Is it time to say goodbye to creases on folding screens? The HUAWEI Mate Xs 2 is certainly making a good case of it by addressing the issues that folding screens entail.
Their new flagship foldable phone boasts an outward folding screen actuated by its new Double-rotating Falcon Wing Hinge. It sounds like a kung fu move but seems to work like a charm and the hinge designed to present a perfectly flat (pretty sure you can nitpick but it’s pretty good) screen surface when unfolded.
Huawei uses an ultra-light, high-strength steel that it developed in-house for the hinge to provide sturdiness without adding excessive weight, and incorporated a Composite Screen that can better absorb shock to improve the phone’s flexibility and impact resistance. At the same time, they also used lightweight materials throughout the phone, such as lightweight glass fibres on the backplane and titanium alloys for the frame. The phone also features a 3D Fibreglass Design to create refined textures on the surface, which improves comfort and reduces the effect of smudges.
The culmination of this approach is a phone that measures 5.4mm thin and is only 11.1mm thick when folded, and weighs only 255g.
The True-Chroma Foldable Display measures 7.8 inches across and has a resolution of 2480 x 2200 pixels (8:7.1 ratio). When folded, it measures 6.5 inches across with a resolution of 2,480 x 1,176 pixels (19:9 ratio). As you would expect from a high-end phone, it has a refresh rate of 120 Hz, 240 Hz touch sampling rate and 1440 Hz PWM dimming. It also has an anti-reflective Nano Optical Layer to reduce reflectivity from the screen and improve readability under sunlight.
The Mate Xs 2 sports three lenses on its rear camera module: 50 MP True-Chroma wide-angle (main), 13 MP ultra-wide angle, and 8 MP telephoto. It uses what Huawei calls a True Chroma Camera System for improved clarity, colour accuracy and vibrancy. The system incorporates a 50MP True-Chroma Camera, the HUAWEI XD Fusion Pro True-Chroma Image Engine, a 10-Channel Multi-Spectrum Sensor and colour calibration of more than 2000 colours in P3 full-colour gamut. The front camera has a relatively modest 10.7 MP sensor.
It also boasts quality-of-life features such as a Mirror Shooting function where you can preview shots simultaneously in real-time through a digital viewfinder on both screens, an improved AI Remove to digitally remove selected objects out of photos, and a 4,600 mAh battery that supports the 66W SuperCharge adapter for fast charging.
Although this is a flagship phone, Huawei has understandably not maxed out certain features to keep the pricing under control. While Huawei has gone with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC, this is not a 5G phone. RAM is also modest for a flagship: 8GB. It comes with 512GB of storage with SD card support for up to 256GB of additional space. Wireless charging is not supported as well.
The other elephant in the room is that this phone does not have access to the Google Play Store (which is not so bad) and Google Play services (which is a bit more troublesome), and this is something you need to consider before any purchase.
The HUAWEI Mate Xs 2 is available in crosshatch leather-textured Black and natural leather-textured White, and will be bundled with a half-covered, colour-matched PU Case that doubles as a phone stand.
The phone is priced at $2,598 and will go on sale from 25 June 2022 at Huawei Authorised Stores , Telecommunication operators (M1, StarHub), Best Denki , Courts , Challenger , iShopChangi , Metapod and the official online stores at Lazada and Shopee .
Huawei will also throw in some Huawei Mobile Services freebies; terms and conditions here :
- one month HUAWEI Video plus VIP + two HUAWEI Video Movie Passes
- one month HUAWEI Mobile Cloud storage (2TB)
- three months HUAWEI Music Premium
- HUAWEI Books credit worth US$1 (130 R-vouchers)
- three months HUAWEI Themes redemption voucher
