There’s a war brewing among a new breed of foldable phones, and the two biggest heavyweights slugging it out are Samsung and Huawei.
Both the Galaxy Fold and Mate X promise to morph from phone to tablet and back again with ease. Both devices also promise to be very expensive at nearly $2,000 for the Fold and $2,600 for the Mate X.
But at least based on what we know so far, Huawei’s foldable beats Samsung’s in several ways. Here’s why.
A much bigger screen in phone mode
If you’ve seen the Galaxy Fold photos and videos, there’s a huge black border around the screen in phone mode. The screen measures only 4.6 inches on Samsung’s phone when it’s closed. Compare that to a 6.6-inch main display for the Huawei Mate X, which is a huge difference in terms of everyday usability.
A secondary display on the back
Unlike the Galaxy Fold, the Huawei Mate X has a secondary screen on back that measures 6.5 inches. This allows you to shoot selfies or share what’s on your display with someone else.
Larger and sharper screen in tablet mode
It’s not that the Galaxy Fold is small at 7.3 inches when fully unfurled, but it’s still smaller than the 8-inch unfolded display on the Mate X. The screen on Huawei’s phone has a resolution of 2480 x 2200 pixels, compared to 2152 x 1536 pixels for the Galaxy Fold.
It’s thinner with no gap
The Mate X measures a pretty svelte 11 millimeters thick when closed, thanks in large part to its Falcon Wing design that folds outward instead of inwards like a book like the Galaxy Fold. The Fold is reportedly 17 millimeters thick.
No ugly notch
The Galaxy Fold has a huge swooping notch in the upper right corner to accommodate two cameras on that inside display. But Huawei positioned the three Leica cameras for the Mate X on the back of the device right on the hinge, so they shouldn’t get in your way.
Big battery with very fast charging
Samsung’s foldable has a 4,380 mAh battery (actually it’s two batteries), but Huawei packs an even larger 4,500 mAh dual-battery setup in its phone. Even better, Huawei promises to deliver 85 percent of a charge in 30 minutes. (We don’t know the charge time for the Galaxy Fold yet.)
5G comes standard
While the Galaxy Fold will come in both 4G and 5G variants, the Huawei Mate X will ship with 5G connectivity included. And if you’re paying two grand or more for a phone, it should be future proof when it comes to networking. Then again, you probably won’t be able to get the Mate X in the U.S. The Galaxy Fold is coming to U.S. carriers.
Credit: Samsung; Huawei
