- And this is we're getting the non North American model?
Is that what's happening?
Did you screw me, Jake?
Did you (beep) me, Jake?
Folding phones are getting more popular than ever.
So, popular that people apparently,
chose the worst form factor,
to be the most popular one of them all,
which was the Samsung Flip,
which I unboxed in my last phone video.
Am I the folding phone guy?
That's Linus.
That's anyone else, but me.
This is the Huawei Mate Xs 2.
In China, as far as I understand it, this is a hot item,
but over here in the west,
they had to make some compromises.
So, I'm interested to see how that all plays out,
after I open the box.
I can't read that.
Oh, but right off the bat, it's unfolded already,
and we can see on the back,
we got this nice 3D fiberglass design.
Ooh.
Oh, there's a case.
This is a weird design to have a case for.
Okay.
Okay, that kinda snaps in, so that's nice.
Oh, it goes the other way.
So, you do this, you fold it in.
Oh, okay, I see the function of this.
This is basically like,
if you wanna use it like a regular phone,
then you can have this case in the back,
that protects the screen on the other side,
and put it down and stuff without really worrying,
about scratching it.
That's pretty nice but this is a really awkward.
If you wanna unfold it,
you have to hit the button to release it,
and then you have this thing like flapping off,
the back of the phone, and then you're using it like...
I mean, it's not that annoying.
Once I kinda of get used to it,
and I know that it's there, it's not that weird,
but like it still is like a weird implementation.
It's not very refined.
I mean in one way, like I'm trying to think,
about what else they could have done, and there's not much.
This phone is a little bit unique,
in the way that it implements the folding design.
Most other folding phones, as you may know,
fold kinda the other way so that the screen,
stays on the inside,
but this one folds the other way,
so that the screen is always on the outside.
It uses something that Huawei is calling their Falcon hinge.
Ah, I don't even know if that's necessary.
I don't know about the reasoning for why they did this,
but the fact of the matter is that when unfolded
it is thinner and lighter,
than some of the other folding phones on the market.
Do you know anything about this?
It doesn't have Google on it. - Yes, I'm aware.
- Are you? - Yeah.
- In fact, it's so light that it's only 260 grams.
That's actually impressive,
that it's like exactly 260 grams.
It feels light.
There's a banana.
Okay.
All right, on the top we got one of the speakers,
I believe there's one on the other side,
but we'll find out when we get around to it.
Over here we got the volume rocker,
and the power button/fingerprint reader looks like,
which seems like it's fit nicely,
into the curve of the phone.
You wouldn't like,
that's the challenge with a phone like this.
With the other ones, you'd fold the other way,
and you can just put on this edge here,
but this edge is concealed and this one's exposed,
so you end up having to put the buttons,
on like a rounded edge,
that looks like it's continuing the display,
although they didn't need,
to make it look like that, did they?
They decided to make it look,
like it's like one full display that's folded around.
On the bottom I should say we got the USBC port,
that's like kind of put into this little,
I'm gonna call that the nubbin.
Another speaker there and another mic.
So, I guess there's two.
Oh, there's a mic on the top as well,
and oh, no, that's not the mic,
that's the pin for the sim card slot.
On this side we just have the little clicky do hickey,
which I'm going to put into place.
You can see how that works.
It's got a latch that you actually have to release,
with the button there,
and this button releases the folding phone,
and then it kind of like, ooh.
It's like watching a flower unfold or something, pew.
And also on the back here we got the camera array,
but we're gonna talk about that,
once we actually do the camera tests.
Let's turn her on.
Let's turn it on after I talk about our sponsor, Vessi.
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Okay, so if you decide to use it just as a regular phone,
you're getting a 6.5 inch screen,
with a 2480 by 1176 revolution.
Revolution, let's go.
Unfolded it's a 7.8 inch screen with 120 hertz refresh rate,
which is pretty nice, with a 2480 by 2200 resolution,
and Jake really wants me to tell you,
that that means it's FHD plus.
It's like if you had the short side of a 4K display twice.
Did that make sense?
I also neglected to mention that on the inside,
we have a processor that is at this two generations old.
So, you are compromising their...
It does have eight Gigs of RAM, which is pretty good.
512 Gigs of storage in this model,
but I think there's also a 256 Gig version, is that right?
I'll talk about the form factor for a second,
because with the Flip4,
I spent a great deal of time complaining,
about why anyone would make that,
or why anyone would want it,
and the fact that it was the most popular phone,
it makes my blood boil, frankly.
This form factor makes a lot more sense to me.
It looks sleek, you know, it looks a lot more sleek,
if that's something that you care about.
If there were more phones on the market,
that had this form factor,
I would expect this to be more popular.
As long as you're talking about the aesthetics of it,
and like feeling cool,
this feels pretty cool to kind of like fold it up like this,
and especially having the like the physical release,
to be like, "Oh, I'm on the phone.
Hold on, let me check that on my little mini-tablet thing."
(host exclaiming)
That feels cool.
That feels way cooler than using one of these phones,
and being like, "Oh, let me just see."
Nerd.
You get the benefit obviously of more screen real estate,
which will let you do some cool things,
like multi window becomes way more interesting,
and useful on a phone like this.
We're in the music app.
I bring it in, bring it up,
and the multi-tasking interface also looks like iOS.
That's interesting.
If I touch and hold, no.
Does that give us an option?
Oh, I can get rid of it.
What's this?
Oh, I made it windowed and that is smooth.
You can really see that on the...
