Huawei Mate Xs 2 Review: The way to determine the future is to explore

Folding screen is not the future? But who can say for sure.

Some time ago, Huawei Mate Xs 2 was released, in fact, at the time of the conference, I have already got it in my hand, but due to the recent epidemic in Beijing, it has not been time to shoot, and now that it has been used for a while, I can finally talk to you about the use experience of Huawei Mate Xs 2.

Huawei's things in the past two years have lacked a little novelty, but they are always unexpected at the press conference. For example, Huawei Mate Xs 2, who would have thought that Huawei would pick up the folding scheme that was previously considered abandoned, or even open a new product line.

Image source: ByArsT photo

However, from the Huawei Mate Xs 2 product, we can also see that Huawei is confused, as the pioneer of the folding screen, it does not know how to develop in the future, and it is precisely because of this that Huawei will put all the current folding screen technology into the Huawei Mate Xs 2, using this product to find the way forward.

The way to determine the future is to explore, so let's take a look at the Huawei Mate Xs 2 product, how it is.

Extends the look from the Mate Xs

In fact, Huawei Mate Xs 2 can be seen as an extension of Huawei's early folding screen Mate Xs, the new Huawei Mate Xs 2 compared with the old Mate Xs, the difference is in thinness and weight, in these two points Huawei Mate Xs 2 made a very huge breakthrough.

From the data alone, Huawei Mate Xs 2 has changed from the early 300g to the current 255g in terms of weight, which is enough to reduce the weight of 45g. The weight of the newly released vivo X Fold folding screen mobile phone is 311g, and the relatively small folding screen mobile phone OPPO Find N weighs a full 275g.

Source: Huawei's official website

When the weight is reduced, whether it is the feel or portability, there will be a very huge improvement, and many people refuse to fold the screen because the little thumb really can't bear this weight.

Huawei Mate Xs 2 in order to achieve a more ideal weight, the back cover of the use of aviation commonly used ultra-light glass fiber, the screen support structure using aviation grade titanium alloy, hinge also uses ultra-light super strong steel, from the material to reduce the weight.

Image source: ByArsT photo

The benefits of this are not only weight, but also thickness.

After the whole mobile phone is unfolded, the thinnest part, that is, the weight of the screen is only 5.4mm, which gives people a great impact in the perception, and there is a feeling of holding only a screen in the hand, which has a little "science fiction" taste.

Image source: ByArsT photo

Due to the overall thinness of the phone, the type-C interface of the phone is placed at the bottom of the thickest bulge. Although it is the thickest, the overall thickness is not much different from the thickness of a flagship mobile phone.

Image source: ByArsT photo

Above, there's huawei Mate Xs 2 camera module: a 50-megapixel primary-color camera, a 13-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens, and an 8-megapixel telephoto lens, with a button pressed below to pop the screen out.

Image source: ByArsT photo

This time Huawei is very interesting, and it has also punched holes in the screen. On the previous generation of Huawei Mate Xs, due to the lack of maturity in technology, Huawei can only compromise to cancel the front camera, using the rear camera to flip for front shooting, but in this way, although it solves the problem of use, it is only at the level of use, the fundamental problem is in people's habits, this time Huawei used a side screen punch, which largely solved the problem of ease of use.

Image source: ByArsT photo

Previously, the folding screen fingerprint recognition under the screen on vivo adopted Qualcomm's ultrasonic fingerprint technology. Probably for some sanctions reasons, this time Huawei did not use the fingerprint design under the screen, but adopted the design of the side fingerprint + power button, which has advantages and disadvantages between the two, but I personally prefer the side fingerprint a little, and the accuracy rate is still good.

Image source: ByArsT photo

The border of Huawei Mate Xs 2 uses a bright metal material, and the overall appearance adds some sense of luxury and more business taste. Although Huawei Mate Xs 2 generally follows the old design of Huawei Mate Xs, in terms of details, Huawei has actually made a relatively large breakthrough, including some inevitable problems caused by the form of the outer folding screen, and Huawei has also found a solution through changes in details.

Hinge is the key

The outer folding screen of Huawei Mate Xs 2 has many natural advantages.

Thin

Huawei Mate Xs 2 due to the existence of one less screen, can fundamentally be lighter than other folding screen mobile phones, and because there is only one screen, there can be some reduction in cost, overall, this advantage is more biased towards the feel.

Flatness

In terms of flatness, the folding screen has a very huge advantage in the outer folding. After folding the mobile phone with the inner folding screen before, although the teardrop hinge design was used, the bending radius could not be made larger, and it was easier to leave creases. The bending radius of the outer folding screen is relatively large, which can better prevent the deformation of some screen folding areas.

These are the natural morphological advantages of folding screens, but under these beauty, there are also many problems.

First, the problem of service life

Since the outer folding screen can better prevent deformation of the folded area of the screen, it is inevitable that between folding and unfolding, the outer folding screen will be stretched at the folding, and it is still easy to damage at the folding.

Second, the external screen wear problem

Outer folding screen After folding, the screen will still be exposed, in one word to describe it as "meat wrapped iron", when we put it in our pockets or hold it in our hands, the probability of screen damage is greatly increased.

Third, reliability

Outer folding screen due to the thinner, the whole machine folding hinge accuracy greatly increased, in the process of unfolding and folding, the outer folding screen is difficult to give people a reliable feeling, afraid of a careless, the screen will be damaged, and "meat wrapped iron" is also one of the cases.

