging support that will help avoid interrupting gameplays. Also, thanks to its effective cooling system, the phone doesn’t overheat when handling games.

Camera

The Huawei Mate X doesn’t have a front-facing camera like regular smartphones. Instead, all of its photography capabilities rely on a 40MP wide-angle lens, an 8MP telephoto lens, a 16MP ultra-wide-angle lens, and a TOF 3D lens for depth sensing.

The Time-of-flight sensor is the most advanced photography technology currently available in high-end smartphones right now. It uses infrared light to better measure the accurate distance from the camera to the object. Except for TOF, the Mate X doesn’t offer any outstanding camera features compared with other high-end devices.

In comparison, Samsung Galaxy Fold sports 5 cameras in total, including dual 10MP selfie cameras, an 8MP RGB depth lens, a 12MP telephoto lens, a 12MP wide-angle lens, and a 16MP ultra-wide-angle lens. The Fold has dedicated lenses for taking selfies while with the Huawei Mate Xs, you will take selfies by folding the phone, point the camera at yourself and the smaller screen will become the camera interface. This can be both a pro and a con.

Having to fold the phone each time you want to take a selfie can be annoying. But you can take advantage of the wide-angle and ultra-wide-angle cameras when taking photos of yourself, which you can’t do on the Galaxy Fold. For example, if you are traveling alone and want to take a selfie that includes all the beautiful natural landscape behind, the Huawei Mate X will be perfect for the job.