1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,880 Now I don't usually start a video with a shout out to our sponsor, but if it wasn't for Dbrand, 2 00:00:04,880 --> 00:00:09,680 I would not even have my hands on the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design. 3 00:00:09,680 --> 00:00:17,280 This phone is so exclusive that these are going for about 9,000 US dollars on eBay right now. 4 00:00:17,280 --> 00:00:21,120 The hilarious part is they don't even make accessories for it. 5 00:00:21,120 --> 00:00:27,200 No cases, no skins, no nothing, because it's China exclusive and I'm pretty sure they don't 6 00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:30,960 let Dbrand's guys into China anymore after all that s*** they've pulled over the years. 7 00:00:31,840 --> 00:00:38,000 So we've got that in common. Anyway, without further ado, massive shout out Dbrand for getting this phone over to us, 8 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:43,120 however the hell it is you did that. Unlike a lot of our recent phone videos, there's no Labs testing or anything. 9 00:00:43,120 --> 00:00:48,160 It arrived, we jumped through a bunch of freaking ridiculous hoops to set up a Huawei Cloud account 10 00:00:48,160 --> 00:00:52,240 and I jumped on set. I am so excited to see this thing. 11 00:00:52,240 --> 00:00:55,600 You will pay for this. That's my garage door. 12 00:00:55,600 --> 00:01:01,600 Why is my garage door open? That's a really weird and f***ed up thing to have in the packaging. 13 00:01:01,600 --> 00:01:07,360 Is this from Dbrand? Wow, it's freaking huge. 14 00:01:07,360 --> 00:01:12,560 I have looked at basically no media coverage of this thing because I wanted to experience it in person. 15 00:01:12,560 --> 00:01:18,400 It's got about the same crease as I would have expected on like a first generation folding device, 16 00:01:18,400 --> 00:01:22,320 but what jumps out to me is the astonishing thinness. 17 00:01:22,320 --> 00:01:25,360 I'm daily driving an iPhone 16 Plus right now. 18 00:01:25,360 --> 00:01:29,680 This is the thickness of the iPhone in comparison. It's on a whole other level. 19 00:01:30,720 --> 00:01:40,000 I am loving the design too. Huawei has gone from being just like a copycat brand to this looking absolutely incredible. 20 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:44,240 Dude, it's basically as thin as it could possibly be and still have a SIM tray. 21 00:01:44,240 --> 00:01:50,000 I've seen concept devices for like a tri-fold, for example, in the Samsung booth at CES. 22 00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:54,000 The difference is that even their concept devices weren't this thin. 23 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:57,440 That is not an IR emitter. Shut up. 24 00:01:57,440 --> 00:02:01,680 It has an IR emitter? This is a device that I look at and I go, 25 00:02:01,680 --> 00:02:05,280 yeah, they couldn't have fit a headphone jack in here. Not this one. 26 00:02:05,280 --> 00:02:10,880 On the right, volume rocker. What appears to be a fingerprint sensing lock button. 27 00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:14,400 USB-C port. Look at this. 28 00:02:14,400 --> 00:02:22,000 Can you even see the edges of it? How is there room in this thickness at the edge of this port for the entire display stack? 29 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:26,720 Is this leather? It can't be. It can't be real leather. It's got to be a faux leather, but it feels really good. 30 00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:31,360 Oh, oh, oh, oh, it's folded. Oh, dang, that is so cool. 31 00:02:32,320 --> 00:02:35,360 Oh, buddy. And there, yeah, that's cool. 32 00:02:35,360 --> 00:02:39,280 It's like a folded metal. Oh, oh, oh, what else is in the box? 33 00:02:39,280 --> 00:02:42,880 Oh, important reminder. Thank you, Andy. Right, I forgot Andy's my cameraman today. 