Huawei Delays Launch of Foldable Mate X to Q4
by Anton Shilov on August 15, 2019 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Huawei
- Android
- Mobile
- 5G
- Mate X
- Foldable Smartphones
Huawei’s Mate X garnered quite of attention at Mobile World Congress earlier this year as one of the industry’s first foldable 5G smartphones. Unfortunately for those looking to get one of such handsets, it will only be available in the fourth quarter, months later than expected originally.
Featuring an 8-inch foldable display with a 2480x2200 resolution and a 9:8 aspect ratio, the Huawei Mate X was expected to be released in the middle of 2019. At some point, its launch was postponed to September and recently the company said that it would be available only in November, reports TechRadar. The delay will likely be the last one as the company is looking forward to start selling its flagship 5G device ahead of the holiday sales season in Europe and the US.
After visiting Huawei’s headquarters earlier this month, TechRadar reports that the company had to slightly redesigned the Mate X from what was shown at MWC: the device now has a slightly different ‘Falcon Hinge’ and a slimmer lock button.
The reasons why Huawei had to delay the launch of its Mate X from mid-2019 to November are not completely clear. Obviously, the aforementioned redesigns took time to implement and test. Meanwhile, Huawei faced uncertainties with its partners like like Google after it was added to the US Entity List in May. Considering the fact that we are talking about a smartphone that is going to cost $2000, the company is naturally interested in getting the product to market without any compromises or glitches.
Related Reading:
- Huawei Launches the Mate X: Folding in a New Direction
- First Glimpse of Huawei Mate X: A Foldable 5G Phone
- Samsung Resolves Galaxy Fold Issues: New Launch In September
- Sharp Demonstrates Foldable OLED Display for Smartphones
Source: TechRadar
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Teckk - Thursday, August 15, 2019 - link
While I am an avid supported of companies innovating or bringing about new ideas but what exactly is the folding phone bringing new to users? Why would anyone pay 2K for this phone (or any folding phone for that matter)?edzieba - Thursday, August 15, 2019 - link
For the former: larger contiguous display, same or smaller form-factor. For the latter: there are a subset of phone buyers who are already willing to spend $1000+ on a phone, and a subset of those who are willing to spend several times that for lower featured phones (e.g. Vertu, Gresso, Goldvish, etc). Plus, as with Samsung, there is an element of R&D dic^H^H^H flag-waving to development of halo products.name99 - Thursday, August 15, 2019 - link
Larger screen area is always nice.Larger screen area that demands foldable screen tech with all that implies (prominent failure point...), as opposed to two separate screens with a thin bezel separating them? Hmm, no longer clear that's a great trade-off.
Of course the real problem here is software. If your SW eco-system is fragmented with no single person in charge, there's no way to kinda push through a new "dual-screen" model and hit a critical mass of apps to make it worthwhile.
Apple could ship a dual screen solution with everything lined up, from APIs to UI ideas for how best to use the two screens, to a large pool of apps working on day one.
But Android makes it close to impossible to get everything lined up until two or three years have passed, and who wants to buy an expensive but badly performing dual screen during that learning period.
So we get fake single screens via folding technology. But that ain't gonna fly if folding doesn't actually work well (which certainly appears to be the case...)
Even a dual screen hits the issue that, when folded, it will be substantially thicker than we expect a phone to be, and it's not clear how much that thickness can be reduced while retaining battery life and the stiffness we expect from a phone...
And you lose a certain level of convenience if you have to always have both screens open. And maybe you need to use a table to type depending on how stiff the middle hinge is. And ...
My guess is that the reason Apple hasn't shipped a dual screen isn't that they have no imagination; it's that the tradeoffs, like thickness, are just too extreme for most customers.
FullmetalTitan - Thursday, August 15, 2019 - link
To answer your question I point you to gold plated iPhones for $10kTeckk - Thursday, August 15, 2019 - link
Can't even.... 😳p1esk - Thursday, August 15, 2019 - link
I'd buy it if they can make it as light and thin as an iPhone.name99 - Thursday, August 15, 2019 - link
As thin as an iPhone WHEN FOLDED?That's the problem, isn't it... (well one of the problems)
PeachNCream - Thursday, August 15, 2019 - link
Waiting for folding phones to hit the market so that the fixes can be put to daily use testing and we can determine if said devices are actually going to be reliable enough under real world conditions.ajp_anton - Thursday, August 15, 2019 - link
"2480x2200 resolution and an 8:7"How is this 8:7? I mean, the smallest exact ratio is quite large, but 9:8 is 7 times closer than 8:7.
Drumsticks - Thursday, August 15, 2019 - link
9:8 is closer I suppose. And you're right, 62:55 is pretty obscure for an aspect ratio.