and this is we're getting the non-north America model is that what's happening
did you screw me Jake did you me Jake folding phones are getting more
popular than ever so popular that people apparently chose the worst form factor
to be the most popular one of them all which was the Samsung flip which I
unboxed in my last phone video am I the folding phone guy that's Linus that's
anyone else but me this is the Huawei
mate xs2 in China as far as I understand it this is a hot item but over here in
the west they had to make some compromises so I'm interested to see how
that all plays out after I open the box
I can't read that oh but right off the
bat it's unfolded already and we can see on the back we got this nice 3D
fiberglass design oh oh there's a case this is a weird design
to have a case for okay okay that kind
of snaps in so that's nice oh it goes the other way
so you do this you fold it in
oh okay I see the function of this this
is basically like if you want to use it like a regular phone then you can have
this case in the back it protects this screen on the other side and put it down
and stuff without really worrying about scratching it that's pretty nice but
this is a really awkward if you want to unfold it you have to hit the button to
release it and then you have this thing like
flapping off the the back of the phone and then you're using it like I mean
it's not that annoying once I kind of get used to it and I know that it's
there it's not that weird but like it still is like a weird implementation
it's not very refined I mean in one way like I I'm trying to think about what
else they could have done and there's not much this phone is a little bit
unique in the way that it implements the folding design most of the folding
phones as you may know fold kind of the other way so that the screen stays on
the inside but this one folds the other way so that the screen is always on the
outside it uses something that Huawei is calling their Falcon hinge
I don't even know if that's necessary I don't know about the reasoning for why
they did this but uh the fact of the matter is that when unfolded it is
thinner and lighter than some of the other folding phones on the market do
you know anything about this it doesn't have Google on it
are you yeah in fact it's so light that
it's only 260 grams that's actually
impressive that it's like exactly 260 grams it feels light there's a banana
okay all right on the top we got one of
the speakers I believe there's on another side there's one on the other side but we'll find out when we get
around to it over here we got the volume rocker and the power button slash
fingerprint reader looks like which seems like it's fit nicely into the
curve of the phone you wouldn't like that's the challenge with a phone like
this with the other ones you'd fold the other way and you can just put on this edge here but this Edge is concealed and
this one's exposed so you end up having to put the buttons on like a rounded
Edge that looks like it's continuing the display although they
didn't need to make it look like that did they they decided to make it look
like it's like one full display that's folded around or on the bottom I should
say we got the USBC Port that's like kind of put into this little uh I'm
gonna call that the nubbin another speaker there and another mic so I guess
there's two oh there's a mic on the top as well and oh no that's not the mic
that's the uh pin for the SIM card slot uh on this side we just have the little
clicky doohickey which I'm going to put into place so you can see how that works
it's got a latch that you actually have to release
with the button there and this button releases the folding phone and then it
kind of like oh it's like it's like it's like watching a flower unfold or
something and also on the back here we got the camera array but we're going to talk
about that once we actually do the camera tests let's turn her on
let's turn it on after I talk I talk
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today okay so if you decide to use it
just as a regular phone you're getting a 6.5 inch screen with a 2480 by 1176
revolution revolution let's go unfolded
it's a 7.8 inch screen uh with a 120
hertz refresh rate which is pretty nice with a 2480 by 2200 resolution and Jake
really wants me to tell you that that means it's fhd plus it's like if you had
the short side of a 4K display twice did
that make sense I also neglected to mention that on the inside we have a
processor that is at this point two generations old so you are compromising
there it does have eight gigs of RAM which is pretty good 512 gigs of storage
in this model but I think there's also a 256 gig version is that right I'll talk
about the form factor for a second because with the flip 4 I spent a great
deal of time complaining about why anyone would make that or why anyone
would want it and the fact that it was the most popular phone makes me makes my
blood boil frankly this form factor makes a lot more sense
to me it looks sleek you know it looks a lot more Sleek if that's something that
you care about if there were more phones on the market that had this form factor
I would expect this to be more popular as long as you're talking about the
Aesthetics of it and like feeling cool this feels pretty cool to kind of like
fold it up like this and especially having like the physical release to be
like Oh I'm on the phone uh hold on let
me check that on my on my little mini tablet thing
that feels cool that feels way cooler than using one of these phones and being
like oh let me just see uh nerd you get the benefit obviously of
more screen real estate which will let you do some cool things like uh you know
multi-window becomes way more interesting and useful on a phone like
this we're in the music app I bring it in bring it up and the multitasking
