Huawei debuts Mate X2 folding phone, starting at eye-popping $2,785

Credit: Huawei

Huawei has announced the Mate X2, the third foldable device in the company's lineup and one that carries a completely new design compared to its predecessors — and a hefty price to boot.

Compared to its predecessor, the Mate X2 has been redesigned with a display that folds from the inside of the device, rather than the outside. Similar to Samsung's own Galaxy Fold series, the handset has a second smaller screen on the outside.

The Mate X2 measures eight inches when unfolded and sports a 2480x2200 resolutions. Its second display is a 6.45-inch screen with a 2700x1160 resolution. Both displays are OLED and have 90Hz refresh rates. It's powered by Huawei's own Kirin 9000 chipset, packs 8GB of RAM, and has a 4,400 mAh battery that supports fast charging up to 55W.

As far as cameras, the device has a 50MP wide-angle, a 16MP ultrawide, a 12MP telephoto with a 3x zoom, and an 8MP telephoto with a 10x optical zoom. There's a fifth 16MP selfie camera on the exterior.

Because it's a Huawei smartphone, the Mate X2 won't support Google apps or services. It runs EMUI 11.0 software based on Android, but could be updated to Huawei's proprietary HarmonyOS in April.

Huawei says the Mate X2 will retail with 256GB of internal storage for about 17,999 yuan (about $2,785) or 18,999 yuan (about $2,940) with 512GB of storage. It'll be available in China on Feb. 25 in blue, pink, black, and white.

The new device follows in the footsteps of Huawei's previous Mate X, which was released in 2019. In 2020, Huawei also released an incrementally updated Mate XS device with a faster processor and a more durable display.

As companies like Huawei and Samsung release foldable smartphones, Apple is said to be developing its own folding iPhone. It has filed numerous patent applications related to folding display technology, and reports suggest the company is testing prototype displays sourced from Samsung and LG.

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76 Comments

GeorgeBMac

said about 3 years ago

So? This high end smart phone is designed to run Harmony OS rather than Android?

If Google were smart, they would pressure the U.S. government to end these silly, useless sanctions immediately before any more alternative OS's enter the market to compete against their OS. Google is an American company with an American product that is being punished by these silly, worthless sanctions that accomplish nothing and benefit nobody.

Huawei was happy to support this U.S. company and its product. It is we who forced them to abandon American products and develop their own.

And, the same is going on in the world of chips: while the auto market is hobbled by a shortage of chips, the Chinese have been forced to develop their own to compete against American backed products. They didn't want to have to do that. But we forced them to compete against us.

Hopefully both countries can soon return to mutually beneficial sanity.

muthuk_vanalingam

said about 3 years ago

GeorgeBMac said:

So? This high end smart phone is designed to run Harmony OS rather than Android?

If Google were smart, they would pressure the U.S. government to end these silly, useless sanctions immediately before any more alternative OS's enter the market to compete against their OS. Google is an American company with an American product that is being punished by these silly, worthless sanctions that accomplish nothing and benefit nobody.

Huawei was happy to support this U.S. company and its product. It is we who forced them to abandon American products and develop their own.

And, the same is going on in the world of chips: while the auto market is hobbled by a shortage of chips, the Chinese have been forced to develop their own to compete against American backed products. They didn't want to have to do that. But we forced them to compete against us.

Hopefully both countries can soon return to mutually beneficial sanity.

Agreed completely with you on this. Except for the OS part, because it still runs a flavor of Android, i.e. EMUI without Google's play store and core services, not Harmony OS. It is quite possible that Huawei may not show any interest in using Google's play store/core services anymore and are in a position to push their own app store/core services going forward. Based on the reviews that I have read in GSMArena, Huawei's Android (with EMUI skin) phones without Google play store/core services have progressed from "unusable" at the beginning (2 years ago) to "very difficult to use with many compromises" about 1 year ago to "usable with limitations" now. The progress is significant and they may not look back (at incorporating Goolgle's play store/core services) at all. Not sure about their plan to move away from EMUI to Harmony OS though.

StrangeDays

said about 3 years ago

It's parody at this point. This isn't a product, it's a prototype.

muthuk_vanalingam

said about 3 years ago

StrangeDays said:

It's parody at this point. This isn't a product, it's a prototype.

Any links to substantiate your claim?

GeorgeBMac

said about 3 years ago

muthuk_vanalingam said:

GeorgeBMac said:

So? This high end smart phone is designed to run Harmony OS rather than Android?

If Google were smart, they would pressure the U.S. government to end these silly, useless sanctions immediately before any more alternative OS's enter the market to compete against their OS. Google is an American company with an American product that is being punished by these silly, worthless sanctions that accomplish nothing and benefit nobody.

Huawei was happy to support this U.S. company and its product. It is we who forced them to abandon American products and develop their own.

And, the same is going on in the world of chips: while the auto market is hobbled by a shortage of chips, the Chinese have been forced to develop their own to compete against American backed products. They didn't want to have to do that. But we forced them to compete against us.

Hopefully both countries can soon return to mutually beneficial sanity.

Agreed completely with you on this. Except for the OS part, because it still runs a flavor of Android, i.e. EMUI without Google's play store and core services, not Harmony OS. It is quite possible that Huawei may not show any interest in using Google's play store/core services anymore and are in a position to push their own app store/core services going forward. Based on the reviews that I have read in GSMArena, Huawei's Android (with EMUI skin) phones without Google play store/core services have progressed from "unusable" at the beginning (2 years ago) to "very difficult to use with many compromises" about 1 year ago to "usable with limitations" now. The progress is significant and they may not look back (at incorporating Goolgle's play store/core services) at all. Not sure about their plan to move away from EMUI to Harmony OS though.

I'm not sure how many people would want to buy a premium phone with a junk OS.
They are moving to Harmony for a reason. Hopefully, that reason is taken away before that happens. It benefits no one for them to compete with American products -- which they are obviously capable of doing.

I suspect they are simply warning the U.S. government where this can and will go if they don't make corrections.

Google needs to speak up soon to protect their product and their company. But, if they do, heads in the echo chamber will be exploding. So, I suspect this is being handled behind the scenes.