Huawei’s 5G version of the Mate 20 X was certified in China last month, but the phone is now officially headed to Huawei’s home country on Friday, July 26th.
The declaration comes from Huawei itself. The company has issued press invitations to the event, with tech site GizChina being one of the fortunate recipients. The press invite confirms the Mate 20 X 5G launch on July 26th, with the device name, day, and time.
There are some changes between the 5G-enabled Mate 20 X and its 4G counterpart: first, there’s 5G connectivity in the new Mate 20 X as opposed to the old 4G connectivity. Then, there’s battery life: Huawei has dropped the 5,000mAh battery capacity in the 4G-enabled Mate 20 X for 4200mAh in the 5G model. There’s support for the stylus pen in the Mate 20 X, making the device something of a Galaxy Note competitor.
With the press invite revealing few details, it is apparent that Huawei is saying next to nothing about the operating system on the Mate 20 X, whether it will be Android or something else. Now Huawei said early on in the Trump Ban that it would get Android on existing and previously certified devices before the ban was put into effect, but there’s been little word on that since.
It seems difficult that Huawei would have been given the green light to put Android on new mobile devices and yet, Huawei mentions nothing about it. So, at this point, it appears as though Huawei could still use Android 9.0 Pie for the 5G model. It still hasn’t faced the full effect of the Trump Ban and its Android license revocation, which goes into effect August 19th.
Since the Mate 20 X 5G will launch in China on July 26th, Huawei is taking no chances with getting this product to market before it no longer has a mobile home in Google’s Android.
Huawei releasing a 5G smartphone is expected, as the Shenzhen-based phone maker is at the heart of 5G network rollouts globally. Huawei currently holds 15% of all 5G standards-essential patents (SEPs), more than the US, LG, and even top phone maker and South Korean juggernaut Samsung Electronics. Huawei has been using its 5G patent technologies to make US companies pay in light of the Trump Ban.
Some weeks after it was placed on the US Entity List, Huawei wrote top US wireless carrier Verizon Wireless about the $1 billion in 5G patent royalties it owes Huawei. While Verizon isn’t a direct client of Huawei, Verizon does have vendors who are direct clients of Huawei.
Huawei has a major role globally, as it now has over 50 clients in 5G, gaining customers even during the Trump Ban since mid-May. The company is such a giant in 5G that the US has been campaigning globally to persuade allies to stop doing business with Huawei and cease purchasing Huawei’s telecom equipment. The US has had mixed results, with countries like Germany telling the US that it won’t cease working with Huawei because the company is Chinese.
Here at home, the US has persuaded its wireless giants to abandon doing business with Huawei all around. The current T-Mobile/Sprint Merger case with the DoJ has been conditioned on a few factors — one of them being that the future “New T-Mobile” (the combo of T-Mobile and Sprint) will not use Huawei telecom gear nor employ Huawei to help roll out its 5G network nationwide.
The upcoming Mate 20 X 5G smartphone release in China is good news for Chinese consumers, though this handset will never see the light of day in the US. Still under a sales ban in the States, Huawei smartphones are being taken off shelves, dumped left and right, and unsold. Online retailer Amazon is giving free returns for Huawei customers who return their phones, perhaps due to the current political climate stateside.