34 00:02:42,880 --> 00:02:46,480 Oh, this buddy ain't waterproof. I'll tell you that much. 35 00:02:46,480 --> 00:02:50,080 Don't go where it's cold. Don't touch it with anything sharp. Don't touch it at all. 36 00:02:50,800 --> 00:02:54,880 Don't fold it if it's under five degrees. Oh, minus five. 37 00:02:54,880 --> 00:02:57,440 I can see why they didn't bring it to the Canadian market. 38 00:02:58,720 --> 00:03:03,440 This is the kind of thing that feels like they built a concept car. 39 00:03:03,440 --> 00:03:06,800 And then they were just like, you know what? F*** it. 40 00:03:06,800 --> 00:03:13,760 We'll make a handful of them, you know? Like it reminds me of that Sony OLED from 2008. 41 00:03:13,760 --> 00:03:17,360 They were just like, yeah, this thing makes absolutely no sense at this price and size. 42 00:03:17,920 --> 00:03:21,600 We're going to do it anyway. Oh, it comes with Huawei earphones. 43 00:03:21,600 --> 00:03:25,040 Now I know that these are a thing. That's good. Shut up. 44 00:03:25,040 --> 00:03:28,400 88 watt charging on this thing? There's no way. 45 00:03:28,400 --> 00:03:32,560 Yeah, okay. This is an 88 watt. Wait, why does it come with a car charger? 46 00:03:32,560 --> 00:03:37,600 Does it come with a regular? Oh, dude. This thing is the whole package. 47 00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:42,000 Regular charger, 66 watts, two cables. 48 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:45,600 Oh, it comes with a case. That's great. This is carbon fiber. 49 00:03:45,600 --> 00:03:50,640 Oh my God, I think this is real carbon fiber. The reason I think it's real is A, it looks real. 50 00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:55,680 And B, they know there isn't going to be a single accessory on the market for this. 51 00:03:55,680 --> 00:04:00,880 So whatever comes on the box, that's the only possible case that anybody can get for it, 52 00:04:00,880 --> 00:04:04,720 which means if you have the kind of money to afford a phone like this, it better be a good one. 53 00:04:04,720 --> 00:04:08,320 How much does this cost in China? It's not even that much. 54 00:04:08,320 --> 00:04:12,640 Like to be clear, $2,800 is a freaking ton for a phone. 55 00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:20,000 But you'd spend almost that much on a top tier iPhone, especially if you pay for Apple care, which this includes similar service to. 56 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:24,000 It includes four replacements of the screen protector in the first two years 57 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:29,520 and a full out broken screen. So it's not beyond the realm of what people are spending on phones. 58 00:04:29,520 --> 00:04:35,520 It's just that that's for 16 gigs of RAM and only 256 gigs of storage. 59 00:04:35,520 --> 00:04:39,280 I don't even know how they put an hands chip in here, let alone 250. 60 00:04:39,280 --> 00:04:47,680 You can get it with up to a terabyte of storage, but that's going to cost you $3,400, $10.2 inch display. 61 00:04:47,680 --> 00:04:52,000 Absolute freaking game changer for on the go entertainment. 62 00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:57,040 3k resolution, 92% screen to body ratio. 63 00:04:57,040 --> 00:05:05,040 I believe it. Look how tiny these bezels are. It's like a Samsung Galaxy Fold plus a third phone. 64 00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:08,720 This thing's crazy, like pretty good anti-glare treatment. 