Huawei, last week, officially launched its first commercial 5G phone. The Mate 20X 5G comes with several upgrades over the Mate 20X and even the Mate 20 Pro. One of these is the Balong 5000 modem that can achieve peak download speeds of 4.6Gbps in the sub-6Hz low-frequency band, as well as other interesting components. iFixIt has afforded an opportunity to see what lies inside the Mate 20X 5G.
The Mate 20X 5G may look almost similar to the Mate 20X on the outside but the internal components can’t be arranged the same. One conspicuous feature on the device is the physical fingerprint sensor at the bottom of the rear cameras. Also, the device doesn’t have a 3.5mm audio jack, something that was present in the regular version. Compared to the Mate 20 Pro, the Mate 20 X (5G) looks bigger.
The disassembly process begins with the removal of the SIM card slots. Later on, a pry tool is used to remove the back cover. Interestingly, the back cover comes off without heating. That is probably because the adhesive is yet to dry. 
There are a lot of screws inside the mobile phone, keeping in place features such as NFC coils, antennas and graphite thermal pads. Two of the screws are very well hidden, one behind the protective sticker and the other under the camera flash. 
The motherboard of the device is quite easy to disassemble, and the same is true for the triple rear cameras.
EDITOR’S PICK: Huawei Mate 20X 5G hands-on pictures and specs review
In the initial disassembly, iFixit did not find the Balong 5000 modem, which is the “core” of this 5G phone. But later on, after removing a memory chip, the Kirin 980 (HiSilicon Hi3680 GFCV150) was found underneath. So iFixit began to remove the multiple memory chips on the motherboard and finally, the Balong 5000 (HiSilicon Hi9500 GFCV101) after knocking out a chip.
Interestingly, the Balong 5000 is equipped with proprietary memory, which is the Samsung LPDDR4X chip that has just been knocked out. It has a 3GB size and seems to be a data buffer.
Next is the battery which has instructions on the body to guide you on how to disassemble. iFixit thinks this is very good because it makes disassembly easier. There was no heating this time. This battery is exactly the same as the Mate 20 Pro, which is 16.04 watt-hours (4200 mAh). This battery is much lower than the Mate 20 X. The Mate 20 X uses a 19.1 watt-hour (5000 mAh) battery.
Next is the screen, which is very tightly glued, but it is easy to remove as soon as it is heated. There is nothing extra inside (screen fingerprint sensor, etc.), only the screen and the metal middle frame, the screen is made by Samsung.
Like the Mate 20X, there is a soaking plate on the aluminium frame behind the graphite foil inside. The above is the disassembly of Huawei Mate 20 X (5G), most of which are Huawei’s own chips and Asian manufacturers’ products (Samsung, Toshiba). In the end, iFixit gave a fixability score of 4 points, which means it is not easy to disassemble.
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