Cards on the table
Huawei’s much-delayed folding phone, the Mate X, is finally going on
sale next month. The company announced the news at a launch event today
attended and reported on by Sina Digital.
The Mate X is a 5G phone with Huawei’s Kirin 980 processor and Barong
5000 modem, and it has a dual-cell 4,500mAh battery that can reportedly
be filled to 85 percent in half an hour with 55W fast charging. When
unfolded, the screen is 8 inches diagonal, and when it’s closed it’s
like having a phone with a 6.6-inch screen on the front and a 6.38-inch
panel on the back.
Unlike Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, which opens up like a book, the Mate
X’s screen wraps around the outside of the clamshell device. This should
make it more usable as a conventional phone than the Galaxy Fold, but
the plastic-covered screen faces an even greater durability challenge
since it’s constantly exposed.
We’ll have to see how the Mate X holds up, because it is not a cheap
device. It’ll start shipping in China on November 15th for 16,999 yuan,
or about $2,400, which gets you a model with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of
storage.
As for an international release, Huawei tells The Verge
in a statement that “Our strategy is based on carriers’ 5G roll out in
different regions. So far, Huawei has made the Huawei Mate X available
in the China market on November 15. A global launch plan is under
review.”
Meanwhile, Huawei also announced that it’s shipped 200
million smartphones already in 2019, having reached that milestone 64
days earlier than it did last year. The real proof of the company’s
resilience, however, will come once we have year-on-year results that
factor in Google-less phones like the Mate 30 Pro.
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