Huawei Mate X6 Review: Returns To Global Stage With New Camera Tech – Forbes

After making headlines with the world’s first double folding phone (that is selling only in China), Huawei is launching a new foldable phone for the global market including Europe, Asia and the Middle East. But sadly for tech geeks such as myself, this is “just” a conventional book-like foldable phone that bends at only one point.

Still, while the Huawei Mate X6’s form factor isn’t going to immediately turn heads the way double-folding Mate XT did, it’s a highly polished device that represents perhaps the most mature foldable phone form yet.

Hardware

The Mate X6 is an inner-folding book-like foldable that’s thinner and lighter than previous generation while gaining a larger battery, display and better camera hardware. It measures only 9.9mm thick when folded, and weighs 239g. These numbers are actually not the most impressive in the market currently, as other Chinese foldables from Xiaomi and Honor are marginally even sleeker, but Huawei’s foldable has a more capable camera system, so it’s a tradeoff I’d take. If compared against North American foldable offerings from Samsung and Google, Huawei’s outer hardware seems half-a-generation to a full generation ahead.

I say “outer hardware,” because the Mate X6’s silicon, self-developed by Huawei, is likely technically inferior to what other phones are using right now. There’s a complicated backstory about this, but the short version is that the U.S. government has prevented Huawei from using the world’s leading silicon manufacturing machines, so Huawei has to build its own.

Still, I saw no real performance issues with the Mate X6’s silicon, even if technically speaking, it’s probably at least a generation behind the silicon powering other foldable phones. Apps still loaded smoothly, the camera launches fast (and has an incredibly fast shutter which I’ll get to later), and the overall UI is fluid.

The rest of the hardware is absolutely top notch. The main foldable screen is a 7.9-inch LTPO panel with a near 1:1 aspect ratio, and it’s more than sharp enough with a resolution of 2440 X 2240. It also reaches a peak brightness of 1,800 nits and can display over a billion colors. The outer screen, meanwhile, measures 6.45-inches; it’s also an LTPO panel, and gets even brighter to 2,500 nits, but resolution is only 1080p.

Huawei says the main foldable display is built on top of a carbon fiber glass plate which helps reinforce the screen, and the hinge connecting the moving parts feel sturdy and reassuring.

When folded, the Mate X6 feels comfortable in the hand, feeling almost like a normal slab phone due to its relatively light weight and sleek dimensions.

Cameras

The camera system is where the phone shines and stands out from the pack. Most foldable phones, especially the ones from Samsung and Google, have a camera system that’s a clear tier below the company’s regular slab flagship offerings. That’s not the case with the Mate X6, which brings over a camera system very close to the optics used by Huawei’s best slab phones, the Pura and Mate 70 Pro phones.

This setup is headlined by a 50-megapixel main camera with a variable aperture between f/1.4 and f/4, meaning there is a physical shutter that open and close to help control light intake and depth-of-field perception.

There’s a 48-megapixel Periscope zoom lens with macro focusing capabilities, which is probably my favorite lens, because it allows me to grab some jaw-dropping close up shots with natural bokeh to boot.

The third camera is a 40-megapixel ultra-wide camera that is among one of the better ultra-wide cameras in a foldable. Rounding out the system is a new “hyperspectral” sensor that is used to detect colors — it can detect 1.5 billion different shades, in fact — and is used in combination with the other cameras to help produce shots with accurate colors.

The photo samples speak for themselves. I’ve been grabbing some great images with the phone, especially macro and telephoto shots.

Software

The Mate X6 in China ships with HarmonyOS, but for the global version I’m testing, it’s running on EMUI, which is still based on open-source Android. The UI is typical Huawei Android fare, with large big icons and excellent multi-tasking capabilites, but some basic Android functionality has been altered for no good reason.

I’ll start with the good though: the Mate X6 has a new multi-tasking feature that allows the phone to run three apps almost at the same time. I say almost, because the method essentially has three apps floating within a virtual screen inside the phone screen. You can quickly cycle through the three apps, or even get a glimpse or a second app on the side of a main one, but it’s not quite possible to see all three apps at once, hence why it’s not truly running “three apps at once.” Still, this system is extremely useful for those of us who work on the go often.

Now, the bad: Huawei (and Honor’s) Android skin inexplicably alters some very basic Android functionality features and I have never liked it. For example, the notification panel and control center are split into two screens, when most Android phones have them in one pane. If I long press on an app, I do not have the option to jump into that app’s settings the way I can on phones manufactured by Google, Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Asus, ZTE, OnePlus, Sony, Nothing, etc. You get the gist — basically all Android phones behaves one way, but then Huawei and Honor software decides to go the other way.

As for the elephant in the room: nope, this phone does not ship with Google Mobile Services, and you technically cannot install GMS, but there has been a new development that allows this phone to run core Google apps pretty easily. The method is MicroG, a third-party open-source app that spoofs the Google Mobile Services framework on Android devices. Huawei doesn’t quite advertise MicroG, but if you jump into Huawei’s app store and search for Google apps, it will also ask if you want to install MicroG.

Once MicroG is installed, the phone can run Gmail, Youtube, Google Drive, etc without any issues. I have done a fair bit of research and even spoken to Android developers and experts, who all say MicroG is a secure enough software (it’s open source, so any security flaw would be open to see). So with MicroG, you essentially can use the Mate X6 as if it had Google support natively.

Overall performance

As I mentioned earlier, performance of the phone has been fine. I’ve been using the Mate X6 around Hong Kong and Miami, navigating with Google Maps, texting, and snapping lots of photos, and the phone performed as expected.

Battery life is very strong as expected from a Huawei device, with the phone able to go a full day of use with juice to spare. Your mileage may vary depending on how much you use the larger screen.

The Mate X6, like all foldables, won’t be cheap. In China and Hong Kong, the phone is priced at about $2,300 after conversion. I expect the European price to be higher. But Huawei has always priced its phones in a premium category, so Huawei fans are used to it.