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| Huawei Mate X2 vs Galaxy Z Fold 2 |
This is the Huawei Mate X2! It is by far the most special foldable phoneon the market right now. And that’s because 1. It has the best hardware in a foldable, and2. It is close to impossible to get. You cannot buy it in the UK yet, or in Europe,or in the US. You can only buy it in China at the momentand the stock is incredibly limited. In fact – this phone is so hard to get thateven our review unit is the only one in the UK. And, we only have for 2 and a half days, afterwhich we do have to send it back, as there’s literally a queue of reviewers waiting toget their hands on it. So, without any further ado, here is how itcompares to the Galaxy Z Fold 2 – the current foldable champion! My foldable smartphone journey started withthe Fold 1 in April 2020, after which I got the Z Fold 2 as soon as it came out in September2020. I’ve used each as my main android phone, alongside my iPhone.
And the Fold 2 was for me the perfect foldablephone, as it fixed all of the complaints that I had with the Fold 1, such as the small externaldisplay, the massive notch, the overall durability AND also added some unexpected features, suchas the new hinge that you could stop at any point you wanted. In fact, the Z Fold 2 was so good that 2 ofmy team members, Harry and Josh both got one as well! So we actually have 4 Z Fold 2’s in theoffice, as we have another one, just for shots. But it turns out that this new foldable fromHuawei, tops even the Z Fold 2…at least when it comes to the hardware. Right off the bat, the Mate X2 fully changesthe design philosophy of Huawei’s Mate X and Mate Xs, which both used a single foldabledisplay that folded on the onside and instead, it adopts Samsung’s idea of having a foldabledisplay that folds on the inside, and then a regular display on the outside. This is so that the inner display always staysprotected, which is a great decision for foldables, as Huawei also had issues where the Mate Xbroke, because of how easily the foldable display could get damaged, by always beingexposed.
So if they are so similar now, how does theMate X2 improve over the Z Fold 2’s hardware? First, the outer display is fully usable asa regular smartphone. You see, with the Z Fold 2, even-though theouter display has been significantly improved over the Fold 1’s, by Samsung making itbigger and therefore more usable, it still suffers from the very narrow aspect ratio. It is very difficult to type on and the factthat it is still very tall, makes it very difficult for me to use in one hand, as Iconstantly have to move my hand up, to be able to reach the top of it. The Mate X2 fixes that by using a large 6.45”display, which has a more conventional aspect ratio compared to the Z Fold 2’s.
And this is also a 90Hz display, rather thanit being a 60Hz panel, like on the Z Fold 2. In fact, this display is so good that I canpretty much do everything on it, without the need to open it up. Whereas with the Z Fold 2, I only use theouter display probably about 20% of the time, with the remaining 80% going to the innerdisplay. Second, we have the camera. The Z Fold 2 uses the same main and ultra-widemodules as the Galaxy S20. Not the S20 Ultra, but the regular S20, whilethe telephoto is the same as on the S10. And I’m not saying that the camera is bador anything, as the main sensor captures a lot of light with its large 1.8µm pixels,but the fact that we don’t have anything more than 2x zoom is a bit disappointing,when other flagships have crazy numbers like 5x or 10x optical. Well, the Mate X2 fixes that by using a trueflashship camera. Its main sensor is a 50MP sensor, 1/1.28”in size, with 4:1 pixel binning, as opposed to the smaller 12MP 1/1.76 inch sensor onthe Z Fold 2. You can take a look at a few samples fromthe main camera module right here and see how they compare.
The telephoto module is vastly superior onthe Mate X2. As we not only have 1, but 2 of them. The 1st one is a 12MP 3x optical zoom module, which already gives you more zoom range than the single 2x module on the Z Fold 2 and thenthe 2nd one is an 8MP 10X optical zoom module which uses a periscope lens to achieve anincredible level of zoom, that just blows the Z Fold 2’s zoom out of the water. And then we have the ultra wide module whichis a 12MP f/2.2 module on the Z Fold 2 vs a 16MP f/2.2 module on the Mate X2. Not a massive difference here. Moving on to the 3rd thing that the Mate X2 does better than the Z Fold 2 - the overall thickness. You cannot argue with the fact that the ZFold 2 is very thick and feels like a brick in your pocket. It has this sloped design where the body getsthicker, the closer you get to the hinge. And that’s because you cannot fold a displayflat, as it would break if you did that. Instead, Samsung has this gap that keeps thedisplay slightly open, even when closed, giving it a thickness of 16.8mm at its thickest pointand 6.9mm at its thinnest. When it is fully open, it does indeed feelvery thin. Not so much when closed.
However, Huawei not only made the Mate X2noticeably thinner, at just 14.7mm when closed, but they also fixed the sloped design of theZ Fold 2, by closing almost perfectly flat. But how did they manage to do that? If you look closely when closing the display,you can see how the display still remains curved on the inside, but then the body ofthe phone became thinner, in order for it to be able to close flat. It’s pretty genius how they designed this! And I gotta say, just holding it in my hand,the Mate X2 feels SO MUCH BETTER than the Z Fold 2. It feels way more usable and similar to usingan S21 Ultra with a case, rather than an actual foldable phone. When unfolded, it does feel pretty thick onone side and super thin on the other, as opposed to the Z Fold 2 which feels more symmetrical,which kinda reminds me of when I was using the Z Fold 2 with a case on. But overall, the Mate X feels in hand howI would want the Z Fold 3 to feel. Speaking of changes that the Z Fold 3 needsto make. The crease! On the Z Fold 2, it is noticeable, althoughyou will quickly forget about it after just a few minutes of use, but on the Mate X2,Huawei has somehow managed to pretty much remove it entirely – to the point whereyou cannot see it and you can only barely feel it.
And on top of that, there are SO many thingsthat the Mate X 2 does better. For example, it comes with a free case inthe box, which also includes a kickstand, whereas with the Z Fold 2, you have to buythat separately. It also comes with a super fast 66W chargerin the box, as opposed to the 25W charger that the Z Fold 2 comes with. We also get advanced face scanning tech onthe front, similar to what we have on the iPhone, which is something that the Z fold2 lacks. And we also get an IR blaster! When was the last time we had this in a phone? So now that we took a look at how the MateX 2 improves over the Z Fold 2, let’s take a look at some of the things that the Z Fold2 does better. The first one being the hinge that you canstop at any point you want, so you can use it for watching videos and some apps wouldeven take advantage of this. The Mate X2 closes shut immediately, and itdoesn’t feel as satisfying to open, as the Z Fold 2 does.
Not to mention that we do not have a cameraon the internal display at all, which really sucks when you want to do a video call. Speaking of the internal display, the MateX only has a 90Hz refresh rate, compared to the 120Hz on the Fold 2. The bezels surrounding the display are everso slightly thicker and the Z Fold 2 is also more affordable at £1600 in the UK, vs around£2000 for the Mate X2. But then again you cannot actually buy theMate X2 in the UK yet, or even outside of China, so for most people this is not an option. And obviously, since this is a Huawei phone,Google services are also not an option either. Huawei has added tools such as Petal searchand more ways to install APKs. So if you really want to get Google stuffand your regular apps, for the most part, you can. It’s just that it’s way more hassle todo so, since there is no PlayStore and getting updates requires more steps to, reason whyfor anyone outside of China, I just cannot recommend this phone. BUT for anyone in China, this is by far thebest foldable you can get and if you really are a tinkerer and you want to get this imported from China and you don’t mind the hassle of getting your appson, I think it is an absolutely amazing piece of hardware!