HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s Huawei plans to make electric vehicles under its own brand and could launch some models this year, four sources said, as the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker, battered by U.S. sanctions, explores a strategic shift.
Huawei Technologies Co Ltd is in talks with state-owned Changan Automobile and other automakers to use their car plants to make its electric vehicles (EVs), according to two of the people familiar with the matter.
Huawei is also in discussions with Beijing-backed BAIC Group’s BluePark New Energy Technology to manufacture its EVs, said one of the two and a separate person with direct knowledge of the matter.
The plan heralds a potentially major shift in direction for Huawei after nearly two-years of U.S. sanctions that have cut its access to key supply chains, forcing it to sell a part of its smartphone business to keep the brand alive.
Huawei was placed on a trade blacklist by the Trump administration over national security concerns. Many industry executives see little chance that blocks on the sale of billions of dollars of U.S. technology and chips to the Chinese company, which has denied wrongdoing, will be reversed by his successor.
A Huawei spokesman denied the company plans to design EVs or produce Huawei branded vehicles.
“Huawei is not a car manufacturer. However through ICT (information and communications technology), we aim to be a digital car-oriented and new-added components provider, enabling car OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to build better vehicles.”
Huawei has started internally designing the EVs and approaching suppliers at home, with the aim of officially launching the project as early as this year, three of the sources said.
Richard Yu, head of Huawei’s consumer business group who led the company to become one of the world’s largest smartphone makers, will shift his focus to EVs, said one source. The EVs will target a mass-market segment, another source said.
FILE PHOTO: People walk past a Huawei logo on the facade of its store at a shopping complex in Beijing, China July 14, 2020. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo
All the sources declined to be named as the discussions are private.
Chongqing-based Changan, which is making cars with Ford Motor Co, declined to comment. BAIC BluePark did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Shares of Changan’s main listed company Chongqing Changan Automobile rose 8% after Reuters reported the discussions. BluePark’s shares jumped by their maximum 10% daily limit.
GROWING EV MARKET
Chinese technology firms have been stepping up their focus on EVs in the world’s biggest market for such vehicles, as Beijing heavily promotes greener vehicles as a means of reducing chronic air pollution.
Sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs), including pure battery electric vehicles as well as plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, are expected to make up 20% of China’s overall annual auto sales by 2025.
Industry forecasts put China’s NEV sales at 1.8 million units this year, up from about 1.3 million in 2020.
Huawei’s ambitious plans to make its own cars will see it join a raft of Asian tech companies that have made similar announcements in recent months, including Baidu Inc and Foxconn.
“The novel and complicated U.S. restrictions on semiconductors to Huawei have slowly been strangling the company,” said Dan Wang, a technology analyst with research firm Gavekal Dragonomics.
“So it makes sense that the company is pivoting to less chip-intensive industries in order to maintain operations.”
In the United States, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc are also developing auto-related technology or investing in smart-car startups.
Huawei has been developing a swathe of technologies for EVs for years including in-car software systems, sensors for automobiles and 5G communications hardware.
The company has also formed partnerships with automakers such as Daimler AG, General Motors Co and SAIC Motor to jointly develop smart auto technologies.
It has accelerated hiring of engineers for auto-related technologies since 2018.
Huawei was awarded at least four patents related to EVs this week, including methods for charging between electric vehicles and for checking battery health, according to official Chinese patent records.
Huawei’s push into the EV market is currently separate from a joint smart vehicle company it co-founded along with Changan and EV battery maker CATL in November, two of the sources said.
Reporting by Julie Zhu in Hong Kong and Yilei Sun in Beijing; additional reporting by David Kirton in Shenzhen; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Richard Pullin
The claim is one of four pillars of the abuse-of-process argument that Meng will mount in hearings before British Columbia Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes that are expected to stretch into May — and that will be closely watched in Beijing, Washington and Ottawa.
Canada arrested Meng in Vancouver in 2018 at the behest of U.S. officials. The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that she misled banks about Huawei’s relationship with a subsidiary, Skycom, effectively tricking them into violating U.S. sanctions against Iran.
