Besides quietly releasing the Huawei Mate 60 Pro with a mysterious Kirin 9000S chip, Huawei has also introduced its new Mate X5 foldable smartphone. This comes as a surprise as the current Mate X3 was only introduced in March and it went on sale in Malaysia just four months ago.
On the surface, it looks pretty much the same with an inward folding design like the Samsung Galaxy Z series. The flagship foldable retains its slim profile of just 5.3mm when unfolded and 11.08mm when folded. Even the cameras look the same but there’s more black surface area around its circular camera bump.
On the cover, it gets a similar 6.4″ 120Hz OLED 2504×1080 pixels resolution display while the inside gets a 7.85″ 120Hz OLED 2496×2224 pixels resolution display. The biggest difference is the processor as the Mate X5 runs on a Kirin 9000S chip instead of a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor with 4G.
According to the China product page, the Huawei Mate X5 comes with 12GB or 16GB of RAM with 512GB of storage. There’s also a more premium collector’s edition which gets up to 1TB of storage. If you need more storage, it even supports Huawei’s proprietary Nm card up to 256GB.
In the camera department, the Mate X5 seems to retain the same 50MP main camera, 13MP ultra-wide-angle shooter and a 12MP periscope telephoto camera as the Mate X3. For selfies, it gets 8MP cameras for both the cover and internal display.
Besides the new chip, the Mate X5’s battery is 5.4% larger as Huawei has bumped the capacity from 4,800mAh to 5,060mAh. It supports 66W fast wired charging, 50W wireless fast charging and 7.5W reverse wireless charging. Similar to the X3, it also gets IPX8-rated water resistance which allows it to be submerged for up to 1.5m deep for not more than 30 minutes.
Similar to the Huawei Mate 60 Pro, there’s very limited information about its mobile network support. However, it does state that it supports 802.11ax WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 and a USB-C port with USB 3.1 Gen 1 with DP1.2 support. So far there’s no official pricing yet but Huawei’s VMall is already bookings with a CNY 1000 (about RM636) deposit. Out of the box, it runs on HarmonyOS 4.
The lack of a grand launch and the lack of information about the Kirin 9000S chip has raised a lot of eyebrows. Based on reports, it does seem that Huawei suddenly gained the ability to produce its own 7 nm-based chips with the help of China’s SMIC. Despite the ongoing sanctions imposed by the US government, it appears that the new Kirin 9000S-powered devices are reportedly able to support 5G which is quite a breakthrough given its current circumstances.
The Kirin 9000S is Huawei’s first chip in three years as their last SoC was the Kirin 9000. After being cut off from TSMC, Huawei had to resort to using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips without 5G modems, which was a stumbling block for Huawei in a world where 5G is becoming mainstream.
In case you missed it, here’s our hands-on with the Huawei Mate X3:
Related reading
- Huawei Mate X3 Malaysia: Huawei’s new Galaxy Z Fold 4 rival costs RM8,888
- Huawei Mate X3: Finally, a water-resistant Samsung Galaxy Z Fold challenger
- Out of the blue, Huawei lifts the cover off the new Mate 60 Pro – featuring three punch holes in the front display
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5: Thinner, lighter and runs up to 8 apps at the same time
