Samsung’s revolutionary Galaxy Fold has been nothing but trouble from the start. As it does with most or even all first-generation products its mobile division cooks up, Samsung rushed to get the foldable Galaxy Fold handset out the door. In doing so, it made a number of poor design decisions and critical mistakes. Samsung’s quality control team apparently all took a vacation at the same time because Galaxy Fold review units began breaking within hours of reviewers taking delivery, and Samsung was forced to cancel the phone’s release and push it back by several months while it addressed the phone’s embarrassing design flaws. That’s right, just a few years after Samsung had to cancel and recall its Galaxy Note 7 because units were spontaneously exploding, the company had to cancel another launch because of poor design and quality control.
As it turns out, Samsung wasn’t alone in flubbing the launch of its first smartphone with a foldable screen. Shortly after Samsung canceled the Galaxy Fold’s release, Huawei announced that its rival foldable, the Huawei Mate X, would also be delayed. As was the case with Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, Huawei pushed back the release of the Mate X by several months so that it could refine the phone’s design a bit. Those refinements are apparently all been made because Huawei’s Mate X is finally ready to be released.
As reported by Chinese-language tech news site Sina Digital on Wednesday morning, Huawei on Wednesday confirmed that its Mate X is ready for launch. After months of delays, the phone will finally be released next month.
Now, it goes without saying that the Mate X won’t be released in the United States since Huawei is still being targetted by the Trump administration’s trade war with China. As it turns out, however, the Mate X likely wouldn’t have been released in the US next month even if it could’ve been. According to the report, Huawei confirmed that the Mate X will only be available in China next month. The phone will be released on November 15th in Huawei’s home country, and it’ll cost the equivalent of about $2,400 for a version with 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and support for 5G connectivity.
What about wider availability? Huawei had this to say: “Our strategy is based on carriers’ 5G roll out in different regions. So far, Huawei has made the Huawei Mate X available in the China market on November 15. A global launch plan is under review.” In other words, don’t hold your breath. It’s definitely a shame, though, because as we’ve discussed before here on the site, the Mate X features a great design that truly puts Samsung’s Galaxy Fold design to shame. Perhaps the second-generation Mate X will end up making its way to more markets, though there’s no word on when the phone’s successor might launch.