Meng, 49, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, denies any wrongdoing. Her arrest has landed Canada squarely in the middle of a geopolitical standoff between China and the United States.
Days after Meng’s arrest, China detained two Canadians, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor, in apparent retaliation. It later banned imports of some Canadian crops and put several Canadians on death row.
Meng’s arguments center on what her legal team describes in court filings as “shocking and corrosive” statements made by Trump and other officials, which it alleges have reduced her to “an economic asset” and “risk undermining the integrity . . . and fairness” of the proceedings.
Among them are comments Trump made to Reuters the week after Meng’s arrest in which he said that he would “certainly intervene” in her case if he thought it could serve national security interests or help broker a trade deal with China.
“The President, as chief executive of the requesting state, has made repeated threats to intervene in the applicant’s case in order to leverage her prosecution for political purposes,” Meng’s lawyers write. “This conduct is deeply offensive to the rule of law and the integrity of the judicial process.”
They say it was “all the more intimidating” because Trump had previously “intervened in, or actively ‘weighed in’ on, criminal cases for personal or political reasons,” and once declared himself — incorrectly — to be the country’s “chief law enforcement officer.”
They point to Trump’s commutation of the sentence of confidant Roger Stone, whom a jury found guilty of witness tampering, lying to Congress and obstructing justice, and his pardon of his ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
Meng’s lawyers also cite comments by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Asked by Fox News about Trump’s statement to Reuters, Pompeo said that “any time there is a law enforcement engagement, we need to make sure we take foreign policy considerations into effect.”
And they point to the words of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who in December 2019 said he’d asked the United States not to “sign a final and complete [trade] agreement with China that does not settle the question of Meng Wanzhou and the two Canadians.”
“The clear implication of these comments is that the Prime Minister has communicated to the requesting state that he supports its use of the applicant’s case as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations,” the lawyers write.
Lawyers for Canada’s attorney general, who represent U.S. interests in the case, have dismissed those arguments as “moot.”
“The facts on which it is based — statements by a President no longer in office, about a possible intervention in a case that never occurred, purportedly to achieve a trade deal that has long since been successfully negotiated — have no past, present or prospective impact on these proceedings,” they write in legal filings.
They say Trump’s statements were inconsistent with those of other U.S. officials, and accuse the defense of seeking to “compensate for its weakness through hyperbolic characterization of the supposed impact of these statements.”
Meng’s otherarguments include claims her rights were breached during her questioning and arrest, that the U.S. Justice Department misled Canada about the record of the case against her and that the case contravenes customary international law.
Last year, Meng’s lawyers questioned some of the border agents and law enforcement officials involved in her arrest. One border agent said he inappropriately shared the passcodes to her devices with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He said it was a “heart-wrenching” mistake, and unintentional.
Meng’s arrest has severely strained ties between Canada and China.
Beijing indicted Kovrig and Spavor last year on vague espionage charges for which it has provided no evidence. Known here as the Two Michaels, they have been barred from seeing their families; Canada considers their detentions “arbitrary.”
China has cast Meng’s arrest as a U.S.-backed plot to stunt the country’s rise. It has denied a link between her arrest and the detention of Kovrig and Spavor, but a Foreign Ministry spokesman said last year that her release could “open up space for resolution of the situation of the two Canadians.”
Trudeau has taken heat from all sides. Several prominent Canadians, including former foreign ministers, have urged him to release Meng in the hope that it might spur China to free the Canadians. Opposition lawmakers, meanwhile, have pressed him to take a harder stand against Beijing.
Canada this month rallied 57 other countries, including the United States, to sign a nonbinding declaration against the arbitrary detention of foreign nationals in state-to-state relations. The declaration did not single out China.
The Washington Post reported last year that the U.S. Department of Justice was in talks with Meng to resolve her case. Alykhan Velshi, vice president of corporate affairs for Huawei Canada, declined to comment on those discussions.
“We have confidence in the courts here to reach the same conclusion we have, which is that the legal process was repeatedly abused by those seeking to extradite Meng Wanzhou to the U.S.,” Velshi said. “The charges are without merit, the allegations are baseless and the arrest itself was a master class in how to violate a person’s rights.”
