Huawei's new Mate X6 book-style foldable phone is going global. The book-style foldable, and first to receive an international launch, is the sixth-gen version from the Chinese company's flagship foldable lineup, which debuted back in 2019 with the Mate X.
The Mate X6 has a 6.45-inch outer screen that opens up like a book to reveal a 7.93-inch inner display. It has four rear cameras including a telephoto camera and a large 5,110-mAh battery complete with support for 66-watt wired and 50-watt wireless charging.
Despite all the hardware, the Mate X6 is slim for a foldable phone, measuring 4.6mm thick when unfolded and 9.9mm when folded. The phone can connect to Tiantong and Beidou satellites when you don't have a cell signal, allowing you to make calls and send messages.
Read more: Exclusive: How the Magic V3 Became the World's Slimmest Book-Style Phone
The international launch of the Mate X6 comes after the Biden administration imposed a fresh round of restrictions earlier this month that curbed chip export to 140 Chinese firms, some of which work with Huawei. The company hasn't shared which chips are inside Mate X6 phones, but the preceding Mate X5 phone reportedly ran on Huawei's in-house Kirin 9000 chipsets.
Since 2019 Huawei has been on a US trade blacklist, which restricted American companies from selling software, 5G chips and components, among other technology products, to the Chinese company without a license. As part of those sanctions, Huawei phones also lost full access to Google Mobile Service, which limited access to popular Android apps such as Gmail and Google Maps.
Huawei's smartphone business took a major hit as a result of continued US sanctions, before resurging in recent months with the help of 2023's Mate 60 series.
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It comes as no surprise then that Huawei's new foldable is not receiving a US launch. In Huawei's native China, the Mate X6 starts for 12,999 yuan, which converts to approximately $1,790, £1,410 or AU$2,805. International prices for the device were not shared at the time of this writing.
Huawei's Mate X6 (left) and Honor's Magic V3 (right). See the resemblance?
Sareena Dayaram/CNETHands-on with the Huawei Mate X6
The Mate X6 resembles the Honor's Magic V3's design, particularly with Huawei's choice of colors and the design of the camera bump. However, this isn't the first Huawei phone to resemble Honor's foldable flagship. Huawei's Mate XT Ultimate Design also looks similar to Honor's foldable. Honor was a Huawei subsidiary before the tech giant sold it off in an effort to ensure its survival amid crippling US sanctions.
Weighing 239 grams, the Mate X6 is a lightweight book-style foldable phone -- the same weight as Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 6. When I hold the Mate X6, it doesn't feel much different than nonfoldable phoness I've used. With the Mate X6, Huawei is the latest phone-maker to solve a pain point for foldable phones: their weight and bulkiness. The Mate X6 is slimmer than its predecessor, shaving off 5 millimeters in thickness to measure just 9.9 mm when folded.
But the slimness doesn't come at the expense of sturdiness. I found the Mate X6's hardware solid even when I had it folded at various angles. Huawei said the Mate X6 features a redesigned water drop hinge that uses a stronger aerospace-grade material which also helps make it slim. It has an IPX8 rating for water-resistance, meaning it can be submerged for up to 30 minutes up to 1.5 meters.
The outer screen however felt like a regular bar phone, and not awkwardly to hold and use like earlier versions of Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold. It was wide enough for me to enjoy using it to scroll through social media or read through websites.
You can get a sense of the the Mate X6's slim design from this angle.
Sareena Dayaram/CNETThe Mate X6 has four cameras consisting of a 48-megapixel telephoto camera, a 40-megapixel ultrawide camera, and a 50-megapixel ultrawide camera. I didn't get to test the cameras much, but I found some initial photos taken with the telephoto camera had sharp details under various lighting conditions.
The Mate X6 has four cameras consisting of a 48-megapixel telephoto camera, a 40-megapixel ultrawide camera, and a 50-megapixel ultrawide camera. I didn't get to test the cameras much, but I found some initial photos shot with the telephoto camera had sharp details under various lighting conditions.
The Mate X6 runs on Huawei's HarmonyOS Next operating system, which does not run any Android apps or rely on Android code. But Huawei Consumer Business Head Richard Yu said at the China launch event that some phones will still offer users a choice between HarmonyOS Next and Harmony OS 4.3, which is compatible with Android. I didn't manage to switch to the OS 4.3 system.
Despite the impressive variety of apps Huawei has managed to build, including its own App Gallery, I found myself missing some of my go-to apps, even if you could use some on a browser, including Gmail, Google Maps and Google Keep. It's unfortunate that a phone with so much promise will almost certainly be held back by the lack of those services, at least for now.
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