Despite ongoing reports suggesting that some manufacturers might abandon their foldable smartphone projects, Huawei isn’t shying away from the foldable market. Today, the company unveiled the Mate X6, its latest iteration of the folding phone series.
While it retains the core folding design, the X6 brings key upgrades, including larger displays, a distinctive rear camera setup, and AI features designed to enhance the user experience.
1. Bigger and Brighter Displays
The most immediate change is the size bump in both the internal and external displays. The X6 unfolds to reveal a 7.93-inch LTPO 2.0 panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 1800 nits. It should now be more immersive to watch videos, do gaming, or tackle productivity tasks.
The outer display also gets a size boost, measuring in at 6.45 inches with the same 120Hz refresh rate and LTPO 2.0 technology.
Both displays deliver impressive brightness levels—2500 nits for the outer screen and 1800 nits for the inner—ensuring good visibility outdoors. Additionally, the 1440Hz PWM dimming on both panels helps reduce eye strain, especially during extended use in low-light settings.
2. Marble Flair and Tough Construction
Huawei has ditched the uniform metal back for the X6, opting for a unique glass cover with a marble-like structure. This texture comes in a “Nebula Gray” shade that shimmers and catches the light in a captivating way.
However, if the glass isn’t your thing, there’s also a classic plain leather back option. Color choices remain familiar, with the X6 available in Gray, White, Red, Sea Blue, and Black.
Durability seems to be a focus area this time around. Huawei claims the X6 utilizes a new “distributed basalt architecture” for increased toughness. This involves a combination of innovative carbon fiber screen support and a high-strength 380GPa material, promising a 65% boost in stiffness. Additionally, the phone adopts “ultra-strong wing aluminum” for the body, increasing overall strength by 37%.
3. HarmonyOS and AI Shenanigans
The Mate X6 runs on HarmonyOS NEXT, Huawei’s homegrown operating system. While specifics on the software experience remain unclear, the company did showcase a few AI features.
One interesting addition is the “Airdrop gesture,” which allows users to share media content across devices with a simple hand gesture. For basketball fans, there’s also an “AI Air Shooting gesture” that enables interactive play with the phone’s AI capabilities – though details on this functionality remain limited.
4. Camera System
The camera setup on the Mate X6 looks familiar at first glance. It packs a 50MP super light zoom RYYB main camera with a 10-speed adjustable aperture and OIS. Joining it are a 40MP ultrawide sensor, an infrared sensor, and a 48MP telephoto macro lens with 4x optical zoom.
5. Collector’s Edition
Huawei has also introduced a Collector’s Edition of the Mate X6 foldable. While it shares the same core specs as the standard model, the Collector’s Edition differs in terms of RAM/storage and an interesting new feature called triple-network satellite support. The latter enables two-way satellite messaging, two-way calling, and low-orbit satellite internet, although the internet capability is still under testing.
6. Pricing and Availability
The Mate X6 comes in two storage variants: 12GB RAM with 256GB storage and 12GB RAM with 512GB storage. The standard model starts at 12,999 yuan (approximately USD 1795).
The Collector’s Edition comes in 16GB RAM variants with either 512GB or 1TB of storage, starting at 14,999 yuan (approximately USD 2071).
