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Huawei hosted a press event in China today, where it announced two new flagship smartphones, and a premium smartwatch. We’ve already talked about the Huawei Watch Ultimate, and it’s time to check out the Huawei Mate X3 foldable.
The Huawei Mate X3 looks great on paper, and it’s quite easy on the eyes too. Its rear camera island does look a bit weird at first, but this is your regular book-style foldable, in terms of layout.
The Huawei Mate X3 is the thinnest book-style foldable smartphone on the market
Now, the design of this thing will appeal to many of you, as it will likely feel like a regular, large smartphone. Why? Well, it’s immensely thin, for a foldable. It’s only 11.08mm thick when folded, which means it’s even thinner than the Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 (11.2mm), a phone which was a benchmark for thin book-style foldable devices. Do note that these measurements do not include the camera bump, though, which protrudes quite a bit.
It’s even thinner than the MIX Fold 2 when unfolded, as it measures 5.3mm, compared to 5.4mm of the MIX Fold 2. The differences are marginal, but Huawei made it there, and it didn’t omit water resistance, unlike Xiaomi.
It does offer IPX8 rating for water resistance
The Huawei Mate X3 is IPX8 rated for water resistance. Now, this is the first time a foldable smartphone with a waterdrop hinge offers water resistance, so that’s definitely something to note. Its crease will be less noticeable than the one on the Galaxy Z Fold 4, simply because of that hinge. That hinge can also stop at any time between open and closed state, and is connected to some software features.
The device is fueled by the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC, but it’s limited to 4G connectivity due to the US ban. We’re not sure how much RAM it includes just yet, but it does come with up to 1TB of storage. Its storage can also be expanded via Huawei’s proprietary NM card.
Two 120Hz AMOLED displays are included here
The main display on the Huawei Mate X3 measures 7.85 inches. That is an LTPO AMOLED display with a resolution of 2224 x 2496 pixels, and a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. The second display measures 6.4 inches, and it’s a fullHD+ LTPO AMOLED panel. That display is protected by the Huawei Kunlun glass, which has proven to be excellent on the Mate 50 Pro.
Huawei managed to trim down the fat compared to the Mate X2, so the Mate X3 weighs only 239 grams, which is excellent for such a large foldable smartphone. It makes it considerably lighter than the Galaxy Z Fold 4.
A powerful camera setup is also a part of the package, including a periscope camera
A 50-megapixel main camera (f/1.8 aperture) is backed by a 13-megapixel ultrawide unit (f/2.2 aperture), and a 12-megapixel periscope telephoto camera (f/3.4 aperture, OIS, 5x optical, 50x digital zoom). This is also the first time we’re seeing a periscope camera on a foldable smartphone, if I’m not mistaken. Huawei’s XMAGE branding is here too. An 8-megapixel camera sits on the front (f/2.4 aperture), on both displays.
The phone also supports Bluetooth 5.2, has a side-fingerprint scanner, and an IR blaster up top. On top of all that, two-way satellite messaging is also included, via Beidou satellites. Google services are not included, of course, due to the US ban.
It launched in China, but it’s coming to more markets
The Huawei Mate X3’s pricing starts at CNY12,999 ($1,904) in China. Do note that we still don’t have any information on global pricing, but the device is expected to launch globally.
