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HUAWEI Mate 20 X hands-on: This is HUAWEI's gaming-focused phablet (Video!)

HUAWEI has announced its new gaming phone in London, and it comes with its biggest smartphone screen to date.
By
October 16, 2018

Huawei has announced the Mate 20 X at an event in London. The gaming phone arrives with a 7.21-inch OLED display, HUAWEI’s largest smartphone screen ever, and an optional stylus, making it a rare device in the Chinese OEM’s catalog.

The Mate 20 X features a Kirin 980 chipset, triple rear camera, and dual speakers, while it’s running on Android Pie (with HUAWEI’s EMUI 9.0 skin). The waterdrop notch-bearing screen is even bigger than the 7.12-inch display on the HONOR 8X Max (from HUAWEI sub-brand HONOR) and is primed for media viewing and gaming. It’s coming with FHD+ resolution (2244 x 1080) and HDR.

Related: The last thing HUAWEI should do is compare the Mate 20 X with the Nintendo Switch

Display

The large display should also befit HUAWEI’s new stylus, though this will be sold separately. We’re still waiting on more details regarding what this will offer, but it didn’t look Samsung S Pen-standard in HUAWEI’s presentation.

huawei mate 20 x blue back side

Hardware

Keeping the Mate 20 X going during all that gaming is a 5000mAh battery and a new, graphene-based cooling system — a first for the smartphone industry. This is said to provide superior cooling during long play sessions, which you might be in for thanks to the gamepad attachment HUAWEI is releasing with for the 20 X.

This will feature an analog stick and D-pad and will clip the left-hand side of the unit to offer better handling. HUAWEI consumer business group CEO Richard Yu noted on stage that the Mate 20 X has a larger display and double the battery life of a Nintendo Switch. It could make it the better handset to play Stardew Valley on if nothing else…

The HUAWEI Mate 20 X and the Mate 20 Pro.
The HUAWEI Mate 20 X (left) and the Mate 20 Pro (right).

Though it has dabbled with a stylus-wielding tablet and a gaming-focused phone before, this is the first time HUAWEI has put the two ideas together. Housing this new device under the banner of possibly its most famous smartphone series indicates HUAWEI has a lot of faith in it, but we’ll have to wait for some hands-on time with to see how it performs.

HUAWEI Mate 20 Pro review: The best phone for power users
Reviews
HUAWEI Mate 20 cameras

Release Date

The Mate 20 X is now available in Europe for 899 euros (~$1040) for 6GB RAM and 128GB ROM. It’s comes in Midnight Blue and Phantom Silver colors, though it’s not yet clear if it will be available in any other memory configurations. In the U.S. you can get the international version on Amazon for $887.

 

 

The HUAWEI Mate 20 X and the Mate 20 Pro.
The HUAWEI Mate 20 X (left) and the Mate 20 Pro (right).

That’s all we’ve got on the Mate 20X for now but we should have more soon. In the meantime, let us know what you think of HUAWEI’s new gaming phone in the comments.