Review | Huawei Mate X review: folding phone is the most futuristic out there, despite last-gen components
- Huawei’s Mate X folding phone had numerous delays before its release and it shows in its last-generation components
- That said, it is beautiful to look at, it opens out with no visible gap, and its software is finely tuned
Design and hardware
The Mate X dropped jaws and garnered all sorts of gushy headlines when it was first revealed at last year’s Mobile World Congress and, a year later, it is still a bleeding edge handset that is, in my opinion, the most futuristic phone on the market.
Sure, Samsung’s Galaxy Fold has been on sale for months, but Huawei’s design is more aesthetically pleasing, if not mesmerising, for a couple of reasons.
The first is the Mate X’s large 8-inch plastic OLED screen. It folds backwards away from the user and wraps around both the front and back of the folded device. Samsung’s design instead folds forwards towards the user (like closing a book).
This means Samsung had to resort to a secondary smaller screen, surrounded by thick bezels, on the outside in folded form, whereas the Mate X still utilises the near bezel-less main screen at all times.