- Huawei unveiled the Mate X foldable 5G smartphone on Sunday at Mobile World Congress.
- Huawei’s phone heats up the competition with Samsung, which unveiled the Galaxy Fold last week.
- The price of the Mate X will start at 2299 euros, roughly $2600.
Huawei launched a foldable smartphone on Sunday, striking back at Samsung just days after it launched the first consumer-ready foldable device.
Huawei launched the Mate X at an event at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The Chinese tech giant said the phone will start at a whopping price of 2299 euros (approximately $2600), and will be available in the middle of 2019. That price tops the high end of Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, which will sell for an eye-popping $1980, as well as Apple’s premium iPhones.
American officials have warned against using Huawei devices out of fear they will enable Chinese spying, charges the company denies. Meanwhile, Huawei has found itself stuck in the middle of tensions between the U.S. and China in the race to roll out 5G networks.
The Huawei Mate X is a 5G device that can fold into a slim 6.6-inch smartphone and unfold into an 8-inch tablet. Huawei’s launch sets up a battle with Samsung, which unveiled its Galaxy Fold last week, as the world’s biggest smartphone makers try to pump innovation into a stalling smartphone market.
Unlike Samsung’s device, Huawei’s Mate X features slightly curved screens that fold backward so that, when closed, there are screens on both sides of the phone. The design makes Huawei’s device slimmer than Samsung’s when it’s folded.
Other key features of the Mate X include:
- Flexible OLED screens
- Curved grip for one-handed use
- New Leica camera system
- Dual-SIM capability
The phone will run on Huawei’s Kirin 980 processor and Balong 5000 chipset, which supports 5G. The company said the super-fast chipset will allow users to download a 1 gigabyte movie in just 3 seconds.
