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00:00Hey what's up, MKBHD here, and I was right, I was right, I told you, I, look, I didn't
00:10want to say I told you so, but I did, didn't I?
00:14So, I just recently made a video showing you guys the Huawei Mate XS, one of the sexiest
00:19folding phones out, maybe the sexiest.
00:23But my conclusion was, okay, it's hot, I like this a lot, but it's not practical, and so
00:29maybe we should stop the whole folding over the outside thing until the tech gets a little
00:34bit better, then we'll come back to it.
00:36So now, here we have the Huawei Mate X2, brand new, just got announced, and I've got my hands
00:41on it, and as you can see, they've done the thing.
00:44They've gone from an outside fold to an inside folding display.
00:49So now it's doing a lot of things really similarly to Samsung's Z Fold 2, which I reviewed and
00:54really liked, but there's actually a couple of things here that are different that make
00:58this the best folding phone hardware out right now.
01:02So first of all, this outside screen, it's even bigger and higher quality than Samsung's
01:06to the point where it actually feels like a full-fledged smartphone.
01:10And I know we were just saying that about the Z Fold 2 because it was so much better
01:13than the first fold, and that's a poor excuse for a front screen, but the Mate X2 clearly
01:18beats out the Fold 2, and it's no contest.
01:21It's a full 6.45-inch diagonal, so it's actually pretty huge, and it's wider, so it's much
01:27closer to a normal aspect ratio.
01:30It's 2700 by 1600 OLED with thin bezels and a 90 hertz refresh rate, plus they've given
01:37it a 240 hertz touch sample rate.
01:39This looks like a normal smartphone when I'm holding it.
01:44It doesn't quite feel like one still because, of course, it's still twice as thick, and
01:48the fingerprint reader is on the bottom half as the power button.
01:52And obviously, it's not quite just like a normal phone, but the goal is to remove as
01:56many trade-offs as possible, and that's what they're all trying to do here.
02:00But yeah, look at that.
02:01It just looks just like a normal smartphone, especially with that aspect ratio.
02:05Close to it, anyway.
02:06A quick word on that selfie camera, though.
02:08So you can see it's a double-wide pill-shaped cutout there, so you have the selfie camera
02:13itself, and then, I believe, a time-of-flight sensor next to it, which I bet they thought
02:19a lot about on a phone like this because that time-of-flight sensor is good for giving you
02:24a little bit of better depth information and potentially better focus.
02:27Now, if I just want to hop on a random video call or just take a quick selfie, I just use
02:32the regular camera.
02:33I don't need that.
02:34It is cool to have autofocus in a selfie camera.
02:37Don't get me wrong.
02:38Time-of-flight sensor helps with that, but I feel like if I actually care about an accurate
02:44portrait mode and the depth information, I'm doing more than just a regular selfie, well,
02:48then on a phone like this, I can open up the phone and use the incredible high-quality
02:52cameras on the back and take a way better selfie photo.
02:56Portrait mode, videos, all that stuff will be great.
02:58So I was just thinking when I saw this, they probably could have left it out and just
03:01done a regular small cutout for the selfie camera, but obviously, having faster autofocus
03:07for a camera like this, like they did in the P40 Pro Plus, is a nice bonus.
03:12So not a huge deal, cool to have.
03:14The point is this outside screen being a way closer to traditional 15 by 9 aspect ratio
03:19makes it way more usable than any other outside screen on a foldable phone.
03:24It's a major strength of this Mate X2.
03:26Now, when you go on the inside, that's where you get your uninterrupted 8-inch display,
03:32uninterrupted because there's no selfie camera cutout at all, and it's really nice.
03:36It's also 90 hertz, which is pretty good.
03:39It's an 8 to 7.1 aspect ratio, so nearly square, and there's hardly any crease at all.
03:45I am very, very impressed by how well this display and hinge combine to minimize the
03:51look and feel of any crease down the middle.
03:54Now it's definitely still there, it's not totally gone, and you can see it at the most
03:58extreme viewing angles, but it's actually much better than Samsung's Fold.
04:02And this hinge like really nicely, firmly pops the phone open to flat.
04:07This is a good one.
04:09That is a good hinge right there, it's a good hinge.
04:13Shout out to the hinge engineers, the hinge-ineers, of course.
04:18Also when it's closed, it actually, it's closer to flat and flush with the back of the phone,
04:24so it doesn't really protrude as much.
04:25If you note in the Z Fold 2, it kind of protrudes out the side a little bit, and when you're
04:30holding it, you feel like you're holding more of that hinge.
04:33So it is impressive that they also managed to squeeze it further into the phone body
04:38itself.
