Huawei and Samsung both showcased their foldable smartphones at the Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona earlier this week, the Huawei Mate X and Galaxy Fold respectively. Both are fundamentally different in terms of design. Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei’s mobile business, has said that the company had a prototype of a foldable device with a design similar to that of the Galaxy Fold but scrapped it because it was “not good.”
The Galaxy Fold opens up like a book and has a 7.3-inch internal display. It also has a cover display on the outside so that users don’t have to unfold the device for the simplest of tasks. The Mate X’s design is completely different. It has just a single, flexible display which can fold and unfold to switch between what’s effectively a smartphone and tablet.
“I feel having two screens, a front screen and a back screen, makes the phone too heavy,” Yu told Business Insider in an interview, adding that Huawei had several solutions for its own foldable smartphone but it canceled them. It was apparently working on three projects simultaneously for the foldable device. “We had something even better than that, killed by me,” he added.
It’s unclear, though, precisely when Huawei’s foldable smartphone will go on sale. What we do know is that it will cost $2,600. Samsung has confirmed an April-end release for the Galaxy Fold and it’s priced at $1,980.