The vast majority of extradition requests from the United States are granted, but any decision is likely to be tied up in appeals. Michael Bolton, a Vancouver-based criminal lawyer, said the test for proving an abuse of process is “pretty strict.”
If Holmes rules that there’s enough evidence to commit Meng for extradition, the ultimate decision on “surrender” would fall to Canada’s minister of justice.
The minister “would need to decide if it remains in Canada’s national interest to order the surrender of Meng, notwithstanding the court’s order of committal,” Bolton said. “In this case, so fraught with political overtones and undertones, one doesn’t know what the end result would be.”
Smart glasses still don't feel like a must-have piece of tech yet, but the Huawei Eyewear II are a strong attempt at proving that they are.
With the benefit of Huawei's excellent engineering and penchant for close integration between its products, the Eyewear offer a unique alternative to a pair of wireless earbuds, offering several identical features plus a few special abilities of its own thanks to a well fleshed-out companion app.
The Eyewear also gets the benefit of being a well-put-together product in a space with few competitors at the moment. Aside from the Amazon Echo Frames or the Bose Frames, other smart glasses are looking to provide a more feature-rich experience, whereas Huawei's glasses do fewer things, but perform them all to a passing grade or better.
However if you're weighing up buying a pair of these or some top-tier wireless earbuds, you're likely to still be better off plumping for the AirPods Pro or Galaxy Buds Pro. Even if you're a Huawei acolyte, you'd likely be better served by the FreeBuds 3. As this Eyewear II review will explain, you need to be a very specific kind of user, or in love with the idea of smart glasses generally, if you want to buy these expensive spectacles.
Huawei X Gentle Monster Eyewear II: Price and availability
The Eyewear II are easy to pick up the U.K. You can find them at the Huawei Store or on Amazon, Very or Currys. However with Huawei not welcome in the U.S., you'll need to go on a hunt through auction sites to see if there are pairs available to import.
Both designs of the Eyewear II cost £310, although buying them through Huawei lets you access special discounts for other accessories, plus a free basic smartwatch too.
Huawei X Gentle Monster Eyewear II: Design
Huawei once again teamed up with South Korean glasses maker Gentle Monster to design the second generation of its smart glasses, and you can't deny they look good.
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)
There are two versions of the Eyewear II available: The rounder Myma or the narrower Lang (pictured). You can get either with polarized lenses, but there's also the option of prescription lenses in certain markets.
Whichever option you pick, they don't draw too much attention to themselves. The all-glass front of the Lang specs certainly looks unique, but not so much that they scream "smart glasses" at passers-by. There are no buttons on the sides, and the speaker grilles are hidden on the bottom edge, so it's only the thickness of the arms that give away that something's up.
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)
The arms are fairly chonky compared to normal glasses, but that's because you'll find all the clever stuff within. Towards the lens on either side are touch sensors, which let you control things with taps, swipes and pinches. Behind them, sitting just over your ear, are the speakers.
(Image credit: Huawei)
Despite their size, the Eyewear are still comfortable to wear thanks to the contact points on your nose and ears being kept close to the proportions of a normal pair of glasses. They're light too, with the heavier Myma version weighing just 1.69 ounces (47.9 grams), which is a touch lighter than the equivalent Bose Frames' 1.76 ounces (49.89 grams) but only just.
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)
The glasses live inside a black cuboid case, which with its pleasant-feeling leather and two shiny zippers looks suitably fancy. It's not the most convenient shape to carry around though as a result
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)
Charging is nice and simple since the case is also its wireless charger. The case doesn't contain a battery however, so you'll need to have the case plugged in for it to power up the glasses. If, like me, you're used to the cases for your earbuds also acting as a mobile charging station, this is unintuitive, and caught me out a few times, leaving me with a pair of unresponsive glasses. But it does mean that despite the case's size, it remains light.
Huawei X Gentle Monster Eyewear II: Audio
I didn't expect the Eyewear to be bad, but nor did I expect them to be quite as enjoyable as they are either. Everything comes out of the dual speakers with a bright clear sound, although there isn't a huge amount of bass.
