A few months ago, Huawei announced the second iteration of its version of the foldable smartphone. The Huawei Mate Xs 2 was launched in South Africa in August this year, ushering in its second publicly-available foldable smartphone in the country. This follows the Huawei P50 Pocket released earlier this year.
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In the latter half of 2018, the world was holding its collective breath as to which OEM would win the battle for the first officially-released foldable smartphone. While hindsight would indicate that there have only really been two brands in this battle, at the time there were six brands vying for this honour. It wasn’t until six months later that we’d receive the first of the releases to the market ahead of MWC 2019.
Although the initial release dates were quite similar, there has only really been one player in the South African market, already on the fourth iteration of its foldable series available on our shores. With Huawei a late entry into this space in the region, what can the Mate Xs 2 bring in the way of a unique offering to unseat Samsung’s foldable range?
When I unboxed the Huawei Mate Xs 2, I was struck by its aesthetics. It was displayed in its unfolded state within a neatly packaged, gold box. It may seem trivial once you start using any device after the fact but those few moments when unwrapping the plastic cover and opening a beautifully-crafted box go a long way in terms of first impressions. Somewhat of a honeymoon period for your new device, as it were.
If you’re not familiar with the Mate Xs series compared to other smartphones, you may be a bit surprised by its folding technology. Although you would’ve been expecting the fold, its outward folding design is unique in the smartphone market. Whereas many other OEMs have chosen a dual-screen approach – one larger screen on the inside that folds away like closing a book with a secondary screen on the outside – Huawei has taken what would seem to be the opposite route.
This means that the Huawei Mate Xs 2 screen fold mechanics take away the need for a secondary screen. What makes this great is that the device doesn’t need to switch screens while you’re working when you do unfold to a larger screen. Instead, it’s a more seamless approach. And it looks amazing doing it, too. There is a sense of awe as you unfold and fold again, contemplating the science behind what appears to be a stretchy screen.
There are two elements to Huawei’s design approach for the Mate Xs range. The first of these is the hinge behind the centre of the screen. Compared to the original Mate Xs, the Huawei Mate Xs 2 has a much more refined hinge, which is thinner, lighter and more durable. As a result, Huawei has dropped the overall weight by 45g between the two iterations. That’s an impressive 15%.
The second element that I found quite useful was the bar that runs down on the rear. There are multiple aspects to the usefulness of this bar. For starters, it clips the folded screen into place when folded. You can use the button to detach the screen when you’re ready to unfold it again. Other uses include housing the charging port, camera and flash, as well as the fingerprint reader, while also doubling as a handy grip. Additionally, when unfolded, the rear is also presented with its textured finish. I like this approach, as it allows for an easier grip of the Huawei Mate Xs 2 when used in tablet mode.
In terms of its design specifications, it has the following dimensions:
While the outward-folding screen does make for quite the impression, it is not without its flaws. For starters, the one aspect that remains etched to the back of my mind is screen protection. Using this folding technique means that the screen is always exposed. It may not be dissimilar from conventional smartphones but when you factor in that this isn’t the tempered glass we’ve become accustomed to on those devices, the fragility of the folding screen is a risk. It may be worth investing in a case or cover to protect – or just a carry bag for ease of mind.
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While I’ve already discussed many of the design aspects of the Huawei Mate Xs 2 foldable screen, there’s still the actual display and performance to work through.
Starting with the specifications, the screen has a 7.8” foldable OLED panel. It folds away to a more reasonable 6.5” size, similar to the size of the now-ended Note range. In perspective, the 7.8” panel is about 0.2” larger than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4. That being said, Huawei has reduced it from the original’s 8” display.
The biggest difference, however, between each of the phones lies in the display resolution. The Huawei Mate Xs 2 has a 2,200×2,480px resolution, along with 424ppi and 120Hz refresh rate. It uses an OLED panel along with HDR support. Overall, it looks great. The colours are bold and bright and the detailing is crisp, even when enlarged to tablet mode.
The only real downside of the tablet-sized screen is its aspect ratio. It works well for reading, and managing documents and tasks but when it comes to entertainment, there’s quite a bit of lost real estate. To note, that doesn’t mean to say that the quality is poor or that it isn’t larger than on a normal smartphone but with many games and movies having a 16:9 aspect ratio, and the foldable smartphone having a more squared approach, a lot of the top and bottom of the image is blacked out. This means there is plenty of waste in this regard. At times, you do have the option to zoom to fit but with either losing out on the wide angle (and possibly some detail) or a weirdly distorted image.
Comparatively, the OLED panel is not as leading-edge as the AMOLED fitted to the Fold4. However, it does have a much better resolution while offering all the same features. As such, it’s only really a matter of opinion or side-by-side comparisons.
Apart from the design and screen, there is quite a bit remaining to be unpacked in terms of specifications. This includes the chipset, RAM, camera, battery and supporting software that makes the Mate Xs 2 tick.
As with many recent Huawei builds over the past few years, the Huawei Mate Xs 2 features a Qualcomm chipset. The unit features a Qualcomm SM8350 Snapdragon 888 4G (5nm) chipset. It has an Octa-core CPU (2.84GHz Cortex-X1 + x3 2.42GHz Cortex-A78 + x4 1.80GHz Cortex-A55). This is supported by the Adreno 660 GPU.
