Huawei’s Mate X has experienced yet another delay. During a press event at Huawei’s Shenzhen headquarters today, the company told TechRadar that there is “no possibility” of the folding phone making its September launch date.
This is after it was previously delayed from the original planned June release. Huawei is said to be “certain” that the Mate X will come out at some point this year, although it is also unlikely to be released before November, according to the report.
On the bright side, this is good news for Samsung as it leaves the door open for their Samsung Galaxy Fold to be the first foldable to market. The Galaxy fold is scheduled to be launched this September if all goes well for the company after they had to repair certain parts of the device.
Unfortunately, TechRadar doesn’t give details on the cause for the delay. We might as well assume that Huawei is doing extra technical tests to avoid the kind of embarrassing false start Samsung had to encounter with the Galaxy Fold. Although, the company may also be uncertain of its status with critical partners like Arm and Google thus holding back the release.
TechRadar also reported that the next Mate X could have more screens, and it might come out as soon as next year.
The Huawei Mate X follow-up may fit more displays by swapping out the steel rear cover in the current Huawei Mate X with a glass back, and those glass surfaces could become usable and touchable displays. This sounds like quite an engineering challenge but we will wait to see how that turns out.
Considering that the company wants to get the Huawei Mate X out in time for the holiday shopping window before the Chinese Spring Festival in early 2020, its release date is likely being pushed to November and not any later.
Anyway, it’s now very clear that the Samsung Galaxy Fold will beat the Huawei Mate X to market.