Comparing the quality of Pharoah Sanders' "You've Got to Have Freedom" on the Eyewear and the AirPods Pro, the overblown saxophone, elaborate piano and double bass sound richer on the earbuds. However the Eyewear offers one advantage in that its open design means you get a surprisingly effective soundstage effect. Sure you can get stereo on any half-decent pair of 'buds, but you don't get the opportunity to hear exactly where in the room all the musicians were standing on many of them.
Watching an episode of Schitt's Creek proved less enjoyable. With only dialog playing, the limited effective range of the speakers becomes quite obvious. It feels like you're listening to the Rose family deal with the town's peculiar goings-on from down the phone instead of right in the scene with them.
You won't want to use the Eyewear for in-depth listening; the kind of time you put on your favorite album, sit down in your comfiest chair and revel in all the details. You lose too much detail compared to normal headphones. Instead, the Eyewear make for an excellent casual listening tool, when you're trying to do something else but want something in the background. This would be better from my perspective if they had prescription lenses in, since having the world look darker and out of focus isn't helpful for my productivity. All the same, I enjoyed being able to listen to a YouTube video while still being able to speak to my housemates as they passed through the kitchen, and no doubt users with better eyesight would like it even more.
However, you won't want to listen to tracks in a particularly noisy environment. Not only is there no form of noise-canceling, but there's also nothing blocking your ears like there is with normal headphones, so you're going to be hearing the world as much as your music. Even opening the windows of my bedroom/office to let in the sounds of nearby traffic was enough to almost totally drown out the glasses playing a podcast at a reasonable volume.
That's good in some cases, say if you're walking to work and want to keep an ear out for traffic. This won't be good if you're trying to concentrate when you get there.
The microphones are weaker. I recorded a few voice notes with the Eyewear and my voice always sounded distant and a little crackly. That was using the so-called HD recording mode of the glasses, a feature locked to Huawei phones, so I dread to think what the normal quality mode sounds like. Huawei mentions in its marketing material that the Eyewear is an excellent tool for hands-free vlogging, but if I clicked on a YouTube video that sounded like that, I'd be clicking off again very quickly.
Huawei X Gentle Monster Eyewear II: Comfort and controls
The Eyewear are wonderfully unobtrusive to wear. Perhaps it's because I wear glasses anyway, but I did forget I was wearing them for long period of time until I moved from my desk and noticed that the sound came with me. That's not even praise I'd give to the AirPods Pro, which while comfy and well fitted, don't disappear from memory like the Eyewear do.
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)
Using the tap controls are nice and easy as well. Unlike other audio products where you have to learn where the sweet spot for making the touch controls work is, you can basically tap or swipe anywhere on the glasses' arms and get the result you want.
You turn on the Eyewear simply by placing it on your face. It's a bit slow to boot up, taking anywhere between two to five seconds, but soon enough the glasses politely introduce themselves with a "good afternoon" or similar timely greeting.
With the glasses on, you have a surprising number of control methods. You can tap the glasses, swipe along them or pinch and hold them.
Play/pause, skip tracks, alter volume or summon your phone's digital assistant. You can also enable a four-finger pinch gesture that lets you perform a voice translation or voice note.
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)
When you're finished with the glasses, just take them off to let them shut down. However they don't actually turn off immediately, since you can put the glasses back on again and continue listening to music straight away if you change your mind within the three-minute window before the Eyewear turns off fully. The glasses know they're not on your face though, so your phone will either pause whatever you're playing or reroute the sound through another device when they're removed, unless you change that option in the settings.
It's a little slow to react though, at least when I tested them with a Mate 30 Pro. No phone's capable of a perfectly smooth hand-off between an audio device and its own speakers, but the couple of seconds' delay is more sluggish than the comparable experience with an iPhone and a pair of AirPods.
Huawei X Gentle Monster Eyewear II: Privacy
Although you can hear basically everything going on outside the Eyewear, your own sounds are kept secret. I asked my flatmates to tell me how much they could hear of a podcast and with the volume at my normal level, apparently they couldn't hear a thing. I had to max out the volume before they could tell the glasses were actually playing music, but that was far too loud for me to comfortably use.