Further to this, there are several memory and storage options. This includes:
While the underlying operating system is still based on Android firmware, it utilises the HarmonyOS 2.0 operating system. However, it is still barred from using Google Services, which means no Play Store access. With each iteration of the smartphone released, the brand has done more and more to enhance AppGallery and add to its growing app store base.
Lastly, it features a 4,600mAh battery. It is significantly large. However, to enhance its capabilities, it also supports fast charging with 66W along with reverse charging for other devices that support wireless charging.
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The performance of the Huawei Mate Xs 2 is great. Even with the larger screen and switch between the two real estate sizes on the screen, there is little to no lag at all. Its performance is punchy, even while not having the latest Qualcomm chipset. The software to support the folding technology is quite efficient as well with very few bugs encountered during the review period.
The one drawback of the Qualcomm SM8350 Snapdragon is its lack of 5G. While there isn’t an immediate need for 5G in South Africa, with most operators only offering 5G access via specific plans and specialised routers, it would be a nice-to-have for future compatibility. And, at the Xs 2’s pricing point, it would be a two to three-year investment, which means that 5G will definitely become a factor to consider.
One of the cooler aspects of the outward-folding screen is its ability to remain on during the fold and offer a view of the screen when still at a 90° angle. In contrast, folding the Fold4 closes the screen, much like a book, and turns off the inner screen, while simultaneously turning on the outer screen as part of the handover. Although there isn’t a specific task built for any apps to expand to this 90° view its support for future use is still quite useful.
Battery life was surprisingly good on the Huawei Mate Xs 2. With a larger-than-normal screen, I expected it to last about a day before needing to recharge. However, on more than one occasion I was able to power through a full day at the office and only recharge the device again the next day just after the 15% warning.
In addition to this, I used the power adapter included in the contents to recharge. It uses 66W to recharge and does so in next to no time. Huawei claims that it can manage up to 90% in just 30 minutes. Given that I would often charge from around the 15% mark, it would charge to the full 100% in this timeframe. When testing from 0%, it would take a little over 30 minutes to reach the 90% mark as indicated, mostly losing some time with a completely drained battery. Quite impressive in the end.
In total, there are four cameras on the Huawei Mate Xs 2. On the rear, it has a triple-lens camera configuration with a selfie camera on the front.
In terms of specifications, it has the following hardware information:
Compared to the original Mate Xs unit, there isn’t much difference in the configuration. At least on paper, there are only a handful of improvements in terms of the hardware, including increased resolution, and better Auto-Focus. It’s also not the best in terms of Huawei’s camera offerings on its smartphones. This is most likely the restriction on the space available for the camera configuration.
That’s not to say that the camera isn’t really good. In well-lit environments, there’s no questioning the performance of the triple-lens camera. You can take snaps with any of the lenses and have great detail, and good colour balance on every image.
Where I found that the unit really delivered was in low-light environments. Oftentimes, the image clarity was better than what my eyes could observe at night. The only issue with the resulting image was a bit of noise, which is to be expected from the refining. That said, the visual display compared to what you could see yourself is impressive.
On the front, it has a more conventional 10.7MP, f/2.2 single-lens camera. Over the decade of Huawei smartphones in the South African market, its selfie camera and effects have always led the way. That’s no different here again. It offers very good quality on natural shots with its enhancement features making it really worthwhile. I’ve never been the biggest fan of front-facing cameras but they’re always fun to use on Huawei smartphones if only to run a few tests.
Overall, both cameras’ image quality is good. You’re not going to be found wanting, even in low-light conditions.
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The Huawei Mate Xs 2 is a great device. It looks great as is and is even more impressive when you fold and unfold it for the first time. Its screen quality is good, with great supporting hardware. The only negative aspect is the lack of 5G support.
Depending on where you’re buying from, there are quite a few different price points. There are even more when factoring in the different RAM and storage options. However, the best deal would be to purchase directly from the Huawei website itself. This is especially true if you’re interested in their bag of goods that are included with the Mate Xs 2 purchase. Included is the Huawei MateView GT, a portable speaker, Watch Fit and the FreeBuds Lipstick Edition. The total value of these extras comes up to an impressive R20,000. This makes the R39,999 price of the Huawei Mate Xs 2 much more palatable. However, if none of these is of interest to you, there are a few deals with a sub-R30,000 price.
There is a lot of value to be had if you’re in the market for a foldable smartphone and the Huawei Mate Xs 2 is on your radar. If you’re not too integrated into the Android and Google ecosystem, you can easily manage using AppGallery and HarmonyOS 2.0.
The Huawei Mate Xs 2 is an impressive foldable smartphone. It is unique in that it folds outward to keep a single-screen approach on folded and unfolded usage. If you’re not too deeply integrated into the Google ecosystem, the device offers great visuals, great camera capabilities and impressive battery life. It may be a bit on the pricey end of the scale but there are plenty of deals to make your purchase worthwhile.
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