THIS is the Huawei Mate X2!
It is by far the most special foldable phone on the market right now.
And that’s because 1.
It has the best hardware in a foldable, and 2.
It is close to impossible to get.
You cannot buy it in the UK yet, or in Europe, or in the US.
You can only buy it in China at the moment and the stock is incredibly limited.
In fact – this phone is so hard to get that even our review unit is the only one in the
UK.
And, we only have for 2 and a half days, after which we do have to send it back, as there’s
literally a queue of reviewers waiting to get their hands on it.
So, without any further ado, here is how it compares to the Galaxy Z Fold 2 – the current
foldable champion!
My foldable smartphone journey started with the Fold 1 in April 2020, after which I got
the Z Fold 2 as soon as it came out in September 2020.
I’ve used each as my main android phone, alongside my iPhone.
And the Fold 2 was for me the perfect foldable phone, as it fixed all of the complaints that
I had with the Fold 1, such as the small external display, the massive notch, the overall durability
AND also added some unexpected features, such as the new hinge that you could stop at any
point you wanted.
In fact, the Z Fold 2 was so good that 2 of my team members, Harry and Josh both got one
as well!
So we actually have 4 Z Fold 2’s in the office, as we have another one, just for shots.
But it turns out that this new foldable from Huawei, tops even the Z Fold 2…at least
when it comes to the hardware.
Right off the bat, the Mate X2 fully changes the design philosophy of Huawei’s Mate X
and Mate Xs, which both used a single foldable display that folded on the onside and instead,
it adopts Samsung’s idea of having a foldable display that folds on the inside, and then
a regular display on the outside.
This is so that the inner display always stays protected, which is a great decision for foldables,
as Huawei also had issues where the Mate X broke, because of how easily the foldable
display could get damaged, by always being exposed.
So if they are so similar now, how does the Mate X2 improve over the Z Fold 2’s hardware?
First, the outer display is fully usable as a regular smartphone.
You see, with the Z Fold 2, even-though the outer display has been significantly improved
over the Fold 1’s, by Samsung making it bigger and therefore more usable, it still
suffers from the very narrow aspect ratio.
It is very difficult to type on and the fact that it is still very tall, makes it very
difficult for me to use in one hand, as I constantly have to move my hand up, to be
able to reach the top of it.
The Mate X2 fixes that by using a large 6.45” display, which has a more conventional aspect
ratio compared to the Z Fold 2’s.
And this is also a 90Hz display, rather than it being a 60Hz panel, like on the Z Fold
2.
In fact, this display is so good that I can pretty much do everything on it, without the
need to open it up.
Whereas with the Z Fold 2, I only use the outer display probably about 20% of the time,
with the remaining 80% going to the inner display.
Second, we have the camera.
The Z Fold 2 uses the same main and ultra-wide modules as the Galaxy S20.
Not the S20 Ultra, but the regular S20, while the telephoto is the same as on the S10.
And I’m not saying that the camera is bad or anything, as the main sensor captures a
lot of light with its large 1.8µm pixels, but the fact that we don’t have anything
more than 2x zoom is a bit disappointing, when other flagships have crazy numbers like
5x or 10x optical.
Well, the Mate X2 fixes that by using a true flashship camera.
Its main sensor is a 50MP sensor, 1/1.28” in size, with 4:1 pixel binning, as opposed
to the smaller 12MP 1/1.76 inch sensor on the Z Fold 2.
You can take a look at a few samples from the main camera module right here and see
how they compare.
The telephoto module is vastly superior on the Mate X2.
As we not only have 1, but 2 of them.
The 1st one is a 12MP 3x optical zoom module, which already gives you more zoom range than
the single 2x module on the Z Fold 2 and then the 2nd one is an 8MP 10X optical zoom module
which uses a periscope lens to achieve an incredible level of zoom, that just blows
the Z Fold 2’s zoom out of the water.
And then we have the ultra wide module which is a 12MP f/2.2 module on the Z Fold 2 vs
a 16MP f/2.2 module on the Mate X2.
Not a massive difference here.
Moving on to the 3rd thing that the Mate X 2 does better than the Z Fold 2 - the overall
thickness.
You cannot argue with the fact that the Z Fold 2 is very thick and feels like a brick
in your pocket.
It has this sloped design where the body gets thicker, the closer you get to the hinge.
And that’s because you cannot fold a display flat, as it would break if you did that.
Instead, Samsung has this gap that keeps the display slightly open, even when closed, giving
it a thickness of 16.8mm at its thickest point and 6.9mm at its thinnest.
When it is fully open, it does indeed feel very thin.
Not so much when closed.
However, Huawei not only made the Mate X2 noticeably thinner, at just 14.7mm when closed,
but they also fixed the sloped design of the Z Fold 2, by closing almost perfectly flat.
But how did they manage to do that?
If you look closely when closing the display, you can see how the display still remains
curved on the inside, but then the body of the phone became thinner, in order for it
to be able to close flat.
It’s pretty genius how they designed this!
And I gotta say, just holding it in my hand, the Mate X2 feels SO MUCH BETTER than the
Z Fold 2.
It feels way more usable and similar to using an S21 Ultra with a case, rather than an actual
foldable phone.
When unfolded, it does feel pretty thick on one side and super thin on the other, as opposed
to the Z Fold 2 which feels more symmetrical, which kinda reminds me of when I was using
the Z Fold 2 with a case on.
But overall, the Mate X feels in hand how I would want the Z Fold 3 to feel.
Speaking of changes that the Z Fold 3 needs to make.
The crease!
On the Z Fold 2, it is noticeable, although you will quickly forget about it after just
a few minutes of use, but on the Mate X2, Huawei has somehow managed to pretty much
remove it entirely – to the point where you cannot see it and you can only barely
feel it.
And on top of that, there are SO many things that the Mate X 2 does better.
For example, it comes with a free case in the box, which also includes a kickstand,
whereas with the Z Fold 2, you have to buy that separately.
It also comes with a super fast 66W charger in the box, as opposed to the 25W charger
that the Z Fold 2 comes with.
We also get advanced face scanning tech on the front, similar to what we have on the
iPhone, which is something that the Z fold 2 lacks.
And we also get an IR blaster!
When was the last time we had this in a phone?
So now that we took a look at how the Mate X 2 improves over the Z Fold 2, let’s take
a look at some of the things that the Z Fold 2 does better.
The first one being the hinge that you can stop at any point you want, so you can use
it for watching videos and some apps would even take advantage of this.
The Mate X2 closes shut immediately, and it doesn’t feel as satisfying to open, as the
Z Fold 2 does.
Not to mention that we do not have a camera on the internal display at all, which really
sucks when you want to do a video call.
Speaking of the internal display, the Mate X only has a 90Hz refresh rate, compared to
the 120Hz on the Fold 2.
The bezels surrounding the display are ever so slightly thicker and the Z Fold 2 is also
more affordable at £1600 in the UK, vs around £2000 for the Mate X2.
But then again you cannot actually buy the Mate X2 in the UK yet, or even outside of
China, so for most people this is not an option.
And obviously, since this is a Huawei phone, Google services are also not an option either.
Huawei has added tools such as Petal search and more ways to install APKs.
So if you really want to get Google stuff and your regular apps, for the most part,
you can.
It’s just that it’s way more hassle to do so, since there is no PlayStore and getting
updates requires more steps to, reason why for anyone outside of China, I just cannot
recommend this phone.
BUT for anyone in China, this is by far the best foldable you can get and if you really
are a tinkerer and you want to get this imported from China and you
don’t mind the hassle of getting your apps on, I think it is an absolutely amazing piece
of hardware!