Huawei X Gentle Monster Eyewear II: Companion apps
You can use the Eyewear via a phone's Bluetooth menu as an ordinary audio device, but the only way to get full functionality is to download Huawei's AI Life app, available on the Google Play Store or Huawei's App Gallery. You won't find this on the iOS App Store, so Huawei offers instead a specific Eyewear app for you to manage the glasses through, although it offers fewer features.
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)
Whichever app you're using, it's through this that you can alter various options and send firmware updates to the Eyewear. The big-ticket features enabled by the app are control rebinding and the "Find my glasses" mode on AI Life.
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)
You have a little freedom in customizing what the controls do. Each command out of double tap, swipe and pinch on either the left or right arm has the choice of two commands or to do nothing. You can also disable wear detection if you find that awkward to use.
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)
Find my glasses, unsurprisingly, helps you to track down your lost pair of Eyewear. You need to log in with your Huawei ID, but once you've done this, the app shows you a map with the glasses' location, and the glasses themselves produce a beeping sound when you get close to help you locate it in a small area.
Huawei X Gentle Monster Eyewear II: Battery
A full charge of the Eyewear will give you 5 hours of playback according to the official figures. I however was able to listen to almost 7 hours of YouTube videos before the glasses keeled over, so clearly it's possible to squeeze more use out of a single charge depending on your usage.
That longevity is on par with the average pair of true wireless earbuds. Except without the benefit of a charging case, it's a little trickier to fill them up if you're on the move.
Filling them up from empty to 100% charged takes about an hour and a half. That's perhaps slower than would be ideal, but it means you can easily get a day's use from the glasses with a short charging break.
Since it uses USB-C to charge, you should easily find a cable to use if you don't happen to have one on you, plus your glasses sit safely in the case while it does. That's unlike the Bose Frames, which use a proprietary connector that attaches directly to the glasses themselves, which is far less convenient and increases the risk of accidental damage to the glasses.
The overall experience of keeping the Eyewear topped up isn't ideal. But it's a lot better than what other comparable products are using.
Huawei X Gentle Monster Eyewear II: Bottom Line
The Huawei Eyewear II are well designed both in terms of hardware and software, just as you'd expect from the company. However as clever as these are, they can't do a huge amount more than a nice set of wireless earbuds, and several things they do worse than a pair of 'buds half the price or less. Even though these seem better than the Bose Frames, the increased price doesn't seem quite worth it.
These aren't an essential gadget, more an expensive hi-tech novelty; impressive rather than practical. However I have to tip my hat to Huawei for adding in a number of refinements that I can foresee becoming the standard for smart glasses in future. It's hard to recommend them though, to even people keen on the idea of smart glasses, because of the eye-watering price tag and the difficulty of finding them in the U.S.
YUKI93, 26 Feb 2021Hmmm... I'm not sure if this is a good idea. I see a lot of secondhand P40 5G on online c... moreSecondhand is still secondhand. After having owned the 5G version for almost a year I could easily say given the current pace the market is moving, buying a brand new 4G version of the phone is a viable option.
S
Sinket
mYW
Never underestimate the Chinese dragon. Huawei will not fall. Wait and see!!
S36761906
Kriegsherr, 27 Feb 2021right now xiaomi makes as good phones as Huawei but with half the price. why would someone buy... moreNot really. Demands depends on one preferences. As for example, I need a great point & shoot camera, for the price. Bought P40 5G brand new here at $500 in my country. On that price range, no other brands offer greater quality & versatility in terms of camera performance, except P40. I've use the phone, with no GMS, for 2 month already. It still a flagship-grade smartphone, with all the apps I need are available.
To be honest, I dont miss GMS. For sure if it has, it will be better. But at the moment? Worth every penny.
X786
It should've been $400
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Anonymous
gjW
Kriegsherr, 27 Feb 2021right now xiaomi makes as good phones as Huawei but with half the price. why would someone buy... moreNah huawei phones can be purchased at discounted price often here if you wait just a bit.
For example, p40 now can be purchased at price less than $450
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Anonymous
8as
Anonymous, 27 Feb 2021no GMS= Worst device Not really.
The hardware is worth much more than lack of google.