65 00:05:08,720 --> 00:05:13,360 It's not perfect, but like guys, that's a studio light. You know, oh, that's cool. 66 00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:17,440 It prompts you for the password down in the bottom right, because it knows how you're going to be holding it. 67 00:05:17,440 --> 00:05:21,040 Oh, you can tell it if you're right or left handed or if you're holding it. 68 00:05:21,040 --> 00:05:25,760 Shut up, shut up. Andy said if you're holding it with your left hand, no way. 69 00:05:26,800 --> 00:05:32,800 Oh, they did the work, man. I've been using a fold since the first generation Samsung Galaxy Fold. 70 00:05:32,800 --> 00:05:38,560 Okay. And with those early ones, you could really tell like it was basically stock Android, 71 00:05:38,560 --> 00:05:43,040 but like with some tablet tweaks and, you know, they didn't really have it all figured out. 72 00:05:43,040 --> 00:05:47,040 Dude, it moves where the pin prompt is depending where you swipe. 73 00:05:47,040 --> 00:05:52,960 That is freaking awesome. It's little touches like that, that make all the difference in the world with a device like this. 74 00:05:52,960 --> 00:05:55,520 It comes preloaded with a lot of garbage. 75 00:05:57,280 --> 00:06:00,480 That I know is pretty typical for Chinese devices. 76 00:06:00,480 --> 00:06:03,760 We've talked about three screens, two. 77 00:06:04,800 --> 00:06:09,440 Okay. How does it feel in the same? That is smooth. 78 00:06:09,440 --> 00:06:14,640 The way it transitions, you guys. Also, this is totally a high refresh rate display. 79 00:06:14,640 --> 00:06:20,000 What are the compromises people? 90 Hertz, which is good enough. 80 00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:23,600 Obviously, a 120, 144 is better or whatever your extreme gamer. 81 00:06:23,600 --> 00:06:28,160 But if you're an extreme gamer, you're not buying this phone. Now that I finally got it folded down the whole way. 82 00:06:28,800 --> 00:06:33,600 Dude, it's not even thicker than a buy fold from Samsung. 83 00:06:34,480 --> 00:06:38,000 And it's a tri-fold. Wow. 84 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:41,680 Yeah, it's thicker than a traditional candy bar phone. 85 00:06:41,680 --> 00:06:47,440 But it's not totally unreasonable either. Like again, as someone who used a fold for a long time, 86 00:06:47,440 --> 00:06:52,560 it feels pretty good in the hand. And not only that, but this is such a usable form factor, man. 87 00:06:52,560 --> 00:06:56,080 Do you remember how small the front screen was on the first Galaxy Fold? 88 00:06:56,080 --> 00:07:00,080 Like it's tiny. I made that work. This would be basically no compromises. 89 00:07:00,080 --> 00:07:02,560 No, no, I would go like this. Boom, fold. 90 00:07:03,440 --> 00:07:06,800 Boom, I got some movies to watch. I want this thing so bad. 91 00:07:07,440 --> 00:07:10,560 Like so bad. Does it even work on Canadian bands? 92 00:07:10,560 --> 00:07:17,520 Come on, Huawei. It's not like we jailed your executive and kicked all your infrastructure 93 00:07:17,520 --> 00:07:21,280 out of our country or anything. I'm going to try it. I'm putting my sim in it, boys. 94 00:07:21,280 --> 00:07:24,080 You can uninstall their garbage. I can uninstall Huawei Wallet. 95 00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:29,040 Maybe a blah, blah, blah. Yeah, sure. See you later. Okay, cool. So I don't have to keep any of that stuff. 96 00:07:29,040 --> 00:07:32,320 In single window view, you could swipe up and down to either side to scroll. 97 00:07:33,120 --> 00:07:38,640 Oh, that's a nice usability tweak. 98 00:07:38,640 --> 00:07:43,280 Dude, this is crazy. It's so thin. It's so light. 99 00:07:43,280 --> 00:07:48,320 Let's talk about specs. Got a Kyron 9010 7-manometer chip in here. 100 00:07:50,400 --> 00:07:55,680 10.2, 7.9, or 6.4-inch display. 101 00:07:55,680 --> 00:08:00,240 No particular peak brightness rating, though. Hey, you've got the Play Store and everything. 102 00:08:00,240 --> 00:08:03,360 Wait, what the hell's in Aurora Store? No Google Play Services. 