Huawei’s foldable 5G-ready Mate X available mid-2019

MANILA, Philippines – Huawei CEO Richard Yu took to the stage on Sunday, February 24, ahead of the 2019 Mobile World Congress to officially reveal Huawei’s foldable smartphone, the Mate X.

The device has what Huawei calls a Falcon Wing hinge, which allows it to fold outwards.

When folded, the device boasts front and back screens measuring 6.6-inches and 6.38-inches respectively. Open it up and they form a notchless 8-inch screen with an 8:7.1 aspect ratio and a 2480 x 2200 resolution.

Samsung’s recently revealed Galaxy Fold has a 7.3-inch screen when opened and a 4.6-inch screen when closed.

It’s said to be much thinner at just 11mm when folded versus “the other foldable phone” at 17mm.

The screen, when opened, measures 5.4mm, which Yu pointed out was thinner than the new iPad Pro’s 5.9mm.

He added that they were able to reduce the thickness of the screens because they were able to place some of the device’s components in the side bar.

This narrow bar also houses the fingerprint sensor situated in the power button and the three Leica-branded cameras.

Speaking of cameras, the Mate X features mirror shooting, which lets you see yourself when someone is taking a picture of you.

On top of this, it has a side-by-side browsing experience and multitask interactions that let you, for instance, drag and drop a photo from the gallery on side of your screen to a message on the other.

Under the hood, it has a 4500mAh battery with fast charging support of up to 55W, dual-SIM support, 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, Huawei’s new Kirin 980 chipset, and as previously teased a Balong 5000 modem for 5G capabilities.

The device’s side bar currently only comes in Interstellar Blue. Yu, however, added that they may consider adding other colors down the line.

It is priced at €2299 or approximately P131,559 and is expected to release sometime in the middle of this year. – Rappler.com