Just like Apple users can live up with apple map, if you really like the device it isn't such a big deal (as long as you can find equivellent app)
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Anonymous
TrI
no GMS= Worst device
J
Jayj
Sti
Anonymous, 27 Feb 2021They are more expensive, designs are horrible, and completely outclassed by Xiaomi overall.I think same
K731290
right now xiaomi makes as good phones as Huawei but with half the price. why would someone buy a Huawei for double the price and albeit without GMS. Huawei used to be the best in cameras, others have caught them recently. no point behind paying so much for a Huawei.
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Anonymous
vxM
Anonymous, 27 Feb 2021I hope Huawei will survive Seriously they have made good phones these daysThey are more expensive, designs are horrible, and completely outclassed by Xiaomi overall.
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Anonymous
GT1
I hope Huawei will survive
Seriously they have made good phones these days
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Anonymous
sRc
Mjc, 26 Feb 2021Wasnt the kirin 990 worse than exynos 990 why would they use thatnot worse in every aspect. Yes its slightly worse in GPU but mulitcore CPU performance efficiency and sustained performance is still miles ahead of E990.
A539117
Anonymous, 27 Feb 2021whats the point of this? its a P40 but worse and more expensive than second hand P40's ou... moreIt's a China release where all Huawei 5g models are out of stock so guess they are just trying to use up whatever chips they still have available
A539117
YUKI93, 26 Feb 2021Hmmm... I'm not sure if this is a good idea. I see a lot of secondhand P40 5G on online c... moreIt's only because they have a severe shortage of chips. They must have a few 4g Kirin 990s left in stock so they want to use them up and have some phones available for sale. They now have no 5g phones in stock in their official stores in China at all. They only release them in small batches at regular intervals and they are extremely difficult to buy in panic sales. They can only be bought from resellers in China who charge 10-20% more than the official retail price.
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Anonymous
TLP
whats the point of this? its a P40 but worse and more expensive than second hand P40's out there lmao
T
Tito
M8r
Uncle D, 26 Feb 2021So sad to see where Huawei is landed now and even more sad for all customers, because now we d... moreGot S20 fe.. Now with Android 11 and UI 3.1 IS really a beast...mew A32 has a 90HZ screen.. They used to sleep...Huawei made really good phones.. I had Mate 20 Pro... But those 2 billions should start think that the planet cannot efford all the pollution they are making with industries in order to accomplish the American... Ops sorry.. The new Chinese/sometime communist sometime capitalistic behaviour.... Peace!
B574202
DenDan, 26 Feb 2021P30 lite you mean. AhahahahahahWait a minute, my p30 lite has a periscope camera?
I have a prototype?
Oh sorry, I've forgot it is your empty head trying to speak.
KEEEEEP IT UUUUUUP!
now try counting to tenđ
m5030
The raccoon eyes still there
D
DenDan
pXD
Berserker, 26 Feb 2021Reading your comment makes me want to sl*p your face with my 220€ p30 prođ P30 lite you mean. Ahahahahahah
U1913433
So sad to see where Huawei is landed now and even more sad for all customers, because now we don't have a big competition and Samsung can sleep...
BTW this is still a really good phone and basically enough for daily use... Still.
The Huawei Mate X2 should make Huawei proud, even if it's probably going to be a sales flop.
Announced earlier this week, the Chinese company's latest foldable is an impressive technical achievement. Compared to current top foldable, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2, Huawei's new offering does almost everything better on paper. However those few areas where it's worse which are so bad it simply becomes unable to compete.
Mate X2: What Huawei gets right
(Image credit: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Let's go over the Mate X2's highlights. For me the most obvious improvement over other foldables are its cameras. Having a quartet of sensors, including two telephoto cameras, offers the same quality of camera hardware you'd find on the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, a conventional smartphone praised as one of the best camera phones. Mounting all these cameras onto a foldable is not only an impressive feat of engineering but is arguably the kind of camera offering foldables should always have had, considering their price.
The Mate X2 also beats its rival on its displays too. The Huawei has larger screens both inside and out, with both refreshing at 90Hz. Although the interior display on the Z Fold 2 manages a higher 120Hz refresh rate, the external screen remains at 60Hz.
