Huawei Mate X3 review: Excellent gear for enthusiasts only.

Huawei produces some of the greatest smartphone hardware in the industry. Huawei provides the poorest software experience of any smartphone maker, owing to US government penalties.

There was always the possibility that Huawei would fail to deliver on the hardware front with the Huawei Mate X3, or that it would find a better way ahead after the ‘no Google Mobile Services’ catastrophe. It has not. Furthermore, at £1,999 for the single 12GB RAM/512GB storage option, the Huawei Mate X3 is prohibitively pricey, even for a premium foldable.

Having said that, it’s still well worth looking into what the Huawei Mate X3 has to offer. Because when those restrictions are lifted (if they ever are), Samsung, Xiaomi, and Google will have an issue.

HUAWEI MATE X3 KEY FEATURES

The Huawei Mate X3 is an incredibly outstanding piece of engineering. Huawei created a fantastic smartphone on a variety of levels. Despite its compact size, the Mate X3 features two very large displays. The cover screen measures 6.4 inches and has a resolution of 2504×1080 pixels with a 20.9:9 aspect ratio. Inside, you’ll find a 7.85-inch panel with a resolution of 2496×2224 pixels and a nearly square 8:7.1 aspect ratio.

The Mate X3 also feels quite well-made, with little to no flex. Its hinge design is astounding, allowing the display to tuck into itself while the entire unit folds flat. While there is a crease on the foldable panel, it is well-contained and difficult to detect in practice.

Furthermore, the Mate X3 is the first non-Samsung foldable to receive an ingress protection rating. The Mate X3, like the Galaxy Z Fold4, is rated IPX8. The Huawei Mate X3 features a triple camera on the back and two 8MP selfie cameras, one on each screen. The 50MP f/1.8 wide camera is accompanied by 13MP f/2.2 ultrawide and 12MP f/3.4 5x telephoto lenses.

Unfortunately, as a Huawei smartphone, the Mate X3 has a few apparent flaws as well. Because the Chinese behemoth is still not permitted to employ 5G modems, the Mate X3 comes equipped with a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 and just 4G connectivity. The phone also runs Harmony OS 3.1, which is based on Android, but it is not the same, as it lacks Google Services, apps, and access to the Google Play Store.

However, none of this is a new occurrence, and any prospective consumers of the Mate X3, which has only recently entered international markets, should be well aware of these limits. The real question is whether the rest of the phone’s great hardware is enough to persuade consumers.

HUAWEI MATE X3 UNBOXING

Before we get into it, let’s have a look at the Mate X3 retail box. The phone comes in a hefty and durable two-piece carton. It even includes an extra cradle inside to hold the Mate X3 in an unfolded position.

One of the boxes underneath it contains the Mate X3’s 66W proprietary wall charger as well as a proprietary 6A USB Type-A to Type-C connection. Be sure to keep both because they are not standard. Huawei also included a snap-on transparent plastic case for the Mate X3 in the box. It protects about half of the phone, but it’s still something.

CAMERA

The Huawei Mate X3 features five cameras. The main camera module has a 50MP main camera with f/1.9 aperture, a 13MP ultrawide lens, and a 12MP periscope. Two extra 8MP selfie cameras are located in a hole-punch on each of the two screens. The main camera is most likely a Sony IMX766 sensor with a 1/1.56-inch image sensor size and OIS support. This camera hardware is nothing special for a slab flagship, but it does include some of the best sensors available on a foldable. It’s worth noting that the main camera employs Huawei’s RYYB filter array and the “XMAGE engine,” an image processing technique.

This implies that the main camera can take really good shots, with a little shallow depth-of-field and a natural capacity to take in light at the hardware level without having to use night mode too much. The dynamic range in the gallery below, which includes all photographs taken with the main camera, is excellent, with exceptional sharpness and contrast. I can confirm that the colors are fairly correct, albeit Huawei’s night images have a warm hue due to the RYYB array’s increased sensitivity to yellow light.

The ultrawide camera performs well throughout the day but exhibits the typical soft noise and graininess found in low-light scenarios. Only the Oppo Find X6 Pro’s ultrawide camera, with its massive sensor, can take photographs at night without losing much quality.

The periscope zoom lens, on the other hand, steals the show. For the longest time, we’ve had to cope with non-existent or subpar zoom cameras on foldable devices. While the choice here has a sluggish f/3.4 aperture, it employs periscope technology, which involves placing the sensor sideways in the phone’s body to enable greater space for picture information to pass. The Mate X3’s periscope zoom offers 5X optical zoom and a decent 10X zoom. The gallery below has two sets of images taken at 1X, 5X, and 10X focal lengths. Even the night set’s 10X images seem impressive for a foldable phone.

