Huawei is retrying the folding smartphone adventure in France, as we already knew, with the Mate X6. This will cost a whopping 2,000 euros and will be among the thinnest (4.6 mm) and lightest (239 g) folding smartphones on the market.
We were able to take it in hand in Paris during a press presentation organized by the Chinese giant. Here are our first impressions.
Design: our Pixel 9 Pro Fold pales in comparison
As luck would have it, we happened to go to the Huawei event with the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, Google's first folding smartphone sold on the French market. This one has been with us for several months and let's put it bluntly: the Huawei Mate X6 allowed us to realize how bulky it is.
The finesse of the Huawei is just as impressive as an Honor Magic V3. In addition, the grip is made much more pleasant by the presence of rounded edges.
A word also on the new hinge which seemed to us to be the perfect combination of robustness and flexibility. The fold is also easily forgotten. In short, it's a beautiful piece of work.
Impressive colorimetry
During our handling, we were able to take a few shots using the trio of photo modules on the back of the device (ultra wide angle, wide angle and X4 equivalent telephoto lens). And surprise, the one that interested us the most is a fourth module, which completes the photo block, entitled Ultra Chroma.
Its technical operation still seems a little cryptic to us, but the idea is as follows: it is a photo module specialized in capturing all shades of colors. It assists the photo modules, which specialize in capturing light. Everything is put through the mill of Huawei's algorithms for a result very close to reality and therefore very natural. We were able to try it on half a dozen subjects and we were quite convinced by the result.
Beyond this insolent ability to reproduce colors, the rest of the photo experience seemed to us to live up to the Chinese giant. The sharpness seemed excellent, the fluidity of switching from one module to another very impressive, without any jerks and with great colorimetric consistency between each module. Additionally, the preview of the scene on the phone screen strongly matched the final result, despite a small shift in post-processing.
For the first time, Huawei talks openly about Aurora
Another important point to emphasize during the presentation organized in Paris, the Huawei teams dared to mention the elephant in the room. For the very first time, Huawei has highlighted an alternative allowing access to applications from the Play Store, Aurora, an alternative application store developed in open source.
The fact that Huawei is talking about it shows several things. First: it allows this solution to be institutionalized. Second, it demonstrates that Aurora is looking less and less like a hack and more and more like a viable alternative. Third: the brand's ambitions on smartphones have returned to the highest level. For a few years, Huawei had lowered its sails, the time has perhaps come to try to convince again, despite the embargo.
Despite this good point, Huawei continues to market its folding smartphone with an outdated OS: EMUI 14, based on Android 12. As a reminder, the smartphone world is in the process of moving to Android 16. The Chinese brand seems determined not to import its new interface, HarmonyOS NEXT. At least she has the courage to try something with Aurora.
A Kirin chip engraved in 7 nm and no 5G
It would be fashionable if they managed to do the same for their chip. In a balancing act to which the Huawei teams have unfortunately accustomed us, the person responsible for the official presentation of the product refused to mention the name of the chip which equips the Mate X6. Realize it: sell a smartphone for 2000 euros and refuse to give the name of the central element that drives everything else…
It is obviously a Kirin 9020, a chip engraved in 7 nm. This fine engraving is undoubtedly the reason why Huawei does not wish to communicate on the subject, since it is far from the standards of the genre, which now reach 3 nm.
As usual, Huawei is once again paying the costs of the embargo weighing on it. And the penalty is twofold: in addition to lacking energy efficiency, the device must also switch to 5G and be satisfied as best it can with 4G connectivity.
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