Announced last April, the Huawei Mate Xs 2 is set to be launched in the Philippines this July 1. Being the latest foldable smartphone in Mate series, expectations are high on the Mate Xs 2.
There’s a lot to cover here since we are talking about a relatively unique type of smartphone. Huawei has also done a number of iterations for a foldable phone and I think they got it right this time, at least in terms of design and engineering.
Let’s go ahead and start with the camera. Everybody knows and I think you guys will also agree with me when I say Huawei makes one of the best, IF NOT the bestest, camera phone these days.
There’s a triple rear camera setup here — a 50MP main camera, a 13MP ultra wide angle camera and an 8MP telephoto camera. On paper, that does not sound a lot and is pretty close to the setup of the P40 so not really too excited about it at first.
It can shoot 4K videos at 30fps and slow motion clips of up to 960 frames per second at 1080p resolution. The front facing camera is 10.7MP with a slight wide angle lens.
Check out some of the sample photos I took here:
Photos turned out great but nothing really spectacular. Colors are accurate, images are sharp and contrast is well-blanced. Take note that the optics are no longer Leica co-engineered. Despite that, there’s nothing significantly noticeable in the treatment of the photos.
Second, we looked at the battery. For a phone this large, one would think it will have good battery life. At 4,600mah, it doesn’t sound like enough so we tested it using our standard battery benchmark.
With the phone folded in, we got 10 hours and 17 minutes on PCMark Battery 3.0. That goes down significantly once we did a second test with the display fully folded out. Just 7 hours and 18 minutes. That’s probably the lowest rating of a battery life for a flagship quality phone we’ve reviewed in a very long while.
Good thing there’s fast charging and at 66W you should be able to fully charge it back to 100% in less than an hour.
Well, we sort of expected this considering the size of the display. Ultimately, the real world battery life will highly depend on how you use the phone. More specifically, how often you use the entire display.
In terms of performance, the Mate Xs 2 is powered by a Snapdragon 888 with Adreno 660 GPU. It’s not the latest chipset from Qualcomm and I wonder why they did not use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 here. In any case, it still performed well. The phones is fast and responsive and everything loads snappy and worked well. Our synthetic benchmark shows a score of a little over 600,000 points in Antutu. Not really stellar like the other flagship phones but still good.
Having a large foldable phone does not mean you have to unfold the entire screen everytime you need to use your phone. The the main folded display is more than enough for most of your usual needs in terms of screen real estate. That includes checking your emails and reading documents, watching movies or playing games.
However, when you want a bigger screen, simply fold out the entire display and you get almost double the screen real estate. The aspect ratio is different so there will be blank portions at the top and bottom ends of the screen but some games will be able to maximize the entire display. You get better advantage in Mobile Legends since you can see more of the entire map.
Since the display folds out instead of inwards, the section that curves does not show any noticeable crease. You can feel it when you touch that part of the screen but you can barely notice it at a reading distance.
Of course that also means the display is always prone to possible scratches as it is exposed. Unless of course you use the rubber case that came with it. When you do, it also becomes cumbersome to remove the case each time you fold out the display. I wish there was a better to address this. Perhaps a third party case maker can do something about it.
When folded, you get a 6.5-inch front display which is already big. But, when unfolded, you get a huge and immersive 7.8 inch OLED display with 2480×2200 pixel screen resolution at 120Hz refresh rate.
And this glass is thick and tough, not the older thin and flimsy, feels-like-plastic foldable type of screen. It looks and feels like your typical glass display used in any other flagship phones.
I also used the phone in writing half of this review and I found it pleasing, typing away with both hands with ease. Loved the keyboard layout as well, especially the additional column of repeated letters in the middle.
With 8GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage, you can save more files, photos and videos in your phone. You can still upgrade that to 256GB witn an NM SD Card.
For security, there’s the side mounted fingerprint sensor and facial recognition that actually works even if you have your facemask on. Wait, let me correct that. It will work if your eyes and nose are visible while your masks covers your mouth.
One thing that got me a bit confused. There’s no 5G support here. The dual SIM card only runs on 4G which is a bit of a disappointment since all the rest are present — WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC and GPS.
Perhaps, the biggest qestion a lot of you have been wondering is — how about the apps? If you are heavily dependent on GMS, you will certainly look for the familiar apps like GMaps, YouTube and GMail. The Mate Xs 2 runs on Harmony OS 2 and HMS. Huawei tried its darnest to give you alternatives like the App Gallery, PetalSearch and PetalMaps to lessen the blow. But if you really want Google, you can install GSpace from the Apps Gallery and get to use all the usual Google Apps. It works like a the old Second Space feature of Huawei phones. The only drawback is that notifications are a bit delayed.
The Huawei Mate Xs 2 is a beautiful phone. The foldable mode is nicely executed, with both the folded and unfolded modes being equally usable and practical. To it’s defense though, I found other uses for the case that made some sense. Like, using it as a support stand for the phone when you want to place it down a table or flat surface.
The only reason you would buy this particular phone is because of the foldable display. If you want better performance and camera quality, there’s the Huawei P50 Pro for that. If you want longer battery life, 5G connectivity or Google services, look somewhere else.
The Mate Xs 2 is really a niche phone. Huge display, excellent build quality and certainly an eye candy. Would I continue to use it? Yes! Is it worth it despite all the shortcomings? Not really. Nevetheless, props to Huawei for building a beautifully designed and solidly engineered foldable phone.
Huawei is set to launch the Mate Xs 2 in the Philippines tomorrow, July 1. We still don’t have the suggested retail price but will update this article once we get the information.
Huawei Mate Xs 2 specs:
6.5-inch 2480 x 1176 OLED display (cover)
7.8-inch 2480 x 2200 OLED display (interior)
120Hz refresh rate
Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 4G SoC
Adreno 660 GPU
8GB, 12GB RAM
256GB, 512GB storage
Up to 256GB via NM card
Triple-rear cameras:
• 50MP F1.8 main
• 13MP F2.2 ultra-wide
• 8MP F2.4 telephoto
10.7MP F2.2 front camera
Dual-SIM
4G LTE
WiFi 6
Bluetooth 5.2
NFC
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS, QZSS, NaVIC
IR blaster
USB-C
Fingerprint scanner (side)
HarmonyOS 2.0
4,600mAh battery (8GB RAM + 256/512GB)
4,880mAh battery (12GB RAM + 512GB Collector’s Edition)
66W fast charging, reverse charging
156.5 x 139.3 x 5.4 mm (unfolded)
156.5 x 75.5 x 11.1 mm (folded)
255 grams – 257 grams (weight)
White, Black, Frost Purple
