Announced at a “virtual press conference” earlier this week, Huawei will iterating on their Mate X (which was never released in Australia) with a tougher, newer and Google-less foldable phone.
Releasing later this year, the simply named Huawei Mate Xs is being pushed as a more powerful version of its predecessor. A Kirin 990 is featured to handle considerable load.
Like with many modern phone iterations, the Mate Xs sports meaningful power advancements, but is otherwise pretty much the same as its older sibling.
Not Much Has Changed
There’s still the 4500mAh battery, 8GM of RAM, 512GB of storage, 5G connectivity, and – thankfully – what is now an exquisite quad-lens camera system, similar to what’s found on the powerhouse P30 Pro.
Dimensions are slightly tweaked at 6.6 inches of folded phone with a 6.38-inch secondary screen. This seamlessly spreads into an 8-inch tablet with a zirconium-based liquid metal hinge, said to be more durable.
An Australian Release?
Huawei have indicated that Australian consumers will finally be able to get their hands on one of their folding devices when they make the Mate X available later this year.
Although an actual release date and pricing is yet to be confirmed. Overseas, the Xs will cost a lofty $US2,700, a price increase of just $US100 when compared to the X.
Of course, the elephant in this copy is that Huawei is still on the outs with the US, which means the company no longer has access to a full licensed version of Android. As with last year’s Mate 30 Pro, you won’t be able to get official Google apps or services given you won’t even have access to the Google Play store.
The Mate Xs will run on a new version of EMUI10.0.1, based on an open source version of Android, limited to third-party apps. Still, that’s over 40,000 apps accessible via Huawei App store.
For more information and full specs head to consumer.huawei.com
