Newsletter
The Huawei Mate Xs 2 is the company’s brand new foldable smartphone. This is a direct successor to the Huawei Mate Xs which launched back in February 2020. This handset got announced in China.
The Huawei Mate Xs 2 has a single display and the ‘Eagle Wing’ hinge
We don’t see this type of foldable smartphone that often. It has a single display, which is foldable, of course, and it folds outwards. In other words, almost half of its display is constantly exposed on the back when the phone is folded.
That part of the display sits right next to the camera strip on the back, which protrudes. That strip serves as a place to hold the phone when it’s unfolded, as it did on the Mate X and Xs. The display sits flush with that camera strip when the device is folded.
This Huawei Mate Xs 2 is using the ‘Eagle Wing’ steel hinge. Huawei did say that this phone has improved anti-drop, impact, and extrusion capabilities compared to its predecessor. The screen uses a four-layer composite reinforced structure.
You will notice that the device has a single display camera hole on its display, in the top-right corner. That’s a bit surprising, as many people expected no display holes, as on the Mate Xs. There’s really no need for it as you can utilize rear-facing cameras with almost half of its display.
A 120Hz OLED display is included, along with the Snapdragon 888 SoC
The device features a 7.8-inch 2480 x 220 OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. It also offers a 240Hz touch sampling rate. When folded, you’re left with a 6.5-inch 2480 x 1176 OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate.
The Snapdragon 888 fuels this smartphone, though it doesn’t support 5G connectivity. The US sanctions are the reason for this, and also a reason why Google services are not installed on this phone. Well, they wouldn’t be installed in China either way, but that will be the reason if this phone arrives in more markets.
The phone supports 66W charging, and has a side-facing fingerprint scanner
A 4,600mAh battery is included (a 4,880mAh unit in the collector’s edition), while the device supports 66W fast wired charging. There are two speakers on the phone, and a side-facing fingerprint scanner.
Huawei is offering two different variants of this phone. The more affordable model comes with 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 flash storage. The more expensive variant includes 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of UFS 3.1 flash storage. You can also expand that storage via a microSD card up to 256GB.
Huawei’s new foldable offers a hybrid dual SIM setup. In other words, you can either utilize two nano SIM card slots, or use one, and use the other slot to include a microSD card.
There are four cameras overall included here
There are four cameras on this device. Three of which are on the back. A 50-megapixel main camera (f/1.8 aperture) is backed by a 13-megapixel ultrawide camera (f/2.2 aperture, 2.5cm macro lens), and an 8-megapixel telephoto camera (OIS, f/2.4 aperture, 3x optical zoom, 30x digital zoom). A single 10.7-megapixel camera sits on the phone’s front side.
The Huawei Mate Xs 2 measures 156.5 x 75.5 x 5.4-11.1 when folded. It measures 156.5 x 139.3 x 5.4-11.1mm when unfolded. The phone weighs 255 grams. It also comes with Wi-Fi 6 support, and the same goes for Bluetooth 5.2 LE and NFC. A USB Type-C (Gen1) port sits at the bottom.
Huawei announced the phone in three color options, White, Elegant Black, and Frost Purple. The Huawei Mate Xs 2 pricing starts at CNY9,999 ($1,507). Huawei also announced the Huawei M Pen 2s stylus alongside the device, and that thing costs CNY599 ($90). We’re still not sure if the Mate Xs 2 will make it to global markets, but it most probably will.
