Is the Huawei Mate Xs 2 a good phone? This may not be a judgment question, but a multiple choice question.
At yesterday's press conference on April 28, Huawei officially released its fifth folding screen mobile phone, which is also a folding screen mobile phone with a folding form that has been missing for a long time.
In addition to the slogan of "ultra-thin, ultra-flat, and ultra-reliable", the minimum starting price of 9999 yuan refreshes the user's psychological expectations for the "Huawei folding screen". Because of this, the evaluation of this product by various platforms has become complicated. The mixed reputation may be a bit serious when applied to it, but we can paraphrase the internet phrase "pollen and black are boiling over tonight".
As a Huawei user for many years, even half a pollen, it seems that it has become a difficult thing to judge whether this phone is a good phone. Although for folding screen products, the experience is obviously much more important than the hardware configuration, but out of professional habits, we may wish to carefully review the hardware configuration of this product:
So how do we analyze these parameters? Is the Huawei Mate Xs2 a good phone? In fact, this is a choice question that Huawei has done:
Question 1: If I reduce the weight of the folding screen, what should I give up?
First of all, let's take a look at the current mainstream large-size folding screen mobile phone size and weight:
There is no doubt that heavy and thick are problems that the current folding screen mobile phones simply cannot avoid. The folding screen brings nearly twice the display area of ordinary mobile phones, but it also brings users nearly twice the weight and even thickness. In addition to the "loss" of the body volume caused by the mechanical structure, the two screens inside and outside are undoubtedly a major factor in increasing weight and thickness.
The exclusive side can also be regarded as a "pun" for folding a single screen to the outside world.
Based on this, Huawei Mate Xs2 chose the original outer folding design: although the entire screen exposed to the whole process has more risks of scratching and falling, it significantly reduces the overall weight of the fuselage. The 255g is already the lightest of the current "big" folding screen phones, even thinner than the OPPO Find N (275g), which is only 7.1 inches.
Weight is an important selling point for the Huawei Mate Xs2
In addition to saving space, the folded screen design brings another benefit: lighter creases. This is also the advantage that Yu Chengdong has mentioned many times when the two generations of Mate X and Mate Xs products were released. As for the principle of this, it is also very simple, you pick up a book from the side and bend it a few times, you can find that the side that is obviously folded outwards looks slighter than the part that is folded inside.
But then again, if the fold-out screen is so perfect. Why do the current mainstream folding screen mobile phones, and even Huawei's previous generation of Mate X2, choose the design of inward folding? For better reliability.
This is also why Huawei wants to "super reliable" as the three major selling points of this product. Even the folding screen mobile phones that can hide the flexible screen inside the fuselage have been widely questioned because of the fragility of the flexible screen, why does Huawei Mate Xs2 dare to release a flexible screen mobile phone with an outer fold?
The answer given by Huawei is the composite laminated screen structure, with the protection layer, buffer layer, barrier layer, and display layer stacked in turn, which is 2.5, 2.8, and 1.4 times higher than the previous generation of Mate Xs' anti-drop, impact, and extrusion resistance, respectively. Of course, if you look closely at this product, you will find that the screen is surrounded by a slightly prominent aluminum alloy protective frame, with a certain feel as a price to better protect the screen from being scratched, which is also part of huawei's choice question.
Question 2: If I can't stack hardware, how can I improve my image level?
However, if you want a folding screen product that feels close to an ordinary mobile phone, Huawei needs to do more than this: at present, there are only two products that are the least "shrinking" of the folding screen mobile phone imaging system, namely the 311g vivo X Fold and the 295g Huawei Mate X2. In addition to the impact of internal and external folding, the camera module and battery are the two factors that can most affect the weight of the mobile phone.
Vivo X Fold rear-mounted large image module
However, the choice of the image part is actually Huawei has made a choice as early as the P50 series, compared with the Mate40 series of CMOS that does not rise but falls, it does not pull down the image strength of Huawei P50 Pro, but it further raises the highest level of Huawei mobile phone photography with computational optics and primary color engine technology.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the Huawei Mate Xs2 chose three cameras with less "luxury" parameters and inherited the two major technologies of the P50 series. Compared with the Huawei Mate X2's solid "down-to-match" hardware, it can definitely reduce the cost of the product and the weight of the fuselage, but with the help of computing optics, Huawei may still bring us imaging capabilities that are not weaker than or even stronger.
List of Huawei Mate Xs2 imaging systems
The benefits of downsizing cameras and screens are not just about reducing weight, but also about cost. Although the starting price of 9999 yuan is still not cheap, compared with the starting price of Mate X2 at 17999 yuan at that time, the pricing of this generation is definitely "close to the people".
Question 3: What else can I give users when the core hardware alone can't impress them?
Of course, the 4G version of the Snapdragon 888 is still the "Achilles ankle" that Mate Xs2 cannot bypass, although there are Huawei's compulsions and helplessness, but these problems should not be paid by consumers and users. However, if huawei does not think of cutting leeks in this generation, it is not so accurate.
Mate Xs2 Collector's Edition exclusive high silicon anode battery
First of all, the problem of the battery, the collector's exclusive high silicon anode battery allows it to increase the weight of the fuselage by only 2g, the fuselage three circumference remains the same, increased the 220mAh battery, in the 257g fuselage into the 4880mAh super battery (compared to the folding screen); and under the premise of 5G restrictions, Huawei also upgraded the Mate Xs2 to the tri-band WiFi 6, which can achieve high-speed transmission of up to 4Gbps. These two points alone can already reflect the sincerity of the Mate Xs2.
Adaptive UI engine
And what surprised me the most was not the simple stacking of hardware. Huawei released this time along with the Mate Xs2, as well as the first adaptive UI engine. To put it simply, if the previous folding screen mobile phone has not been adapted exclusively, then the larger the screen is wasted - because the change in screen proportion makes the folding screen of the larger screen can only be used as a half-step mobile phone. What this engine solves is to avoid simply enlarging the application, but to automatically learn new layouts based on the proportions of the screen size.
Huawei said that at present, the Top 300 application has achieved 100% adaptation, and the Top 2000 application has achieved 90% adaptation. If the actual experience of this function can really achieve the effect of Huawei's publicity, then I can assert that this is the folding screen product that is most suitable for use as the main machine at present. Of course, we still need time to verify this feature.
summary:
At this point, let's answer the original question: Is the Huawei Mate Xs2 a good phone? If you need a folding screen phone that is close to the grip of an ordinary mobile phone and has a large-screen experience; if you do not pursue the most comprehensive and powerful hardware parameters; if you are really interested in folding screens but are more picky about creases... Then Mate Xs2 is the optimal solution that Huawei can make under the current restrictions.
The Huawei Mate Xs2 is far from perfect. Compared with other competitors on the market, it has no IP protection, no super image module or even no 5G. This isn't a product for everyone, or to be more extreme, it's just a phone for a few people. But for people who can be sold by it (like me), it may not be a "dream machine".
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