Huawei Mate X6: The foldable smartphone is coming to Europe
17.1.2025
Translation: machine translated
Huawei's foldable smartphone is still very thin. This does not result in any disadvantages, which are more due to the ongoing boycott in the USA.
Huawei unveiled the Mate X6 and Mate 70 for the Chinese market at the end of November and is now bringing them to Europe. Unlike in its home market, the device continues to run HarmonyOS in this country and uses Android apps. 5G is still not available outside of China.
Thin foldable smartphone with five cameras
The Mate X6 is comparatively thin. It is only 9.85 millimetres thick when folded and just 4.6 millimetres when unfolded. This makes it slightly thicker than the Honor Magic V3 but narrower than the Pixel 9 Pro Fold or the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6. The latter measures 12.1 millimetres when closed and 5.6 millimetres when unfolded.
Source: Jan Johannsen
Huawei's smartphone is IPX8 waterproof. This means it has survived 30 minutes in 2 metres of water without damage. However, the water must be clear water. The X states that the device has not been tested for protection against dust - this includes suspended particles in lakes and rivers.
Source: Jan Johannsen
The thin body of the Mate X6 accommodates a total of six cameras. Two selfie cameras with 8 megapixels each are located in the two displays. On the back, there is a 50-megapixel main camera, a 48-megapixel periscope telephoto camera (4x optical zoom) and a 40-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera. There is also a so-called chroma camera, whose sole task is to ensure natural colour reproduction.
Source: Jan Johannsen
Both screens are OLED displays with a refresh rate of 120 hertz. The flexible touchscreen inside measures 7.93 inches diagonally and has a resolution of 2440 × 2240 pixels. It achieves a maximum peak brightness of 1800 nits. The 6.45-inch external display is brighter at 2500 nits and offers half the resolution at 2440 × 1080 pixels.
The smartphone's 5110 mAh battery charges with up to 66 watts. Wireless charging of up to 50 watts is possible with a suitable charger.
The best that is possible
Huawei relies on the Kirin 9020 from its own production. The manufacturer is not allowed to use chipsets from Qualcomm or Mediatek due to sanctions imposed by the USA. This is why the development and production of Kirin chips has been intensified again. With its eight cores and the Maleoon 920 GPU, it should be suitable for everyday use. Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 do not look perfect on the data sheet, but should not be a serious disadvantage at present. The lack of 5G support is a different story. This should no longer be missing from a smartphone in this price range.
Source: Jan Johannsen
The use of HarmonyOS is also not entirely voluntary. Although the operating system is based on the open-source version of Android, it has no connection to Google. This means that not only the Google apps are missing, but also the Play Store as a source for installing new apps. Huawei compensates for this with its own apps - namely the App Gallery as its own app store and with the integration of other app sources. Nevertheless, some important apps may still be missing.
In Europe, Huawei sells the Mate X6 with 12 gigabytes of RAM and 512 gigabytes of storage space. The recommended retail price in Germany is 1999 euros. There is no price for Switzerland. It is still being clarified exactly when the smartphone will be available.
Header image: Jan Johannsen
As a primary school pupil, I used to sit in a friend's living room with many of my classmates to play the Super NES. Now I get my hands on the latest technology and test it for you. In recent years at Curved, Computer Bild and Netzwelt, now at Digitec and Galaxus.