(Image credit: Chen Hao/VCG via Getty Images)
There's more to appreciate under the Mate X2's skin too. A powerful 5G-ready Kirin 9000 chipset powers the phone, and you also get rapid 55W wired charging. While the Mate X2 is running on Android 10 instead of Android 11, Huawei has added enhancements that benefit the folding form-factor like foldable-optimized apps and simultaneous active and floating windows.
Speaking of form-factor, Huawei hasn't been too proud to go back and change the Mate X2's folding style. Back when the original Huawei Mate X launched, the phone maker was adamant that the exterior folding display was the superior design since it only required a single display. But with folding screens being so fragile, the more ensconced book-style fold with a primary internal and secondary external display has won out, and Huawei adopted it for its second-generation Mate X. It feels like a smart decision for Huawei to quit while it was ahead.
(Image credit: Photo by Chen Hao/VCG via Getty Images)
One thing I'm undecided on, at least until I get some hands-on time with the Mate X2 myself is the device's asymmetrical body. Rather than make the phone a uniform thickness, Huawei's given the phone a tapered design, with the widest point on the side where the cameras are (in order to fit the periscope telephoto lenses in), and the thinnest at the opposite end. Huawei claims this makes the phone easier to use with one hand, but it also sounds like the Mate X2 could be horrendously unbalanced and tricky to handle when you've opened the phone.
Mate X2: Why Huawei's phone will falter
So as a whole, the Mate X2 has many pros. Now it's time to acknowledge the cons that are going to kill the phone's chances of success, at least outside of Huawei's home market.
(Image credit: Lyu Liang/VCG via Getty Images)
The Mate X2 isn't even an option for our readers in the United States, since Huawei devices are not sold there. But if you're in the U.K. like me, you might actually be tempted to buy the new foldable.
Or you might be until you see the price. Remember that the Mate X2 costs just south of $3,000, based on the 17,999 yuan pricetag in China. This on its own is enough to kill the Mate X2.
You'd be right to argue that the $2,000 it costs to get a Galaxy Z Fold 2 is too expensive already, so what does another grand on top matter? Well, you have to remember the phone features no Google apps either, due to U.S. sanctions forbidding Google and other companies from working with Huawei. Maybe the upcoming HarmonyOS can fix that, but we know so little about Huawei's Android replacement that we can't predict how it will impact the Huawei experience until it launches in April.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
In other words, buying a Mate X2 will leave you with a huge hole in your bank account and no guarantee you'll even like or be able to practically use the phone you've just bought.
Besides the cost and the software, there are some flaws in that otherwise stellar design. According to hands-on images from Twitter, Huawei somehow managed to make the crease in the display worse, despite claiming it eliminated the problem entirely with a specially designed hinge.
While it's minor compared to two big lines through the display, Huawei's also decided to not include an internal front camera. It means the big unfolded display doesn't have to lose any pixels to a camera sensor, but it also forces you to use the smaller outside screen if you're taking selfies.
Huawei Mate X2: Outlook
Smartphone design is iterative, and companies borrow ideas from each other to remain competitive and improve their products. That's why I hope the Mate X2 becomes a template for future foldable phones.
Samsung probably doesn't need any inspiration given how many foldable phones it has on offer. But the world's still eagerly awaiting Apple, Google and other manufacturers to dip a toe into the foldables world. The rumored Google Pixel Fold and iPhone Flip would be smart to take inspiration from the Mate X2, from its generous specs list and clever design. It's a pity Huawei won't really be able to see the benefit from its good work.
Huawei has been suffering a lot from the US government's various bans, and as a consequence we've seen the company diversify its product portfolio quite a bit, with a lot more focus placed on wearables and audio accessories in recent months, for example.
Now a new report claims Huawei is actually planning on making electric cars under its own brand, and some models may even launch before the end of this year. Apparently, the company has already started internally designing the EVs and approaching suppliers.
Richard Yu, head of Huawei's consumer business group, who was in charge of the company's amazing rise in the smartphone world, is said to shift his focus to EVs, which will target the mass-market segment, which implies they will be reasonably priced.
