Huawei Mate X6 foldable phone

MANILA - The Huawei Mate X6 is a sleek, stylish, and surprisingly also tough foldable phone with undoubtedly one of the best cameras right now.

I have been a fan of Huawei since buying the Mate 10 back in 2017. I took some of the best photos from several trips that year using that phone. Thus, when Huawei asked me if I could review their latest flagship foldable phone, I knew I would be playing around with something special.

But first, let’s address the inevitable elephant in the room—can you get your favorite apps on this phone? As Huawei doesn’t exactly use Android due to the sanctions levied on it (it uses the HarmonyOS 4.3 / EMUI 15 OS), there can be issues regarding app availability.

Huawei Mate X6 foldable phone

However, in my own experience, this hasn’t really been a big issue as many of the apps I use, including those from Google, are available on Huawei’s AppGallery, which is the company’s version of Google Play and the Apple App Store.

All the major social media apps are also here like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, as well as the most popular mobile games. Banking apps from BDO, BPI, Metrobank, and Landbank are also available, and of course e-wallets like GCash and Maya.

But this doesn’t mean either that all the apps available on Play are available on the App Gallery. I tried looking for GoTyme and it wasn’t there. A workaround for installing apps that are not on the App Gallery is through a utility called GBox. But still, there is no guarantee that they will work as well as in native Android.

Huawei Mate X6 foldable phone

Now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the design of this phone. I recently reviewed the excellent HONOR Magic V3, and so the design similarities are inescapable, but not in a bad way.

The Mate X6 is also amazingly thin, with a thickness of just 9.9mm for the vegan leather version which was sent to us for review. In contrast, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 was 12.1 mm thick. Put this foldable beside an iPad and you’ll see just how thin it is.

The vegan leather back also adds a touch of elegance to the phone, aside from protecting it from unsightly marks from oily fingers. Despite being thin, it still feels very solid in the hand, whether folded or unfolded. When unfolded, it still feels very stiff. This doesn’t feel like something that’s easily going to come apart.

Huawei said that the frame uses aviation-grade aluminum, while the folding mechanism uses an advanced multidimensional hinge to minimize the crease. The inner screen is reinforced with carbon fiber–which any F1 or Tour De France aficionado knows is one of the toughest materials out there. It also carries an IPX8 rating meaning this phone can withstand being dunked in water down to 2 meters for up to 30 minutes.

Using this in its folded state almost feels like using a normal “slab” phone. The outer screen has very thin bezels, as is the inner screen. Unlike the V3, all of the physical buttons are on the right side, which helps reduce confusion when shutting off the screen or toggling the volume.

Here’s a quick roundup of the specs of the Mate X6:

Outer Screen: 6.45 inches, 1080 x 2440 pixels

Inner Screen: 7.93 inches, 2240 x 2440 pixels 

Memory: 12GB (up to 16GB)

Storage: 512 GB 

Battery: 5110 mAh

Huawei did not specify on its online spec sheet what chip platform it uses for the Mate X6, but other tech websites have said that it features the Kirin 9020. Benchmarks conducted by GSM Arena put the performance of the Kirin 9020 behind the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 but at par or even sometimes ahead of the Tensor G4 which is used in Google’s flagship Pixel 9 Fold Pro foldable.

Main Camera: 

50 MP, f/1.4-f/4.0, 24mm (wide), PDAF, OIS

48 MP, f/3.0, 90mm (periscope telephoto), PDAF, OIS, 4x optical zoom

40 MP, f/2.2, 13mm, 120˚ (ultrawide), PDAF

All cameras can shoot video at 4K at 60 fps

Selfie camera: 

Outer screen - 8 MP, f/2.4, (wide) 4K at 30 fps

Inner camera - 8 MP, f/2.2, (wide) 4K at 30 fps

Those cameras are the crowning glory of this foldable–they are very good. Huawei’s flagships have been perennial topnotchers in the venerable DXOMARK rankings for smartphone camera performance and it shows in this foldable.

Here are some sample shots:

Taken with Huawei Mate X6. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News

Taken with Huawei Mate X6. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News

Taken with Huawei Mate X6. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News

Taken with Huawei Mate X6. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News

Taken with Huawei Mate X6. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News

Taken with Huawei Mate X6. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News

In bright surroundings, it produces accurate colors with great details–even the 4x telephoto zoom is top notch. Low light performance is also excellent both for photos and videos.

Huawei said that a common complaint about foldable phones was that their cameras were subpar when compared to bar phone flagships. Huawei said it aimed to change this with the Mate X6, and I think they pretty much hit the mark.

Final thoughts? This is a very good foldable phone, with excellent cameras. If you value photography performance over other features, you should definitely consider this. But you should also consider if the apps you use are supported. While I had no problems installing and using the apps I needed on this phone, others may have a different experience.

The Huawei Mate X6 is available on Shopee.