"Huawei Mate Xs" in hands-on: first impressions of the foldable smartphone

Huawei presented its new products for this spring at the “Non-MWC” in Barcelona: With the Huawei Mate Xs, a foldable Huawei smartphone is coming to Europe for the first time - but without pre-installed Google Mobile Services. In addition, the tech group from China is launching new tablets and notebook models and is continuing to rely on its own vision of the “seamless experience”.

Huawei made its first major product announcement of the year on Monday. The presentation was originally planned as part of the Mobile World Congress (MWC), but the world's largest tech trade fair has been canceled for this year, as is well known. 

That is why Huawei has now unveiled its innovations on a smaller scale by means of globally coordinated live streams. "Techgarage" was at the broadcast in Barcelona and was able to get a first impression of the new products on site - including the exclusive new folding smartphone "Huawei Mate Xs".

Proud Huawei CEO Richard Yu only virtually on stage

Huawei CEO Richard Yu was only on stage virtually: The keynote was recorded and streamed to the relevant specialist audience in cities such as Barcelona, ​​Berlin, Paris or Zurich.

Despite headwinds from the US sanctions , Huawei was able to increase its sales by 18 percent in 2019, Yu proudly announces. The company continues to defend its second place in market share with over 240 million smartphones shipped.

The market for smart devices has grown particularly strongly: The sales figures for computers and wearables have doubled or tripled at Huawei in the past year.

Mate Xs: Upgrade for the foldable smartphone from Huawei

The most outstanding new product this afternoon was undoubtedly the new edition of the manufacturer's foldable smartphone: the Huawei Mate Xs.

With the Huawei Mate Xs, the screen bends around the outside of the device.

Externally, the Mate Xs is strongly reminiscent of the "Mate X" unveiled a year ago : Huawei still relies on a screen that takes up the outside of the device. This is in contrast to Samsung's “Foldable” design for the “ Galaxy Fold ”, in which the touchscreen is folded inwards. Which approach is the right one will be revealed in the future: «Techgarage» carried out an initial analysis in the article « Does Samsung bend wrong? », But overall both variants have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Mate Xs: screen, technology and design similar to its predecessor

When closed, the Mate Xs consists of a 6.8-inch screen on the front and a 6.4-inch screen and a camera housing on the back. If you open the device, you can fall back on the full screen with an 8-inch diagonal. Incidentally, the display is new for “Always On”; the function comes with a selection of designs. The multi-tasking function is also new, with which not only different but also the same app can be opened twice and used in parallel.

Inside the Mate X, a "Kirin 990" processor does its job, which, according to Richard Yu, means a speed increase of around 33% compared to its predecessor with the "Kirin 980". The new SoC (“System on a Chip”) also makes the device 5G compatible. 8 GB of RAM and 512 GB of device memory are also installed

All the technology of the Huawei Mate Xs is built into a relatively thin housing.

A 40 megapixel sensor is installed as the main camera, plus an 8 megapixel zoom lens that enables a three-fold (3x) optical zoom. The battery with a capacity of 4,500 mAh can be charged to 85% in 30 minutes thanks to fast charging with 55W.

And after the Mate X was only officially launched in China, the new Mate Xs is now being rolled out for a much larger target audience: In addition to Switzerland, where the Huawei folding phone can be pre-ordered from March 2nd, other countries are also coming to Europe can enjoy the new foldable. The launch date of the Huawei Mate Xs is March 16, the recommended retail price is 2,499 Swiss francs or 2,499 euros.

Why the foldable Huawei Mate Xs is coming to Europe now

“Techgarage” was able to ask the European boss of Huawei, Walter Ji, a few more questions in an interview after the event and also put his personal Mate Xs under a first look. When asked why the Mate Xs is coming to Europe, while the predecessor Mate X was exclusively delivered in China, Walter Ji lists three points:

The folding mechanism known as the "Falcon Wing" has been further refined and optimized.

The new "Kirin 990" chipset is significantly faster than its predecessor.

Huawei's own "HMS" services with the "Huawei App Gallery" have become much more extensive compared to a few months ago.

The comparatively high price of the smartphone of 2,499 CHF / Euro primarily reflects the high manufacturing costs of the elaborately produced device. As soon as higher volumes could be produced in later iterations of the folding phone, the selling price would certainly also fall.

Exclusive pleasure: The Mate Xs looks very well-engineered in the first hands-on, and due to the relatively high price it will not quite advance to a mainstream model.

Huawei does not want to be attached to a certain number of folding processes on the Mate Xs: The design is designed for a lifespan of two to three years, confirms Walter Ji.

First “Techgarage” hands-on with the Mate Xs: cautiously optimistic

When Walter Ji asks us after the presentation if we would like to test his new Mate Xs - far from any scramble in the hands-on area - we enthusiastically say yes.

Not only do we catch a first glimpse of the sales packaging of the high-end model: We also get an exclusive impression of what the folding phone from Huawei looks like after a few months in daily use - that's how long the European boss leads Mate Xs already with.

Huawei speaks of a "flexible display" with two layers when it comes to the flexible screen. In this case, the top layer counts as a non-removable screen protector. And this is where the Huawei manager's model shows small scratches and scuffs on the surface. However, this is also the case with the glass screens of our personal smartphone models. In addition, this Mate Xs is also a pre-production model. We will only be able to report on the robustness of the coating in our own long-term test from March 10th.

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