The front-facing cameras work well, and they are the only Chinese brand that can record in 4K resolution. Overall, the Mate X3’s cameras fall short of the considerably heavier Mate X2 or any premium Chinese slab Android, but it’s my selection for the best foldable camera right now, with one important caveat: I haven’t had enough time to test the Pixel Fold. While the latter’s camera hardware does not appear to be superior to Huawei’s, Google’s software could be the distinguishing factor. I’ll update this paragraph after I get to test the Pixel Fold.

DESIGN AND SCREEN

The Huawei Mate X3 is a foldable phone, so it has two displays, both of which are amazing in their own right.

Each OLED display has a 120Hz refresh rate and a 6.4-inch cover screen with a 2504×1080 resolution (20.9:9 aspect ratio). When you open the phone, you’ll see a 7.85-inch display with a resolution of 2496×2224 and an aspect ratio of 8:7.1, which is “so close to square.”

The “cover” display features strengthened Kunlun Glass to assist protect against cracks and scratches, as seen on the Mate 50 Pro (and also on the P60 range).

Huawei refers to these displays as ‘X-True’, the brand’s not-so-catchy term for robust glass with impact resistance, as well as guaranteed color accuracy and projection. Overall, it’s a great way of saying you’re receiving an accurate but challenging set of screens, which we’re all for.

The company claims that the outer display’s Kunlun Glass protection makes it up to ten times more drop-resistant than the same cover screen on the last Mate X2, and the main folding display is now four times more impact-resistant than before.

In terms of design, the Huawei Mate X3 is now water-resistant, thanks to the IPX8 certification, giving the Galaxy Z Fold 4 a worthy competition in this category. The continuous theme of toughness extends to the phone’s hinge. It’s designed to be more adaptable and allows for a flatter open display, but it also allows the phone to be propped open, laptop-style, for video calls or selfies.

In China, there are five hues to pick from, including standard black, white, and gold, as well as eye-catching violet and dark green finishes. The black, gold and dark green choices are made of vegan leather, while the rest of the X3 models have a glass back. However, those in the United Kingdom and Europe are only able to get the phone in black and dark green.

HOW’S THE PERFORMANCE?

The Huawei Mate X3 uses a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset, which was cutting-edge at the end of 2022 but has since been surpassed by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Given Huawei’s asking price, you may reasonably expect a speedier component, as well as 5G connection. Because of the company’s ongoing legal challenges, this will only be available on 4G.

Still, in terms of foldable performance, the Mate X3 ranks near the top – at least for the time being. Its major rival, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, and its cousin, the Honor Magic Vs, use the same chip. Meanwhile, the Pixel Fold, the bright young thing in the foldable world, runs on Google’s Tensor G2 chip – a smart piece of silicon, no question, but not a very impressive benchmark runner.

Speaking of which, the Huawei Mate X3 outperforms Google’s hefty foldable in our CPU testing, as well as the Fold 4 and Magic V. We’re not clear if Huawei got more performance out of the same chip or simply tweaked it for specific benchmarks. In any case, it’s a solid performer, with no wobbles or stutters when multitasking, unlocking, or gaming – if I can find some decent mainstream games to test.

When it comes to mapping, there is no substitute for Google Maps, but HERE WeGo has long been a clean and dependable option. While we’re talking about mapping, the lack of Google Maps implies that several other apps, including Uber, will not work on the Mate X3.

Gaming on the Huawei Mate X3 is fairly bad, not because of any hardware flaws, but because you have to go through the aforementioned hoops to discover the best games. I found Vampire Survivors, CoD Mobile, and Wreckfest using the Petal Search engine, which searches unofficial app stores for side-loadable APK files. Even though Petal Search is integrated into Huawei’s AppGallery, none of these appeared when I searched for them.

Buy it if...

• The phone is extremely thin and folds nicely without any air gaps.
• When unfolded, the display is surprisingly flat, with only a slight crease.
• Excellent construction quality, with an especially outstanding hinge and new IPX8 ingress protection.
• Both panels are large, refresh at 120Hz, extremely bright, and quite color-accurate.
• Good battery life. Fast wired charging at 66W and wireless charging at 50W.
• Given the phone’s small footprint, the stereo speaker system is surprisingly effective.
• A versatile and flagship-quality triple-camera combination with autofocus and OIS on both the main and telephoto cameras. The telephoto camera is really impressive overall.
• Every camera and zoom level can record high-quality 4K videos.
• The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 delivers good burst performance.

Don't buy it if…

• The fingerprint reader is inconvenient to use when the phone is folded.
• Even though the internal display is 10-bit, neither has received formal HDR certification.
• Automatic refresh rate handling is somewhat erratic, particularly on the internal display.
• Huawei insisted on utilizing its proprietary NM storage expansion card format.
• The powerful bundled charger is not PowerDelivery compatible and requires a special connector.
• EMUI 13.1 still missing Google Services.
• Sustained performance from the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is stuttering and unstable.
• It is impossible to have both displays active at the same time when using the cover display as a mirrored viewfinder.

FULL SPECIFICATION