Well, I mean you can't maybe on YouTube,
our flow plane or wherever you're watching this.
Okay, we can't have multiple.
We only have the ability to have our sidebar.
Oh, that's pretty cool though.
Optimally, I would love if you could like pin an app there,
and then minimize another app and put it like here,
so you can just like immediately switch,
between them like it was a task bar.
That's pretty cool that they like hide,
in the edge of the display there.
So, if I tap on that, then you have that option.
So, that's not too bad.
Let's see how intuitive this is to put them side by side.
Okay, you have to individually tap them,
to get them out of...
I have the app in full screen mode and I do this,
and then I can click another one to go in full screen mode.
Okay, that's pretty cool.
The split screen experience is obviously pretty cool.
I like seeing a larger form factor Android devices,
being able to use that kind of thing,
so that's great but this phone is very limited.
So, the OS is called Harmony OS.
It is based on, I believe Android 11.
That might not be accurate,
but, you know, we're on Android 13 now.
You're using it,
you can tell that this is essentially Android.
The important thing is here,
because it is actually based on Android,
on some version of Android, you can side load apps,
but a lot of times they won't work properly,
because the underlying systems are different.
There are instant apps that you can use,
like through the web, but it's a lot of work.
It's more work than another device.
The other thing that this phone,
it really notably compromises on is the battery.
Battery is only 4600 milliamp hours,
which actually is not that small of a battery,
but in my experience,
and in the experience of some other people I've seen,
a reporting on this phone ends up being not very strong.
I think someone was saying with full screen use,
they only got like four and a half hours or something,
while we sort of mix up with it,
from what I can tell, by having a fast,
really fast charging.
Charge the phone up to 90% and 30 minutes.
Obviously maybe your mileage will vary.
Saw some other people saying that's not quite the case,
but at the same time you buy this fancy phone,
and how much is it, Jake?
It's 2000 Euros.
There's not a lot of prices available,
for like what they're selling it for in North America,
'cause they're not selling it in North America,
as far as I understand.
Oh, this is funny.
The Google is still the homepage on the browser though.
I wonder if that's just like,
the typing experience with two hands.
YouTube.
That's pretty good.
I liked that.
I liked when I typed like that.
(funky upbeat music)
That's pretty bad.
That's max.
I mean, they're not the worst speakers I've ever heard
on a device ever, I guess,
but they, yeah, there's distortion,
especially at the higher volumes there.
There's a lack of bass.
Anyways, that's the speakers, they're not great.
GSM Arena tested it and they measured 506 nets,
at all the way to the end,
of the brightness slider where we are right now.
So, 500 nets for a tablet,
isn't the worst thing in the world.
What does the new iPhone get?
Like, is it 2000?
Woo, they're not quite there.
Let's check out the cameras.
Touch to turn on the secondary screen.
- [Jake] Whoa, that's cool.
- So, I can see what I'm doing over here,
and I can also see, and you can see what I'm doing.
Wait, what?
So, wait, what do you see right now?
- [Jake] Us.
- If I press, if I take a photo,
what does that look like?
- Oh, wait we see.
Yeah, it flashed.
- All right, you're seeing. - What do you see?
- Right. - Which is us.
- But I can't make it so that I flip it around,
and then you are also, you can't see anything.
The button that I use to do that is gone.
There's a button there.
This is the button that you press,
to activate the rear screen.
One of these cameras is a 50 megapixel main shooter.
There's a 13 megapixel ultra wide,
and a eight megapixel telephoto.
Whoa, we're at 30 time zoom.
We don't wanna take a photo.
Stabilization seems to be catching up pretty good.
Oh.
There he is, nice.
Yeah, this is the annoying thing about that,
is that I wanna hold it by the nubbin all the time,
but when I go like this,
to get what I hope is going to be landscape video,
instead of vertical video.
Wow, we got some crazy.
This stabilization makes it so that when I do this,
you guys are just like in a perpetual state of motion blur.
Maybe if I'm doing a selfie,
I should just accept that I have to do it this way,
and then I hit record and this is the selfie cam.
What's up guys?
I did vertical video though.
- Awesome. - That's what it is.
I like the quality of this.
This looks pretty nice for a selfie cam, which is a what?
10.7 megapixel.
Not that that megapixel really matters but it's a F/0.2,
F/2.2 aperture and all that, I don't know.
It really comes down to the experience,
and that's not bad at all.
On the flip video, people are saying I'm what?
I was incorrect about my putting it in my pocket,
and saying that it was less comfortable and stupid.
That's my opinion.
If you like it that's up to you but I didn't like it,
'cause I didn't like there,
being like a little rock in my shorts.
I prefer there to be a longer slab,
because then it's kind of like is more uniform.
It does indeed fit in your pocket.
It fits in my pocket when it's unfolded,
so it'll fit in everyone's.
Oh, God.
So, at the end of the day, you know,
as beautiful as this device is,
as thin and light and nice to the touch as it is,
fact of the matter is that this phone,
could have been more useful to customers outside of China,
than it ended up being.
Battery is another thing that's not so great.
The cameras seem pretty good.
Speakers are bad.
Am I going to buy it? No.
Should you buy it?
I'm not here to tell you what to do.
Does it fit in your pocket?
Absolutely.
Should you subscribe to Short Circuit?
Definitely subscribe to tech. (beep)
Hey, if you like this video,
go watch my Samsung Z Flip4 video,
which I referenced multiple times in this video,
so just so, you know, just so you have that.