Huawei today announced its latest generation folding, the Mate X2, in China. The phone features an inward folding design, in stark contrast to the original Mate X, whose screen surrounds it. In other words, it finally takes the design approach that Samsung has maintained since the original Galaxy Fold – a wise decision given the fragility of the flexible panels. What may be a little less wise, though, is how much Huawei wants you to pay for your phone.
The Mate X2, with its square camera module and perforated screen, bears some resemblance to the Galaxy Z Fold 2. Huawei helps it stand out for its slightly tapered shape (see image below), which also brings the center of gravity closer to where the phone would be held.
Both screens are OLED panels with a refresh rate of 90 Hz: the external one measures 6.45 inches and the internal one 8. But only the external screen has a hole for the front camera. Speaking of the camera, the main configuration consists of a 50MP wide-angle sensor, a 16MP ultra-wide sensor, a 12MP telephoto (3x optical zoom) and an 8MP “SuperZoom” camera (10x optical zoom).
The X2 is powered by the Kirin 9000 chipset that debuted with the Mate 40 series last year and is equipped with 8 GB of RAM and up to 512 GB of storage. On the software front, the phone comes running EMUI 11 based on Android 10, but it will be one of the first phones to be upgraded to HarmonyOS in April.
The Huawei Mate X2 was announced in China and has a steep starting price of ¥ 17,999 (~ $ 2,785), which is considerably more expensive than the $ 2,000 price of Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 2. It is not known whether Huawei will present the phone in any market outside of China, but given that it cannot make use of Google Mobile Services, Huawei would have a hard time convincing users to spend a lot of money on it.