Image source: ByArsT photo

Huawei Mate Xs 2 solves the problem of external folding screen, which is largely related to hinge, structure and material.

Due to the technical reasons of the first generation, the hinge size could not be reduced, exposing it completely, so that it was easy to get debris and the reliability was also questionable.

Huawei upgraded the "eagle wing folding design" of the previous generation of Huawei Mate Xs into a "double rotor wing hinge", which makes the screen to the hinge more accurate and smoother after unfolding through multiple support point structures.

Source: Huawei's official website

This technology solves the third point we just talked about: reliability and flatness.

In addition, due to the problem that the screen will be stretched and deformed, Huawei Mate Xs 2 has made improvements in the design, making a design with a sinking screen side. Since the screen will be pulled when folded, the "loose and chi" can better protect the screen.

Image source: ByArsT photo

However, there is also a problem caused by this, whether the screen is folded or unfolded, there is no tight force to help fold or unfold, so that the unfolding and folding of the Huawei Mate Xs 2 can only rely on hinges to operate. Relying on the hinge is fine, but the unfolded hinge does not have enough traction to keep the screen flat, so that when we use it for a long time, the screen will appear a bit "shrugged" and need to be manually pulled to make it straight.

Source: Huawei's official website

However, this technical problem is not difficult to solve, and it is believed that Huawei will have more progress on the next generation of outer folding screens.

Image source: ByArsT photo

As for the final external screen wear problem, Huawei directly made improvements on the screen, using a composite enhanced screen structure, consisting of four layers: a protective layer, a buffer layer, a barrier layer, and a display layer, so as to reduce the impact of the impact, and has a relatively good performance in daily use of wear.

Computing and photography

The camera of Huawei Mate Xs 2 looks average in terms of parameters, but it is actually used, which really surprises me.

First of all, the parameters, the three cameras in the rear are a 50-megapixel primary color camera, a 13-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens, an 8-megapixel telephoto lens (supporting 3x optical zoom, 30x digital zoom), supporting XD Optics computational optics, and improving clarity through the new optical system image information restoration technology.

It can be said that part of the photographic strength of Huawei Mate Xs 2 is due to the technology of "computational photography", and Huawei's computational photography technology can be said to be obvious to all, then the image of Huawei Mate Xs 2 has been blessed by computational photography, what level will there be?

Let's look at the sample.

Image source: ByArsT photo

Image source: ByArsT photo

As you can see, the sample taken by huawei Mate Xs 2 has a good detail performance, whether it is the cracks in the wall or the texture of the bricks, it is clearly visible. And shooting at 3.5X, you can also preserve the maximum detail. In terms of the color of the sky and the wall, although the picture has been brightened, the overall look is very good, and the details in the shadows are also clear.

Image source: ByArsT photo

Image source: ByArsT photo

Image source: ByArsT photo

Huawei Mate Xs 2's image strength is very unexpected, the overall camera performance is very outstanding, of course, all this strength is due to Huawei's efforts in computational photography, which can better show the color and details.

Although there is no Leica blessing on the Huawei Mate Xs 2, the camera strength is worthy of recognition.

Not bad performance

Performance is probably the least noteworthy point of this folding screen phone.

For various reasons, this Huawei Mate Xs2 can only use the 4G version of the previous generation of Snapdragon flagship processors, that is, Snapdragon 888 processors. Don't forget, Snapdragon 888 has always had an alias: Dragon 888.

Indeed, the performance of snapdragon 888 in power consumption is disappointing, but Huawei Mate Xs 2 also has an advantage that other mobile phones do not have, that is, folding, when the folding screen is expanded, the heat dissipation of the whole machine will have a qualitative leap.

We tested it at a regular room temperature game with a "proto-god" game that turned on extreme image quality +60Fps.

It can be seen that the frame rate performance is still relatively good, the average frame rate is 57.5 frames, although it is not particularly stable, but even in the end, Huawei Mate Xs 2 has not appeared overheating and downscaling.

Image source: Play Copyright Gallery

Finally, we used AnTutu to carry out a wave of regular running scores, and the overall score was 793817 points, which was not much different from the performance of the Kirin 9000.

Image source: Play copyright gallery Huawei also does not know the future

Previously, when the Huawei Mate Xs 2 was just released, I said that Huawei, as the manufacturer of the earliest batch of folding screen mobile phones, naturally has more thinking about the form of the folding screen. Huawei's view of the future of folding screens at this stage is: "There is no view."

To be honest, this situation is now a bit unexpected by many people, Huawei from the early initiative to the folding screen, to the current multi-road common step, from active to passive, which many people have not thought of.

Image source: ByArsT photo

What we are seeing now is the Huawei Mate Xs 2 and Huawei Mate X2, folded in and folded out. But in fact, there is Huawei's P50 Pocket, Huawei will be all the current folding screen forms have been gathered, the future road no matter how to develop, Huawei only need to take the existing road well, the future folding screen field will inevitably have its place.

Talking back to this Huawei Mate Xs 2, this phone from the overall point of view is almost no obvious shortcomings, based on Huawei's current strong technology in the field of folding screen, Huawei Mate Xs 2 this product is more mature, whether it is a variety of technical details of the fold, or the image strength of the calculation of photography, and even add the performance of the Snapdragon 888 (although it is only 4G). In my opinion, consumers only need to consider whether they like the product form of the folding screen, without considering the use experience.

After all, at the price of ten thousand yuan, everyone is only different in form.