Huawei is reportedly in talks with Changan Automobile, a state-owned entity in China, as well as BAIC Group's BluePark New Energy Technology and other automakers, to use their car plants to make its EVs.
That said, a Huawei spokesman denied plans to design EVs or produce Huawei branded vehicles, saying that "Huawei is not a car manufacturer. However through ICT (information and communications technology), we aim to be a digital car-oriented and new-added components provider, enabling car OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to build better vehicles".
HANGZHOU, CHINA - FEBRUARY 25, 2021 - Photo taken on Feb. 25, 2021 shows Huawei's new foldable phone ... [+]Mate X2 at its flagship store in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province.- PHOTOGRAPH BY Costfoto / Barcroft Studios / Future Publishing (Photo credit should read Costfoto/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)
Barcroft Media via Getty Images
Huawei’s smartphones continue to be ground-breaking and innovative. But one big change is coming that the company would probably have preferred not to introduce: a complete switch away from Google’s Android operating system.
When Huawei was placed on the Entity List by the previous U.S. administration, which prevented it from doing business with American companies, it meant big changes for the most recently-released phones.
Instead of running Android with Google Mobile Services on board, Huawei had to switch to open-source Android and manage without Google Maps, Google Play Store and Gmail, for instance.
But now, with the arrival of Huawei’s next folding phone, the Mate X2, even open-source Android has been elided in favor of the home-grown Harmony OS alternative, also known as Hongmeng.
Harmony will be the third main smartphone system, alongside Android and iOS, when it launches. Huawei has already put it on some smart home devices, but has held back from making it the OS of choice on its phones until now.
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Well, probably with good reason. Since apps are the currency of any OS, Huawei may have feared it would suffer the same indignities as rival systems which came and promptly vanished from the likes of Nokia, BlackBerrry and Palm. Some had other lives afterwards, such as Palm’s brilliant system called webOS which was eventually sold to LG to become the best TV operating system you can find.
It’s true that there have been other successes, such as Samsung’s Tizen OS for its wearables, or Fitbit OS for the fitness tracker company’s own products. But neither has achieved mass-market status or won more than a tiny number of compatible apps.
So, what changes will we see, and when?
The Google Goodbye is coming in April
All upcoming smartphones from April 2021 will be Google-free, and the switch to Harmony will take place. Huawei execs have previously told me that switching the operating system in the factory production line would be quick to achieve, simply swapping out one part of the process. That change is being put into effect in just a few weeks’ time.
The new Huawei Mate X2 is now on sale in China, with Android on board, but HarmonyOS is coming.
Barcroft Media via Getty Images
The Mate X2 will have Android at launch, though
It’s not quite goodbye yet, though. The first Mate X2 models will roll off that assembly line with Android on board but the company says owners can switch to HarmonyOS from April.
What will HarmonyOS be like?
I’m told that users will see very little difference when it comes to the phone interface. That’s because Android is skinned by Huawei’s EMUI overlay, and the same look will be layered on top of HarmonyOS, too. But where current phones run Android with some, but not all, Android apps available, these apps will need to be rewritten for Harmony. Huawei says this is a simple process.
But it does mean the biggest problem facing a new OS – lack of big-name apps – could be a hurdle HarmonyOS will have to surmount, too. On the other hand, some of Huawei’s latest apps have been brilliant. The Petal Maps navigation app devised in conjunction with TomTom is already very strong and is a shoo-in for day one of HarmonyOS, I’m sure.
Huawei Mate X2: HarmonyOS will work on regular upcoming Huawei phones, too.
Barcroft Media via Getty Images
Will it work?
Let’s remember that Huawei phones sold in China don’t have Google Mobile Services on them anyway, but the international market is heavily dependent on the Play Store and other apps. That will be the test for Huawei when switching to a new platform.
But if anyone can make it work, it could be Huawei, which is consistently resourceful both in software and hardware terms. Its phones remain cutting-edge in features and design. If it can pull off a similar trick and gain apps like TikTok, Snapchat and Amazon – all of which are available in the Huawei App Gallery – alongside other big-name developers, Huawei could turn HarmonyOS into a powerful alternative.
