Huawei Mate X with Kirin 990, improved hinge coming at MWC 2020 

Huawei will reveal an ‘improved’ version of the Mate X foldable with its next-generation Kirin 990 processor at MWC 2020. It’s unclear if this is the Mate Xs that Huawei briefly teased in October that’s set to launch in China in March 2020. More details are awaited. 

Coming to the improvements, Huawei’s Richard Yu has confirmed that the ‘improved’ Mate X will come with a more durable design – both in terms of the display as well as the hinge. It’s unclear if Huawei is also looking to tweak the design by some degree to make it more durable.  

Huawei has already confirmed that the Mate Xs will be powered by the Kirin 990 processor. Well before Huawei announced price and availability of the Mate X in China, there was speculation that the company may ship the foldable with Kirin 990 – and not the Kirin 980 that it was first announced with earlier in the year. As it turns out, Huawei is keeping its new chipset for another foldable altogether, aka the Mate Xs.  

The Kirin 990 uses a 7nm FinFET Plus EUV node by TSMC. It has an 8 core CPU – with 2x big Cortex-A76 clocked at 2.86GHz, 2x middle Cortex-A76 clocked at 2.36GHz and 4x small Cortex-A55 clocked at 1.95GHz. The Kirin 990 further has a Mali-G76 GPU. It is Huawei’s Kirin 990 that packs an integrated 5G modem and that’s what will bring the next-generation connectivity standard to the Mate Xs.  

The Mate Xs looks like it’s going to keep the design of the Mate X, but we can’t say the same about its hardware. Huawei isn’t giving that out yet so we’ll have to wait and watch out on that one.   

As for the design itself, the Mate X’s OLED display folds outwards giving users access to three screen sizes – two independent smartphone-like screens with 6.6-inch and 6.38-inch sizes respectively, and an 8-inch tablet form factor. Something similar is expected from the Mate Xs as well.  

Speaking of core specs, the Mate X is powered by Huawei’s Kirin 980 processor paired with 8GB RAM and 512GB storage. The phone comes with three Leica-tuned cameras and it packs two batteries which entail in a total battery capacity of 4,500mAh with 55W Super Charging. The Mate X is also 5G-ready courtesy Huawei’s Balong 5000 modem.  

Also Read:  Huawei Mate XS With Kirin 990 Set To Launch In March Next Year