Huawei appears to be playing it safe during a trying time for the Chinese smartphone maker. The company’s senior vice president, Vincent Peng confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that it will delay the release of its foldable, the Huawei Mate X to conduct more safety testing on its display. If things go well the Mate X could make a market appearance sometime in September.
The foldable smartphone was set to release in June, but Huawei surely cannot afford to attract any more bad press after its enigmatic blacklisting from U.S. trade and commerce. While there have been no reports of Mate X malfunctions, Huawei may be well within its right to be insecure about the optimal quality of its product.
The Samsung Galaxy Fold suffered catastrophic issues just days after review models were seeded to tech media, despite sharing details of its intricate quality assurance process. There is still little word on whether the device can be salvaged for a market release.
Huawei, on the other hand, has been extremely selective about the media outlets it has allowed to handle the device and also restricted reviewers time with the product. Currently, there are not many real-world reports of the device’s handling to know how it would fare with everyday use.
The Chinese manufacturer also insists that the Mate X launch would not be affected by the U.S. ban, which states that Huawei cannot sell products made with U.S. components or use U.S. components on future products. Since the Mate X was announced ahead of the ban, Huawei should be able to legally launch the device with sanctioned features, such as the Android operating system. Meanwhile, the Mate X runs a processing chip from Huawei’s own Kirin brand and not components made by U.S. companies.
Still, Huawei may have distribution issues if the Mate X comes to markets. The device is supposed to be 5G capable, but between the U.S. ban and several European carriers pulling their affiliation from the company, the Mate X may not be eligible for sale mostly outside of Asian counties.
About the Huawei Mate X
The Huawei Mate X is expected to sell for $2,600, whenever it releases to market.
Features on the Huawei Mate X include an 8-inch unfolded display with a 6.6-inch front display and 6.38-inch back display when folded, a Kirin 980 chip, 8GB of RAM, and 512GB of internal storage with expandable storage available through Huawei’s own NM card, a 4500mAh battery with 55W supercharge, and the Android 9 Pie operating system.
The foldable’s triple-camera set up includes a 40-megapixel wide angle lens, a 16-megapixel ultra wide angle lens, and an 8-megapixel telephoto lens.
The device also supports a Dual SIM, USB Type-C, and a capacitive fingerprint sensor in its power button. It’s color options is Interstellar Blue.
