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Mate X and XS Production Volume Suffer from Low Assembly Yields
March 22, 2020
As we reported previously, the Mate X and the Mate XS look similar, both have the same 6.6-inch display on the front and a 6.38-inch display on the back and when unfolded it becomes an 8-inch screen with a resolution of 2200×2480. The outward folding design enables use of a 6.6”display without any unfolding. However, at the X and XS’ delicate folding screen is always exposed to the elements. BOE has been making the foldable 8” OLED display and the fab yields are reported to be as low as 20%. That yield is then compounded by a 50% yield, when Huawei assembles the phone, meaning that it takes 100 displays to produce 10 Mate X’s.
Figure 1: Huawei’ Mate X
Source: Company
Huawei claims the XS display has been reinforced with more layers of plastic. Powering the phone is a 4500 mAh battery that comes with a 55-watt fast charger. This charger can supposedly fill up the battery from 0% to 85% in 30 minutes.
The Mate XS has the new Kirin 990 SoC with a 5G modem built into it, unlike the Mate X’s Kirin 980. It comes with 8 GB RAM and 512 GB UFS 2.1 internal storage.
The cameras include a primary 40MP sensor, an 8MP telephoto lens and a 16MP ultra-wide. Low light performance and video quality are all solid. Also, since the screen just folds out from the back to take selfies.
But all of this incredible hardware doesn’t make up for the software, Since the US government has prevented American companies from working with Huawei, the phone’s operating system and app availability have suffered quite a bit.
While it runs an open-source version of Android 10, with the EMUI skin on top of it, none of the Google services such as Gmail, the Play Store, YouTube, etc. are available on it. This makes using it on a day-to-day basis quite a challenge. Add on top of that eye-watering €2,499 price tag and the whole package becomes a tough pill to swallow.
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Barry Young
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