The Mate X has been thoroughly upgraded to fight the Galaxy Fold release
When it saw what happened with the preview Galaxy Fold units that Samsung sent out, Huawei put the breaks on the release of its own foldable Mate X. After all, if your main competitor will be perfecting their foldable for five months, you would use the time to do the same and avoid the eventual bad publicity if something goes awry while you play pioneer.
It seems that Huawei has used the unforeseen release gap well, judging by a preview of the updated handset that just popped up. While it may have taken steps to avoid the hinge and screen top layer issues that plagued the Fold before launch, it has also thoroughly upgraded the internals.
The Mate X previewed here is now equipped with Huawei’s latest and greatest hardware, some of which, like the new Kirin 990 chipset, hasn’t even been announced yet. It will be in the Mate 30 and Pro models this fall, so it makes sense that Huawei will use it with the Mate X that is also expected to be released come October.
On the camera front, the Mate X has been upped to the latest P30 Pro camera kit, complete with the unique RYYB pixel matrix arrangement that skews the color profile of pictures a bit, but does wonders in low-light scenarios.
All in all, expect a true battle of the foldables when the Mate X launches some time after the Galaxy Fold. Not only will it offer more in terms of hardware, but also come in a completely different design concept that lets you use it as a regular big-screen phone when folded.
You only have to open the other screen part if you need even more display canvas, unlike the Fold that has a puny secondary display when closed. Unfortunately, with all that jazz and 5G connectivity on top, it will also be more expensive than the Fold, and there is no chance it will ever be released in the US.