Huawei Mate X vs Samsung Galaxy Fold: Premium foldable smartphones compared

Huawei Mate X and Samsung Galaxy Fold are the first top foldable phones available to consumers. Here’s a detailed comparison between the two phones.

Foldable phones compared (Huawei/Samsung)

Foldable phones are no longer concept devices just meant for demonstrations at tech shows.

Samsung last week launched its first-ever foldable phone 'Galaxy Fold'. Days later Huawei launched its own foldable device, Mate X. Both the phones will be available to consumers later this year.

Samsung Galaxy Fold and Huawei Mate X share the basic principles of a foldable phone, but have a few subtle differences. The two also boast of high-end specifications, big camera megapixels, and multiple screens.

The first generation of foldable phones is no cheap. Galaxy Fold is the most expensive Samsung device with a price tag of $1980 (₹1,40,000 approximately). Huawei Mate X is even more expensive at EUR 2,999 (₹1,85,000 approximately).

Let's compare the top two commercial foldable smartphones.

Design

Huawei Mate X and Samsung Galaxy Fold may look similar but they are quite different in terms of design. Samsung Galaxy Fold comes with a smaller 4.6-inch cover display and expands to a 7.3-inch display, still smaller than Huawei's Mate X. The full size screen comes with a Dynamic AMOLED panel making it brighter and richer in details. Samsung's foldable phone folds outwards.

Huawei Mate X comes with two cover displays with 6.6-inch and 6.38-inch sizes respectively. Mate X opens to a large 8-inch display. As far as the foldable mechanism goes, Mate X folds inwards like a book. The device comes with unique 'Falcon Wing' design which allows flat finish. The display also is notch-less and uses side column to take selfies. Huawei claims its phone is slimmer than Samsung's foldable phone.

Performance

Samsung Galaxy Fold uses a 7nm chipset with 12GB of RAM. It comes with 512GB of built-in storage. The battery capacity of Samsung Galaxy Fold is at 4,380mAh. It runs on One UI, a custom interface over Google's Android Pie operating system.

Huawei Mate X runs on in-house Kirin 980 processor. For 5G, Huawei has used Balong 5000 modem. While the Kirin 980 SoC is a tested performer, Mate X has lesser RAM capacity at 8GB. The phone also comes with 512GB of built-in storage.

Just like Samsung, Huawei's foldable phone has dual batteries with capacity at 4,500mAh. Huawei is also bundling a 55W charger with the foldable phone. The charger brings ultra fast charging speed, said to be much faster than Apple's iPhone XS Max. It can also be used to charge other devices including PCs.

Unique front-facing camera setup (Huawei)

Unique front-facing camera setup (Huawei)

Cameras

Foldable design format makes it trickier for engineers to place the cameras. In the case of Samsung, the company has three setups of cameras. On the cover display, it has a 10MP selfie camera. The front-camera set up (when folded up) has 10MP+8MP sensors. On the back, it has three rear cameras - 12MP, 12MP and 16MP. In total, Samsung Galaxy Fold offers six cameras.

Huawei Mate X has fewer camera sensors due to its unique triple screen design. The phone comes with three rear cameras with 40MP, 16MP and 8MP Leica sensors. There's also a ToF sensor for depth capturing.