Huawei’s new foldable, the Mate Xs 2 launched with Snapdragon 888, 10-bit OLED screen

Huawei has announced its new foldable phone in China, called the Mate Xs 2. It’s a direct successor to last 2020’s Mate Xs and brings an outer folding display. So, let’s go through the specs, features, availability, and expected price of the Huawei Mate Xs 2 in Nepal. 

Huawei Mate Xs 2 Overview:

Design

The Mate Xs 2 appears almost identical to its predecessor in terms of design. Unlike other inner folding phones, it folds exteriorly. Here, Huawei has employed a double-rotor eagle-wing hinge in the Mate Xs 2, which it claims leaves no apparent seam when the display is unfolded.  Moreover, its body is built of materials such as aviation-grade titanium alloy, ultra-light fiberglass, and ultra-light and ultra-strong steel. The device's back, on the other hand, is composed of microfiber material, resulting in a total weight of 255 grams—a substantial improvement over the 300 grams weight of its predecessor.

Display

On to the display, when unfurled, the Mate Xs 2 greets you with a big 7.8-inch screen. This is an AMOLED panel with a 10-bit color depth, a P3 color gamut, a refresh rate of 120Hz, a resolution of 2480 2200 pixels, and an aspect ratio of 8: 7.1.  The screen measures 6.5 inches diagonally on folding and has a resolution of 2480 1176 pixels. It also has a 1440 Hz high-frequency PWM dimming that reduces the discomfort caused by strobes on the eyes in low-brightness situations.  To improve the durability of the display, it is covered with a four-layer polymer structure. Similarly, the Mate Xs 2 supports Huawei's M-Pen 2s pen, which has 4096-level pressure sensitivity and an 82mAh battery fitted inside it that offers 10 hours of writing and 40 days of standby time.

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  • Honor Magic V unveiled as the first foldable phone with Snapdragon 8 Gen 1

Performance

Under the hood, the foldable packs a Snapdragon 888 4G processor paired with either 8GB or 12GB of RAM and up to 512GB of internal storage. The company has also unveiled a Collector’s Edition of the phone that brings 12GB RAM and 512GB storage on board.  With any model you choose, you can extend the storage by up to 256GB via Huawei's Nano memory card. To keep the thermals in control during heavy workloads, the company has employed a Graphene liquid cooling system.  Over on the software front, it boots on HarmonyOS 2 which has a new smart multi-window to accommodate the large screen. Huawei also says that the top 300 apps in the AppGallery have been properly customized to fit Mate Xs 2's large screen.

Camera

In terms of optics, it has a triple camera setup housed inside a black protruded stripe on the back. This comprises a 50MP main sensor, a 13MP ultrawide, and an 8MP telephoto sensor with OIS and 3x optical, 30x digital zoom. For selfies and such, there’s a 10.7-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera housed inside the hole-punch cutout on the front. 

Rest of the specs

Moving on, the Mate Xs 2 gets its juice from a 4600mAh cell. But, if you choose the Collector’s Edition of the phone, you get a slightly bigger 4880mAh battery. Both variants support 66W fast charging though, which is claimed to juice up the cell to 90% in just 30 minutes.  For connectivity, the foldable support Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, GPS/AGPS/GLONASS/ Beidou/ NavIC, USB Type-C 3.1 Gen 1.

Huawei Mate Xs 2 Specifications:

• Display: 120Hz AMOLED, P3, 10-bit, 1440Hz high-frequency PWM dimming
  • Unfolded: 7.8-inch, 2480 × 2200 pixels
  • Folded: 6.5-inch AMOLED,  2480 × 1176 pixels
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 4G (5nm mobile platform)
• Main Camera: Triple:
  • 50MP f/1.8 primary sensor
  • 13MP f/2.2 ultra-wide lens
  • 8MP f/2.4 telephoto lens, OIS
• Selfie Camera: 10.7MP, f/2.2
• Memory: 8GB RAM with 256/512GB storage / 12GB RAM with 512GB storage (Collector's Edition)
• Software: HarmonyOS 2
• Battery: 4600mAh / 4800mAh (Creator’s Edition)
• Charging: 66W fast charging
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax, Bluetooth 5.2,GPS/AGPS/GLONASS/ Beidou/ NavIC, NFC, USB Type-C 3.1

Huawei Mate Xs 2 Price in Nepal and Availability

Huawei Mate Xs 2 is launched in China for an asking price of CNY 9,999 and CNY 11,499 for the 8/256GB and 8/512GB variants, respectively. Similarly, the Creator Edition with 12/512GB retails at CNY 12,999. Although there are very less chances of it launching in Nepal, if its launches here, we expect the price of Huawei Mate Xs 2 to start at NPR 200,000.

• Meanwhile, check out our review of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3.