Huawei joins the In Crowd
Despite the devastating pressure put on China’s Huawei (pvt) by the US government, Huawei is still releasing new smartphones and is expected to release its 3rd iteration of its Mate X foldable this month, which was first released in November 2019 and followed up with the Mate Xs in March of last year. The new device is expected to have the same size foldable display (8” open), with a slightly smaller (6.45”, second screen, down from 6’6”) but at a slightly higher resolution. As per the US restrictions, Google (GOOG) services are not available (nor were they on the Mate Xs), but the chipset has been upgraded from the previous version to the Kirin 9000, designed by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon (pvt) and produced by Taiwan Semi (TSM) until more stringent trade restrictions were imposed last October. We believe Huawei stockpiled Kirin 9000 inventory before the ban took effect, while the GPU is an upgraded (Mali G78) version of the previous GPU.
Huawei upped the camera complement, increasing the capacity of the main (wide angle) camera, but removed the TOF sensor seen in the previous models and added a 4th and 5th (selfie) camera in its place. The battery is roughly the same, with a slightly larger charger, but the overall device is expected to be quite similar to the previous version other than the fact that the foldable displays, which had been previously supplied by both Samsung Display (pvt) and BOE (200725.CH), are now thought to be supplied singly by BOE. We believe that this was not a choice based on quality or other technical factors but because Samsung Display was not granted a license to supply such displays to Huawei under the US Commerce Department’s updated rules regarding Huawei.
Lastly, the ‘big’ change between the previous versions of Huawei’s Mate X foldable series and the Mate X2 is the fold. Not the fold itself but how the device folds. Huawei had taken the path of having the two previous versions fold outward, while most other tablet-sized foldables folded inward. The tradeoff between having access to the large screen when the device was closed had to be balanced against the increased chance that the outward folding display would be more easily scratched or damaged, with Huawei finally joining the ”In Crowd” (Dobie Gray – 1964). The price of the original Mate X foldable was ~$2,600, With the Mate Xs a bit more expensive at $2,750 and while the price of the Mate X2 has not been announced, it is expected to be about the same as the previous version. All in, not much to get excited about.
Huawei upped the camera complement, increasing the capacity of the main (wide angle) camera, but removed the TOF sensor seen in the previous models and added a 4th and 5th (selfie) camera in its place. The battery is roughly the same, with a slightly larger charger, but the overall device is expected to be quite similar to the previous version other than the fact that the foldable displays, which had been previously supplied by both Samsung Display (pvt) and BOE (200725.CH), are now thought to be supplied singly by BOE. We believe that this was not a choice based on quality or other technical factors but because Samsung Display was not granted a license to supply such displays to Huawei under the US Commerce Department’s updated rules regarding Huawei.
Lastly, the ‘big’ change between the previous versions of Huawei’s Mate X foldable series and the Mate X2 is the fold. Not the fold itself but how the device folds. Huawei had taken the path of having the two previous versions fold outward, while most other tablet-sized foldables folded inward. The tradeoff between having access to the large screen when the device was closed had to be balanced against the increased chance that the outward folding display would be more easily scratched or damaged, with Huawei finally joining the ”In Crowd” (Dobie Gray – 1964). The price of the original Mate X foldable was ~$2,600, With the Mate Xs a bit more expensive at $2,750 and while the price of the Mate X2 has not been announced, it is expected to be about the same as the previous version. All in, not much to get excited about.
Huawei Mate X2 - Source: Huawei
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