04:39It feels less obtrusive that way.
04:40But then there is one especially wild thing about this phone, and you might have noticed
04:44it by now in the footage, but it's a wedge shape.
04:48Look at this.
04:49It's a wedge going from the thinnest, all the way on the left, 4.4mm, all the way to
04:56the thickest, heaviest part on the right-hand side.
04:59And that is, of course, intentional, Huawei's got their reasoning for it, which is it feels
05:04better in the hand.
05:05So hear me out, or hear them out.
05:07They argue that with phones like the Z Fold, because the center of gravity is further from
05:12your hand, when you hold it, that little bit of wobble feels extra heavy, like there's
05:17a lot of weight really far from your hand, and that's what makes the phone feel heavy.
05:21So by putting more of the weight closer to your hand, the center of gravity is now closer
05:26to where it would be in a normal phone, and the thinner, lighter bit that's outside feels
05:31lighter.
05:33And I buy that.
05:34I really do.
05:35I feel like this phone feels less heavy.
05:37It is still overall a pretty heavy phone, but you can tell it feels different in the
05:41hand when it's open.
05:43And I think that feels better than the Z Fold 2.
05:44It's nice.
05:45Now, when it is closed, it's got this slanted midline that's kind of funny, but that's
05:49totally fine.
05:50It still goes pretty much flush, protects the inside screen.
05:53And really the only possible downsides of this particular shape is it rocks a lot on
05:58a table, thanks to the big camera bump, but you know, it's just annoying.
06:01It's not a deal breaker.
06:02A lot of phones rock, but also the total combined battery size is 4,500 mAh, which is a little
06:09bit small for something with this much screen.
06:12It is funny though.
06:13It's very tempting to just give this phone the foldable phone hardware crown, like straight
06:19away, just because even more so than Samsung, they are using very close to their flagship
06:26bits and specs inside this phone.
06:28It's already the 90 Hertz, much bigger, better display on the outside.
06:32It's already a better like hinge design, but also this Mate X2 actually has just about
06:37the same camera system as their top end P40 Pro Plus or Mate 40 Pro Plus, which are really
06:43good cameras.
06:44It's a 50 megapixel, gigantic 1 over 1.28 inch primary camera.
06:50You've got a 3x telephoto and a 10x periscope zoom lens and a slightly downgraded ultrawide,
06:57but then it's still got a fairly advanced speaker system that pairs a driver at the
07:00top with one at the bottom for a pretty wide stereo sound as a bonus.
07:05And yes, they've put some pretty beefy specs inside too.
07:08Sir Kirin 9000 chip, 8 gigs of RAM, 256 gigs of storage.
07:13It's 5G capable.
07:14It's got Wi-Fi 6.
07:15It's just overall a very high end piece of hardware in a lot of ways.
07:18It does 55 watt fast charging with the charger that comes in the box, which is pretty nice.
07:24It could potentially, I mean, I haven't used this phone long enough to review battery
07:27life, but it could potentially offset the concerningly small 4,500 milliamp hour battery
07:33because it's an 8 inch, 90 Hertz display and a high end chip.
07:37No wireless charging though.
07:38That is a bummer.
07:39But overall, I am very impressed with this phone as a piece of hardware.
07:43I got to say.
07:44Now the software situation is the same as the first Mate X, which means no Google app
07:49support and this phone, it's not coming to the US or anything.
07:52I just wanted to get my hands on it to test it, but I just, I appreciate it for how impressive
07:57and cutting edge this piece of hardware is.
07:59To me though, I'm keeping this in the back of my head every time I see and get to test
08:03a new folding phone, which is the end game for folding phones is you want to get it
08:09as close to just another feature as possible.
08:12They want to remove as many caveats of having a folding phone as they possibly can.
08:17A lot of the first gen ones, it was really cool that they folded in half, but they weren't
08:21really a great idea in a lot of other ways, but eventually if they can get it to be just
08:26as usable without folding and just as good of a battery life and just as good specs and
08:31cameras and all that stuff, and the folding in half part is just another feature and the
08:36price is pretty close to the same as regular phone, that's when people will start to want
08:41them.
08:42So yeah, this phone to me, it's a step towards that.
08:45It's got a great outside screen, obviously it's a little bit short on battery, but a
08:49lot of the high-end specs, really great cameras and just a really refined, maybe that's the
08:54word, a refined experience, really nice hinge.
08:57So I like it a lot.
08:58It's on its way.
08:59We'll get back to the outside fold stuff later.
09:02Either way, that's been it.
09:04Thanks for watching.
09:05Catch you guys in the next one.
09:06Peace.
09:07Peace.