Beleaguered Chinese tech giant Huawei made headlines in October for unveiling a new version of its smartphone operating system with no remaining ties to Android code, but HarmonyOS Next hasn’t made its global debut with the new Mate X6 foldable phone.
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Announced today, the Mate X6 is a foldable in the standard Samsung-esque mold – unlike the company’s more adventurous tri-folding Mate XT from a few months ago – with some unsurprisingly meaty specs.
The cameras are, as always, the main draw. The triple rear camera here includes a 50MP main lens with the company’s now-familiar 10-stop adjustable aperture design, a 40MP ultrawide, and a 48MP 4x telephoto that doubles for macro photography. The lenses are supported by a fourth component, the Ultra Chroma Sensor, which is tasked with gauging color temperature.
The telemacro is bolstered by a ‘Super Macro’ mode that extends the depth of field, allowing you to keep more of the subject in focus without giving up the bokeh blur in the background. It’s a similar solution to Xiaomi’s for narrow depth of field, the one problem that’s limited the effectiveness of telemacro lenses in other phones, and helps make this an impressive all-round camera system, though a few minutes in a meeting room was hardly the space for me to really put it to the test.
Huawei says this is also its sturdiest foldable yet, with an IPX8 rating for water-resistance, upgraded aluminum hinge, and the second generation of its in-house Kunlun glass on the cover display. At 9.9mm thick when closed, and weighing 239g, it’s not quite as thin or light as this year’s extraordinary Magic V3 from former Huawei subsidiary Honor, but it’s still comfortably thinner than any foldable you can buy in the US.
The company didn’t want to focus on the phone’s chipset and modem – the two components it has really struggled to source since its US trade ban – but with 120Hz LTPO displays, a large battery, and up to 66W wired charging, you’re getting fairly top specs everywhere else in the phone at least. The company’s modem woes does mean this won’t support 5G however, limited to 4G LTE connections at best.
What you’re not getting is Huawei’s new OS, though really that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been following it closely. HarmonyOS Next is still only in public beta in China, and there’s no word yet on if or when it will roll out globally.
In fact, technically speaking Huawei hasn’t even shipped the regular version of HarmonyOS globally on its phones. The company’s tablets and wearables run that software worldwide, but its smartphones still run a Google-free version of its EMUI Android fork, and that’s exactly what you’ll find on the Mate X6 if you decide to pick one up. That means full compatibility with existing Android apps so long as they don’t rely on Google services, something that will disappear with HarmonyOS Next, which has its own code base and will require apps to be ported over.
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HarmonyOS NEXT is currently limited to China
That’s the main reason it may be some time before Huawei’s international smartphones make the jump to HarmonyOS Next. It’s one thing for the company to secure a full suite of ported apps in its home market – in October it claimed to have over 15,000 native apps already – but global users, even those willing to put up with Huawei phones’ Google-less limitations, will still want the option to download Android software for the foreseeable future.
At least things are simpler for the company’s Freebuds Pro 4 earbuds, which launched alongside the Mate X6. These have no software woes, and a unique selling point: “true” lossless audio, with support for 2.3Mbps transmission, superior to CD quality, which Huawei says is an industry-first.
The Nova 13 and Nova 13 Pro mid-range phones were also rolled out, which are noteworthy only for that 10-stop adjustable aperture tech rolling down into the Pro model, marking the first time it’s appeared outside a flagship.
