Huawei’s foldable phone costs $2.6K

dubai — It’s official: the foldable phone arms race is definitely on.

Days after Samsung Electronics launched the Galaxy Fold in San Francisco, rival Huawei shot back with its own Mate X, which it unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Sunday.

A screaming feature of the Mate X is that it has screens on both sides — one at 6.6 inches and the other at 6.4 inches — when closed. Open it up and you’ll have a full eight inches of digital real estate. The screens are also OLED, with all donning a thin-bezel FullView display.

The folding process was made possible by what Huawei calls its Falcon Wing hinge, allowing the device to lie completely flat when unfolded, with a thinness of only 5.4mm — slimmer than even Apple’s thinnest iPad at 5.9mm. Folded, it’s at 11mm.

And one more key feature: Huawei is touting the smartphone-tablet

hybrid as the ‘world’s fastest foldable 5G phone’, in line with manufacturers gearing up for the next-generation mobile standard. Inside of the Mate X are Huawei’s Kirin 980 5G chipset and a quad5G antennae; the company claims the device can download a 1GB movie in just three seconds.

It also has a triple-lens camera system almost similar to the Mate 20 Pro, comprised of a 40MP wideangle lens, 16MP ultra-wide-angle lens and 8MP telephoto lens.

And the Mate X’s build also means you practically have a dual-screen smartphone: when folded, you can see yourself on the screen while taking a selfie with the main camera.

Other features are 8GB of RAM, 512GB of internal storage and 4500mAh battery, apparently in two separate locations. Huawei also says that the device’s improved charging system can ramp up its juice to 85 per cent in just half-anhour, besting even that of the Mate 20 Pro.

And, naturally, you’d expect to pay a premium for it — but this is a bit of a surprise: Huawei, known for undercutting its rivals when it comes to pricing, says that the Mate X will set you back a cool $2,600 (almost Dh9,600) — almost a third more than the $1,980 of the Galaxy Fold.

No release date for the Mate X has been set by Huawei as at Press time.

Other smartphone makers rumoured to at least tease foldable devices at the MWC — the world’s biggest gathering for the mobile technologies industry — include Xiaomi, LG and BlackBerry maker TCL.

8” When open

6.6” + 6.4”

Dual screen when folded $2,600 Price at launch