More folding phone foibles: Huawei delays launch of its Mate X handset AGAIN and declines to elaborate, pushing release to November
- Huawei announced it will delay its folding smart phone until after November
- The company declined to say why and has delayed the phone twice this year
- Mate X will look to avoid the problems of the Samsung Galaxy Fold
- Samsung’s folding phone still does not have a hard release date
Another foldable phone has hit roadblock as Huawei postpones the release of its Mate X until after November.
As reported by TechRadar, Huawei annouced the postponement at a press event this week, pushing back its original September release date by potentially several months.
While Huawei has yet to comment on exactly why its phone will be delayed, TechRadar notes that Huawei has been played with several designs including replacing its steel back with aluminum — which the outlet notes is now scrapped — and adding more screens.
In a response to Gizmodo, Huawei state simply: ‘Huawei confirms that Mate X is still scheduled for launch between September and November 2019.’
Huawei will delay the sale of its folding Mate X until after November, continuing myriad issues with foldable smart phones.
This is the second time that Huawei has delayed the release of the phone after a postponement in June.
That delay came as Huawei’s phones faced being cut off from updates of Google’s Android operating system due to trade tensions between the US and China — the US blacklisted Huawei prohibiting American companies from doing business with the firm.
In June, Huawei denied that the delay was due to the ban, and said that Huawei was in the process of running certification tests with various carriers that are expected to be completed in August.
According to previous reports, The Mate X will eventually retail for a hefty $2,600 and boasts an 8-inch screen that makes it about the size of a small tablet.
The Mate X will look to avoid the flaws documented via Samsung’s select release of the Galaxy Fold.
If past attempts at folding phones are an example, it’s possible that there could be more critical kinks in the device’s functionality.
In an initial test Samsung’s Galaxy Fold saw several problems with its display and hinge mechanism that damaged and contorted its screen — problems that were only illuminated after the company sent the devices to several tech journalists.
According to Samsung, the $1,980 folding phone is finally ‘ready to hit the market,’ though the company has yet to provide any hard release date.
”Most of the display problems have been ironed out, and the Galaxy Fold is ready to hit the market,’ Kim Seong-cheol, vice president of Samsung Display, said at an industry event in June.