Huawei Mate X: Huawei's Foldable 5G Phone Is Unique, But Is It Better Than Samsung Galaxy Fold?

After Samsung, Huawei became the second worldwide brand to announce its foldable screen smartphone -- the Huawei Mate X -- at Mobile World Congress 2019. And it has definitely sent tongues wagging like nobody's business.

Is the Huawei Mate X a flash in the pan, in terms of a tablet-smartphone hybrid? Or is it actually a sign of things to come? A crucial first step in the evolution of smartphones? We spent some "eyes on" time with the device soon after its launch in Barcelona yesterday, and this is what we feel.

Huawei Mate X // Jayesh Shinde

ALSO READ: Huawei Releases A Foldable Smartphone Of Its Own, The Mate X Which Is Priced At Rs 1.85 Lakh

The biggest noticeable difference between the Samsung Galaxy Fold and the Huawei Mate X is that the Mate X has its foldable 8-inch OLED display wrapped around the outside of the phone, and this definitely makes things more interesting from a user perspective.

Huawei didn't let any reviewer or news analyst to handle the device personally, and I got closest to the Mate X during an interaction with Huawei's Kevin Ho, President of Huawei's Smartphone product line. Why didn't Huawei let anyone touch the Mate X? It held secrets in design -- especially on its back -- that they still wanted to hold pretty close to their chest.

Here @Huawei's Kevin Ho shows us how the Mate X -- while it's playing a @YouTube video -- folds from a tablet into a smartphone. And snaps into place with a click. Simply magic! #MWC19 #MWC2019 #HuaweiMateX pic.twitter.com/wiIqBDd0GY

¡ª Indiatimes (@indiatimes) February 24, 2019

Samsung Galaxy Fold has its foldable screen inside the device, therefore needing a secondary display panel on the back for when the device is folded into smartphone mode. The Huawei Mate X doesn't have this problem, since it has a single screen layer present on the outside of the phone, and depending on how you hold the phone in smartphone mode only one of the two sides of the screen is active.

Another area where the Huawei Mate X seemingly has an edge over the Samsung Galaxy Fold is the fact that one side of the Mate X houses its camera module -- a 40 MP main camera, a 16 MP wide angle, and an 8 MP telephoto lens next to an LED flash and a power button. That part of the Huawei Mate X is also the thickest at 11 mm, providing you a solid grip to hold it in any of its two tablet-phone mode, but also giving dedicated space to embed the Mate X's fingerprint scanner and USB Type-C charging port.

Huawei Mate X camera edge // Jayesh Shinde

ALSO READ: The Galaxy Fold Is Samsung's New Foldable Phone, But Will You Buy It For Rs 1.5 Lakh?

The Huawei Mate X has a bigger overall screen compared to the Samsung Galaxy Fold, too. The Mate X's massive 8-inch 2480¡Á2200 OLED display trumps the the Galaxy Fold's 7.3-inches. When shut into smartphone mode, the Mate X's 8-inch display shortens down to a 6.6-inch, 2480 x 1148 display section on the front, and a 6.38-inch, 2480 x 892 section on the back -- both of which are bigger than the Samsung Galaxy Fold's 4.6-inch screen.

Unlike the Samsung Galaxy Fold which supports 4G networks, the Huawei Mate X is a strictly 5G only smartphone, running on the company's Kirin 980 SoC and brand new 'Balong 5000' 5G modem -- which Kevin Ho tells me is the only 5G modem in the world to support both SA (Standard Architecture) and NSA (Non-Standard Architecture) 5G modes, and in theory better than Qualcomm's X50 5G modem chip as well.

In the middle of folding, Huawei Mate X // Jayesh Shinde

In line with Huawei Mate X's future trajectory, the device doesn't hold a standard microSD card slot, instead housing Huawei's "Nano Memory" (NM) Cards, a proprietary card format that matches the dimensions of a nano SIM card. It's the only foldable smartphone in the world to have two NM card slots right now.

Two batteries in each half of the Huawei Mate X's screen total up to 4500mAh. The Mate X comes with a jaw-dropping 55W quick charge feature supported by the bundled charger, which is (as far as specs go) hands down the fastest charging capability offered by a smartphone right now -- Huawei says the Mate X can do 0 to 85 percent charge in just 30 minutes flat, which is just astonishing.

Jayesh Shinde

Which foldable phone is better: Samsung Galaxy Fold or Huawei Mate X?

The Huawei Mate X definitely has a simplistic, well-thought out single screen design for its folding tablet-phone hybrid, something that Samsung Galaxy Fold definitely lacks. But the Huawei Mate X is only a 5G device, meaning it won't work on a 4G network -- like Samsung Galaxy Fold. Huawei also clearly outmatches the Galaxy Fold in the screen size and battery fast charging department -- two big considerations for any smartphone buyer.

Lastly from a practical, usability perspective, the Huawei Mate X seems to edge out the Samsung Galaxy Fold on its implementation of the screen and its patented foldable hinge which has over 100 individual parts. However, Huawei clearly admits that the Mate X will undergo more refinement, and that the concept is far from a done deal in terms of achieving perfection.

But with Samsung Galaxy Fold, and now Huawei Mate X, the era of foldable display phones has truly begun, and who would've thought it would happen in 2019? The future definitely looks interesting as the smartphone continues to take its next big evolutionary step.