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Just a few days after Samsung officially showed the Galaxy Fold to the world, Huawei has finished his answer during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The Mate X is not only the first foldable smartphone from the Chinese manufacturer, but also the first with 5G support.

The Mate X has three different screens in practice: 6.6 inches at the front (2,480 x 1,148 pixels), 6.38 inches at the back (2480 x 892 pixels) and 8 inches folded open (2,480 x 2,200 pixels), by bringing the two smaller screens together. For comparison: the Galaxy Fold has a 7.2 inch screen unfolded.

True back-to-back.

Huawei emphasises that the Mate X offers a true back-to-back fold without an opening between the two screen panels when folded. It uses a patented hinge that folds inwards, with more than one hundred individual components, as it says. As a result, when folded, the phone is 11 mm thick, compared to 17 mm for “other foldable smartphones”. Read: the Galaxy Fold.

Due to its foldable design, Huawei has inserted two separate batteries into the Mate X, which together provide a capacity of 4,500 mAh. SuperCharge technology was further boosted from 40 watts on the Mate 20 Pro to 55 watts. The Mate X charges from 0 to 85% in half an hour.

Another nice thing is mirror shooting. When you take a portrait, the person portrayed can immediately see the result on the screen at the back of the device. This feature is also useful for those who like to make selfies and prefer to use the better camera in the back. When unfolded, the resulting 8-inch screen can be used seamlessly as a whole or in split screen to display two apps side by side.

5G

The Mate X runs on the same Kirin 980 processor as the Mate 20 Pro and combines it for the first time with the new Balong 5000 5G modem. According to Huawei, this is the fastest 5G modem of the moment, although you won’t immediately benefit from it in our part of the world.

The Mate X will be available on the market in mid-2019 for a suggested retail price of 2,299 euros (8 GB RAM and 125 GB storage). No euro price is known for the Samsung Galaxy Fold yet, but judging from the dollar price, both devices will be very similarly priced.

It probably won’t be a sales success, but we can once again speak of innovation in a smartphone market that has been stagnating in recent years. That alone is enough to give the Mate X and his associates a raison d’être.

Related: Read all the news from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.