- Huawei has just announced the Huawei Mate X2
and it looks surprisingly similar to another foldable.
What's up, guys?
Saf here on SuperSaf TV,
and this is everything you need to know
about the Huawei Mate X2.
So Huawei had the announcement, which was in Chinese
and I know not everybody's going to sit
through the full Chinese presentation,
so I'm summarizing everything here for you guys.
So firstly, let's address the elephant in the room.
I know a lot of you guys
are going to be saying this in the comments.
Yes, the Mate X2 looks a lot
like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2.
I hate that long name, but anyway, the Fold 2.
Now, if we look at the Huawei Mate X
and the Huawei Mate Xs, they were outer folding designs
whereas the X2 is now an inner folding design.
Arguably, the outer folding design does look better
but we've discussed this before.
It's not the most practical solution.
In order to have a display fold,
it does have to have some form of plastic with it.
And plastic obviously scratches much easily than a glass
at level two or three.
I can't remember. We'll have to ask Zack.
Anyway, on the Mate X, what we did find was that
when the device was, say, on the table,
when you're putting it in and out of your pocket,
the folding display's always exposed,
which means it can get scratched up
and get lots of dents in very quickly and easily.
On an inner folding display,
that folding display is always protected
when the device is not in use,
and only when you have it open is when it's exposed.
You're not likely to be doing anything too drastic
with it when it is open.
So Huawei has obviously seen this
and has now opted for an inner folding display
like we've got on the Fold 2,
Let's take a look at these displays.
So the exterior display is around 6.45 inches.
The interior display is around 8 inches.
Both of these are larger compared to the Fold 2
and they both have OLED technology
with a 90-hertz refresh rate.
Now, the interesting thing here is Huawei has gone
for 90 hertz on both.
This is something we've seen on other Huawei devices as well
Huawei doesn't seem to be going all the way to 120 hertz
and kind of giving you a balance between battery life
as well as resolution and refresh rate.
The Samsung Fold 2 does have 60 hertz on the outer display
but 120 hertz on the inner display.
The outer display in the Mate X2
also has a pill-shaped cutout
but there is no cutout on the main display.
The Z Fold 2, we have a punch out in the center,
on the cover, as well as a punch out
on the inner display too.
Now let's move on to the design.
The main thing here is Huawei have tried to go
for a minimal gap design.
So when the device is folded,
you're not going to see as much of a gap
as on the Samsung Fold 2.
Although I have to say straight away that the diagram
that's Huawei presented was definitely very exaggerated.
The gap on the Z Fold 2 is nowhere near
what they showed in the diagram, but nevertheless,
the gap is supposed to be smaller
than what we've got on the Fold 2,
and it's also supposed to have less of a crease.
Now, Richard Yu when he was presenting the device
kind of said that there is no crease,
but when the light was hitting it
you could see a little bit of a crease thing going on.
And although the crease isn't going to be a straight line
like we've got on the Z Fold 2,
there is going to be some form of a crease
and it's not going to be completely flat.
Now the way Huawei is achieving this minimal gap
with this minimal crease is by having
what they call a water drop-shaped cavity
when the device is folded.
So the display kind of curves in,
similar to what we've seen
on the Motorola razr, I would say,
and that allows for a minimal gap.
Also, the device kind of tapers off when it's flat out
and at its thinnest point is around 4.4 millimeters,
so it is very, very thin.
And it kind of looks like the weight is more
towards one side
and that's supposed to make it easier to hold.
The Mate X2 weighs around 295 grams,
which is slightly higher compared to the Z Fold 2
which is around 282 grams.
And the Mate X2 comes in four colors,
there's a blue, there's a pink,
there's a black and a white.
Now being a flagship device, we do have flagship cameras.
So there is a 50-megapixel primary camera.
There's a 16 megapixel ultra-wide camera
which can focus in for macro shots as well.
We then have a 12-megapixel telephoto zoom camera
which can give you around three times optical zoom.
And we also have an 8-megapixel super zoom camera
giving you around 10 times optical zoom.
Now these cameras seem similar
to what we've seen on the Huawei 40 Pro+
which does have very, very good cameras.
And on the front-facing camera at the pill-shaped cutout,
we have a 16-megapixel selfie camera.
And I'm assuming the other one is the depth sensor
which will help with selfies.
The Huawei P40 Pro
and the P40 Pro+ last year took excellent selfies,
thanks to those dual cameras.
But what's interesting is unlike the Z Fold 2,
we do not have a camera when the device is folded out.
So if you are doing things like video calls,
then you're not going to be able to use
that full 8-inch display,
you will have to use the exterior display.
Now like the Z Fold 2,
you can use the rear-facing cameras as front-facing cameras,
so when the device is folded out
you can actually see the exterior display as a viewfinder
and you'll be able to use say,
the ultra-wide camera for group selfies.
The Mate X2 is powered by the Kirin 9000 5G chip set.
This is a 5-nanometer chip set.
It comes with 8 gigabytes of RAM,
with either 256 or 512 gigabytes of storage.
I expect the performance to be very, very good.
We of course have stereo speakers
and we have a 4,500 milliamp hour battery.
This is actually the same size as what we've got
on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2.
And the Mate X2 can support up to 55 watts of charging,
which is very, very fast.
Now, I'm not sure
if this charger actually comes included or not.
This is not clear at this point in time
but we do not have wireless charging,
something that the Z Fold 2 does have.
Now for software it's quite interesting
because the Mate X2 will be coming out of the box
with EMU 11.0, which is based upon Android 10.
However, in the presentation, Huawei did mention
that the device will be upgradable to HarmonyOS in April.
Now, Huawei has showed us some optimizations
for multitasking on the Mate X2
which will be really useful
on that larger eight-inch display.
And of course, Google Play Services are still not supported.
We've talked about this many times before,
but generally you can still get
and experience using the browser
so you can access YouTube, Gmail, et cetera
via the browser but it's obviously quite limited
to what you might be used to on a regular Android device.
Now, this might not actually matter
because as far as we know right now,
the Mate X2 is only going to be available in China.
There is no information about availability internationally
and it will be available from the 25th of February,
coming in at around 18,000 yuan.
Now I've done some conversions.
Obviously, it's not going to be like for like
but that comes to around 2,000 pounds here in the UK
which is a little bit more compared
to the Galaxy Z Fold 2.
And that is the Huawei Mate X2.
Granted it looks very similar
to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2.
But for me, I love seeing competition.
And even if we're not going to be able
to get ahold of it outside of China,
it still does push the bar
and it will hopefully help push foldables even further.
I'm somebody who loves foldable devices,
and I'm always excited to see new innovations in this area
and the way Huawei we have implemented a minimal gap
on their device, it's going to be very interesting
to see how they develop this going forward
and what Samsung is going to be coming out with next
this year on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3.
What do you guys think of the Huawei Mate X2?
Do you like it? Do you not like it?
Do drop me a comment below.
Let me know your thoughts.
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Thanks for watching.
This is Saf on SuperSaf TV, and I'll see you next time.
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