Review of the Huawei Mate XS Fold Is this the best ?

This is the new Huawei Mate XS. A slightly updated version of their mate X folding phone. which they first have built last year and although there was a lot of excitement around that. Unfortunately, it only ended up launching in China.


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Overview:

It comes with Huawei's latest Kirin 990 5G chip and a more durable screen and refined hinge mechanism and a few software tweaks but aside from that not much has really changed. although we're still getting the same gorgeous triple screen phone tablet folding thing that we've seen before. 

We actually don't have official availability or pricing for mate XS although, it's going to come to China and some overseas territories and as for pricing the original mate X was due to cost about 2300 euros in Europe although of course it never came out. hopefully, The new mate success will be a good deal cheaper because Huawei's basically reduced the cost of their production process. So, if it comes in cheaper than the 2 grand Galaxy fold and this would definitely make it more tempting.


The Mate XS doesn't support Google mobile services or GMs and so we didn't get the Play Store. what that means is out of the box you won't see YouTube Google Maps Gmail or more importantly the Play Store which is obviously where you download all your normal Android apps. 

Instead, we have the Huawei app gallery which is growing and I think with the amount Huawei we're investing in it may be in a year or so it'll become a genuine competitor to Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store but for now it's definitely lacking.

Now between the app gallery cloning the apps from your old phone onto this site loading them with Apps or using say the Amazon App Store you can probably get most of the apps you need but it is a big hassle and getting the latest updates will be tricky. The mate XS is running on android 10 though so we get things like night mode and better gestures it's based on the open-source Android platform So, again it'll get updates and security patches later than if they were working with Google directly.

Design & Display :

  

On the front, we have a good-sized 6.6-inch screen so you can actually use this as a regular albeit slightly chunky phone. Then you can open it up and go into full tablet mode with that huge 8-inch screen which just looks stunning. Especially with the thin bezels and no ugly camera cutout like we get on the Galaxy fold. 

Then finally if you want to take a selfie, fold it closed again and switch round to the 6.38-inch screen on the back, which again can work as a normal phone screen if you like but mostly you'll use it as a viewfinder for the Selfie camera and the best part is you're using the same great where cameras for your selfies, there's no secondary not as good front-facing camera here So, really it's just one big screen but since it's on the outside it virtually splits into three depending on how you're using it. 

fully open in tablet mode while the resolution can adjust dynamically based on your battery life at full wears we're getting 414 pixels per inch, versus 264 on the iPad Pro and 3 to 6 on the Galaxy fold so it's incredibly sharp. on the back, we get this little grip which makes it easier to hold when using it as a tablet and it houses all the camera gubbins.

So, obviously, there are benefits to having the screen on the outside it means that whether you're using it from the front or the back or opening up into tablet mode. it's just using one big screen and then you don't have to worry about a second tiny screen like we get on the Galaxy fold but the downside is unlike the fold which opens up like a book and therefore keeps the screen safe when you're not using it but with the screen on the mate XS always being on the outside. Huawei did ship a protective leather pouch with the original mate X.

Huawei says mate XS has a new quad-layer flexible OLED screen So, it is more durable than before but it is still plastic rather than glass. having said that even though Samsung's new Galaxy flip uses ultra-thin glass. it does still have a thin layer of plastic on top so it can still scratch quite easily. 

they've also improved their falcon-wing hinge it definitely feels sturdier than before and when you press the unlock button to open it up there's a springiness to it. 

it feels good and you can barely see or feel the crease. it's much less noticeable than the Galaxy fold or even the flip and like those hallways also added little caps at the edge of the hinge to help prevent dirt and bad stuff getting in.

The Mate XS is just 5.4 millimeters at its thinnest point or 11 millimeters when folded considering the new S20 Ultra is 8.8 millimeters thick it's pretty impressive actually. 

on the side, the power button doubles as a fingerprint reader and on the bottom, we get the speaker and a USB C charging port. The cameras are all housed in that sidebar / grippy thing on the back.

Camera Details:

it's pretty much the same setup as the original Maytag with a 40-megapixel main lens 16-megapixel ultra-wide 12-megapixel telephoto with 3X optical five times hybrid and 10 times digital zoom as well as a time-of-flight depth sensor. 

which gives us a more realistic bokeh in portrait charts. quality why is it should be closer to the p30 pro than the newer Mate 30 pro but it's still a great camera setup and actually because the rear cameras also act as the front cameras. it means the Mate XS is pretty much the best selfie camera phone you can buy specs-wise.

Technical Details: 

We get the new Kirin 990 5G chip 8 gigs of ram and 512 gigs of faster UFS3 storage and powering everything we have a 4500 mAh battery with 55 watts supercharging although no wireless charging, unfortunately.

Other Features :

Now to make use of that huge 8-inch screen you can swipe in to bring up an edge panel of quick app shortcuts. it's very similar to what we get on the Galaxy fold and other Samsung phones but it means we can then easily have two apps side-by-side and split view.

Even a 3rd floating app on top which you can move around. and because there's so much screen space it's actually genuinely comfortable to multitask like this. you can also then save and keep them as individual little desktops like you get on a Mac. which you can then switch between in the recently used apps menu.

So, overall We are actually really impressed by mate XS and well is definitely a refinement rather than revolution of mate X. 

Analysis By - IFTI AHMED

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