The Huawei Mate X isn’t coming out anytime soon. And that’s probably a good thing.
Huawei has spoken with both CNBC and The Wall Street Journal and told the publications that they are doing extensive testing on the Mate X, before it is released.
This is a good thing for Huawei, after seeing how rushed the Galaxy Fold was, and how quickly it broke in reviewers hands back in April.
Huawei is now pushing the launch of the Mate X back from June to September. That’s a pretty big delay, but at least Huawei is giving us a date. There’s still no date for the Galaxy Fold to finally be released.
The company says that it is taking a “cautious” approach to the Mate X now, after seeing what happened with Samsung’s folding smartphone. Considering the Huawei Mate X has a much larger price tag than the Galaxy Fold, that’s likely the right move. While owners would be upset about their $2,000 smartphone breaking, they would be even more upset that their nearly $3,000 Mate X broke so quickly.
Huawei said to CNBC that it doesn’t “want to launch a product to destroy our reputation”. That’s something that the US government is taking care of.
The Chinese company isn’t blaming the US government for delaying the Mate X though. It’s sort of blaming Samsung, but it should actually be thanking them. If Samsung hadn’t pushed their Galaxy Fold out so quickly, then these issues wouldn’t have arose, and Huawei would likely be in the same boat that Samsung is in now.
The US government isn’t making things any easier for Huawei though. President Trump put Huawei on the Entity List last month, and slowly but surely, Huawei’s partners have started cutting them off. From Google, to Microsoft, to ARM and everything in between. The recent developments with the Entity List likely means that Huawei isn’t focused as heavily on its Mate X folding smartphone, as it would normally be. But instead focusing on how it can replace its US partners that it can no longer work with, thanks to President Trump.
Huawei has had quite a bit of trouble in the past month, largely thanks to the Entity List. The US government argues that it was put on the Entity List because it works for the Chinese government and is afraid that its networking gear and other products could be used by the Chinese government to spy on users. That’s something the US government doesn’t take lightly, as it wants to be the only one spying on its citizens.
Though Huawei has said numerous times that the US government has shown zero proof that Huawei does work for the Chinese government, and has denied those accusations for nearly a decade now.
If you had your hopes up for a foldable smartphone from Huawei, you’re going to need to wait a bit longer it seems. It should be for the better, hopefully. As Huawei is able to work out the issues of the Mate X smartphone.