We knew foldable phones would be one of the smartphone trends of 2019, but we're now starting to see the actual devices appear. Days after Samsung took the wrappers off its Galaxy Fold phone, Huawei has been showing off its own foldable Mate X handset at Mobile World Congress 2019.
Huawei's handset folds in the opposite direction to Samsung's – so the screen ends up on the outside rather than the inside when it's closed. You get an 8-inch display in the flat tablet mode, and in the folded over mode the Mate X offers a main 6.6-inch display on the front and a secondary 6.4-inch display on the back.
Other highlights include a 4,500 mAh battery (split into two sections), fast 55W charging that gives you 85 percent of a full charge from zero in 30 minutes, and 5G – another technology we're going to be hearing a lot about this year.
As for a camera, the phone sports a triple-lens camera that sits on the back when you have the device open, and on the front or the back when it's closed (depending on which way round you're holding it). The camera tech is backed into a black strip on one side of the screen, which doubles as a closing mechanism and handle.
Keeping the screen bending reliably is what Huawei is calling a Falcon Wing Mechanical Hinge. It apparently won't stretch when folded over, and won't bulge when laid flat, making it perhaps even more of a technological marvel than the one Samsung is using (which folds the other way).
Inside you get the latest super speedy Kirin 980 processor from Huawei, paired with 8 GB of RAM and 512 GB of internal storage. The fingerprint sensor is built into the power button for one-touch unlocking.
Huawei says the on-board software will adapt to suit both open and closed modes. If the phone screen is laid open, the extra screen space can be used for movies and photos and so on, or a split screen mode can be set – enabling you to drag pictures from a gallery into an email, for example.
So what will it cost you? As you might expect, this foldable, 5G-equipped phone doesn't come cheap: Huawei says the handset will retail for €2,299 in Europe (roughly equivalent to $2,605 US dollars, though it's unlikely to go on sale there).
What we don't have yet is an official launch date. Samsung says the Galaxy Fold will go on sale in April, but it's notable that the tech press haven't been given any actual hands on time with either the Samsung or the Huawei foldable phones yet – so it's possible there are still some technical wrinkles to be ironed out.
Product page: Huawei