In a roundtable interview with Yanmin Wang, the president of Huawei Central-East Europe and Nordic region consumer business group, Huawei revealed it will announce two more 5G phones in 2019.
The company confirmed that one of the 5G phones was the Huawei Mate X, Huawei’s first 5G handset and foldable device rolled into one.
Yanmin Wang, the president of Huawei Central-East Europe and Nordic region consumer business group, giving us a look at how thin the Mate X is.
The following day, the Chinese phone maker announced the Huawei Mate 20 X 5G. However, it’s unclear if Wang included this device in his promise. The Mate 20 X 5G is not necessarily a new handset; it’s a 5G iteration of a smartphone that Huawei launched back in November.
Either way, what’s interesting is that Huawei is not counting Canada out of the equation. Even though Canada’s 5G networks won’t launch until sometime in 2020, the company says it’s still willing to sell 5G smartphones in the country.
For a Huawei phone to feature 5G, the handset needs to sport the company’s proprietary Balong 5000 modem alongside a Kirin 980 chipset. Huawei says that its 5G modem is backwards compatible, allowing it to work on 2G, 3G, 4G and 4G LTE networks, which means that any phone with the Balong 5000 can still work on Canada’s existing 4G LTE networks.
Yanmin Wang, the president of Huawei central east Europe and nordic region consumer business group, holding the Mate X with the phone folded together.
Even though Huawei’s 5G handsets are more expensive than their LTE-only counterparts, the company believes that its “great” technology and innovation will be a great boon to global consumers.
Huawei plans to launch its Mate X foldable phone in Canada, but it’s currently unclear when the company will be able to release the phone or any other 5G only devices in the country. With one or two more 5G handsets from coming out for the company, it’s possible the P30 or Mate 30 series will feature a 5G-only model.
