Huawei Mate X – The Future is Foldables!

We are literally living in the future. Things that were fantasies, fiction, are now real-life products. Who thought displays could be bent? Heck who even believed in the past that people could touch screens…? Like I said in my Galaxy Fold article, it hasn’t always been about what consumers believe they want. Capacitive fingerprint scanners were pretty good, but here we are touching screens to unlock phones. Foldables are a testament of human innovation – that if it is imaginable, it is probably achievable.

Just early last year, I wouldn’t have believed a foldable phone to be possible. Just last year, it would be absurd – a waste of time. A gimmick. And to be honest, the first generation foldables are still all gimmicky. But when you remember the first Android Phone, and you compare it to the best Android Phone we have right now, you can see what a decade can do in tech. In the next two, three years, foldables will be everywhere.

I have said “this is the best looking foldable we’ve seen yet” so many times in this past one month. Perhaps with the Huawei Mate X, this will be the last time I say that. But to be honest, I don’t know what’s coming in the future. I can’t be sure. But heck yes, the future will have a lot of foldables. And they will be affordable.

Okay a quick refresher. Here’s Xiaomi Foldable Concept. Still a concept though. Not yet released:

Here’s Samsung’s Galaxy Fold which will cost $1980:

And here’s Huawei’s Mate X:

The Mate X will start at a whooping $2600. Which is enough money to buy 26 pretty decent 10k phones in Kenya. And for some, it is easy – and dumb – to dismiss foldables as a future that will never take off because of cost. But remember, producing a device like this requires new innovations, new design processes, and new machines. This all requires money, and time, and resources. That’s why they are pretty expensive.

But this is bound to change. Over the recent years, we’ve seen budget devices give more value for money to a point where they threaten expensive flagships. Like I said some days ago, 2019 is the year of budget smartphones, in a few years once production is streamlined, once better ideas are implemented, and more use-cases imagined for such devices, there will be pretty good budget foldables. You’ll probably own one in two years.

What I love about the Mate X is that the bezels are very minimal both in the 8 inch tablet mode, and 6.6 inch phone modes. Also, the design of it ensures that there’s no gap when you “close” it. It is very very  thin, there’s a 5G modem, 8GB RAM, Kirin 980 processor, 512GB storage and a 4500mAh battery that supports 55W charging (the fastest on any mobile device).