interface also looks like iOS that's interesting if I touch and hold no does
that give us an option oh I can get rid of it what's this oh I made a windowed
and that is smooth you can really see that on the one well I mean you can't
Maybe on YouTube or flow plane or wherever you're watching this okay we
can't have multiple we only have the ability to have our sidebar oh that's
pretty cool though optimally I would love if you could like pin an app there
and then minimize another app and put it like here so you can just like
immediately switch between them like it was a taskbar that's pretty cool that
they like hide in the edge of the display there so if I tap on that then
you have that option so that's not too bad let's see how intuitive this is to
put them side by side okay you have to individually tap them to get them out of
I have the app in full screen mode and I do this and then I can click another one
to go in full screen mode okay that's pretty cool screen experience is off
I like seeing a larger form factor Android devices being able to use that
kind of thing so that's great but this phone is very limited so the OS is
called Harmony OS it is based on I
believe Android 11 that might not be accurate but you know we're on Android
13 now you're using it you can tell that this is essentially Android the
important thing is here because it is actually based on on Android on some
version of Android you can side load apps but a lot of times they won't work
properly because the underlying systems are different there are instant apps you
can use like through the web but it's a lot of work it's more work than a than
another device the other thing that this phone it really notably compromises on
is the battery battery is only 4 600
milliamp hours which actually is not that small of a battery but in my
experience and in the experience of some other people I've seen a reporting on
this phone ends up being not very strong
I think someone was saying with full screen use they only got like 4.5 half
hours or something Huawei sort of makes up with it from what I can tell by
having a fast really fast charging charge the phone up to 90 in 30 minutes
obviously maybe your mileage will vary I've saw some other people saying that's
not quite the case but at the same time you buy this fancy phone and how much is
it Jake it's 2 000 Euros there's not a
lot of prices uh available for like what they're selling it for in North America
because they're not selling it in North America as far as I understand oh this
is funny that Google is still the home page on the browser though I wonder if
that's just like you know the typing experience with two hands YouTube
it's pretty good I liked that I liked when I typed like that
that's Max I mean they're not the worst speakers
I've ever heard on a device ever I guess but they uh yeah there's there's
Distortion especially at the higher volumes there there's uh a lack of bass
anyways that's the speakers they're not
great GSM Arena tested it and they measured 506 nits uh at all the way to
the end of the brightness slider where we are right now so 500 nits for a
tablet you know isn't isn't the worst thing in the world what what does a new
iPhone get like is it 2000 they're not quite there let's check out the cameras
touch to turn on the secondary screen
whoa oh that's cool so I can see what
I'm doing over here and I can also see
and you can see what I'm doing wait what so wait what do you see right now
if I press if I take a photo what does that look like
all right you're seeing right
but I can't make it so that I flip it around and then you are also you can't
see anything the button that I used to do that is gone there's a button there
this is the button that you press to activate the rear screen one of these
cameras is a 50 megapixel main shooter there's a 13 megapixel Ultra wide and a
8 megapixel telephoto well we're at 30
times Zoom okay I want to take a photo
stabilization seems to be catching up pretty good
oh yeah I want to hold it by the nubbin all the
time but when I go like this to get what I hope is going to be landscape video
instead of vertical video wow we got some crazy this the stabilization makes
it so that when I do this you guys are just like in a Perpetual state of motion
blur maybe if I'm doing a selfie I should just accept that I have to do it
this way and then I hit record and this is the
selfie cam what's up guys
I did vertical video though that's what it is I I like the quality
of this this looks pretty nice for a selfie cam which is a what 10.7
megapixel not that that megapixel really matters but it's a f.2 f 2.2 aperture
and all that I don't know it really comes down to the experience and that's
not bad at all on the flip video people are saying I'm what I was incorrect
about my putting it in my pocket and saying that it was less comfortable and
stupid that's my opinion if you like it that's uh you know that's that's up to
you but I didn't like it because I didn't like there being like a Little Rock in my shop in my shorts I prefer
there to be a a longer slab because then it's kind of like is more uniform it it
does indeed fit in your pocket it fits in my pocket when it's unfolded
so it'll fit in everyone's oh God so at the end of the day you know as as
beautiful as this device is as thin and light and uh you know nice to the touch
as it is in fact the matter is that this phone could have been more useful to
customers outside of China than it ended up being a battery is is another thing
that's not so great the cameras seem pretty good speakers are bad am I going
to buy it no Should you buy it I'm not here to tell you what to do does it fit
in your pocket absolutely should you subscribe to ShortCircuit
definitely subscribe to Tech hey if you like this video go watch my uh Samsung Z
flip 4 uh video where I which I referenced multiple times in this video
so just so you just so you know just you have that