103 00:08:03,360 --> 00:08:08,800 You can't even force it? Dang it! So wait, what am I supposed to watch on here, then? 104 00:08:08,800 --> 00:08:14,000 We did find one source that says 1,500 nits. We found another source that said 1,000 nits. 105 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:18,720 Either way, it's pretty flipping bright. This is not like your first generation folding displays, 106 00:08:18,720 --> 00:08:23,920 where they're super dim and basically unusable outside. Looks a little yellow. 107 00:08:23,920 --> 00:08:29,360 It's got a bit of a red cast compared to the iPhone, but in terms of the brightness and SDR content, 108 00:08:30,160 --> 00:08:33,840 I do not see any disadvantage here. I will say this, though. 109 00:08:33,840 --> 00:08:38,560 The color accuracy is probably good enough for just about anybody who's not doing 110 00:08:38,560 --> 00:08:42,160 color-critical work on their phone. And can your iPhone do this? 111 00:08:42,160 --> 00:08:45,440 Holy crap. No, your iPhone can't do that. 112 00:08:45,440 --> 00:08:50,720 It looks like even when they're powering the whole display, the overall brightness is close. 113 00:08:50,720 --> 00:08:54,160 It might be a little bit less bright. 114 00:08:54,160 --> 00:08:58,240 Oh man, the auto-rotate, it's off. Like, it's 90 degrees off. 115 00:08:59,520 --> 00:09:02,560 Oh, it doesn't know what mode I'm in. 116 00:09:02,560 --> 00:09:07,200 Oh, that's a downer and a half. 117 00:09:07,200 --> 00:09:11,280 You can see it's working fine in bi-fold mode, but then I switch over to tri-fold. 118 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:16,160 Herpader, herpader, herpader. 119 00:09:16,160 --> 00:09:19,920 The lock button's like right there. You're going to accidentally mash that constantly, 120 00:09:19,920 --> 00:09:23,280 but this is like caveman technology by comparison. 121 00:09:23,280 --> 00:09:27,280 This is awesome. You got to put all your apps in like a little like 122 00:09:27,280 --> 00:09:31,280 shuffly thing like a peasant. Dude, don't you even have a bigger screen, Apple? 123 00:09:31,280 --> 00:09:35,680 Oh, oh, I want to try the camera though. It has a variable aperture camera? 124 00:09:36,320 --> 00:09:40,080 How the crap did they pull that off? Oh, oh, no way. 125 00:09:40,080 --> 00:09:43,760 You can go all the way from f1.4 to f4. 126 00:09:43,760 --> 00:09:48,160 Basically, that affects how wide the hole is through which the camera's shooting, 127 00:09:48,160 --> 00:09:51,440 which affects the depth of field and affects how much light gets in. 128 00:09:51,440 --> 00:09:58,240 So if I want to open it up all the way, I can get real bokeh, like not fake AI bokeh, 129 00:09:58,240 --> 00:10:02,240 like real bokeh on my shot. That is super cool. 130 00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:06,080 I can close it all the way and I can make sure that basically everything 131 00:10:06,080 --> 00:10:10,240 in my shot is in focus. Okay, let's go back to, let's go back to auto mode though. 132 00:10:10,240 --> 00:10:14,640 Not the best I've seen. Not terrible. Pretty sharp actually. 133 00:10:14,640 --> 00:10:20,480 50 megapixels. Yeah, you can count every one of them. You can actually read the brand of our tripod on the Huawei. 134 00:10:21,040 --> 00:10:24,000 Can barely make it out on the iPhone. Pretty wild, hey? 135 00:10:26,800 --> 00:10:29,040 Man, look at that. Look at it like stretch out. 136 00:10:30,560 --> 00:10:33,440 That is so cool. Dude, I want one of these so bad. 137 00:10:36,640 --> 00:10:38,960 Wow, that's a big sound, boys. 138 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:42,880 One speaker here, one speaker here. 139 00:10:46,240 --> 00:10:50,960 They're pretty muddy. But given the space constraints, I'm still very impressed. 140 00:10:51,040 --> 00:10:54,960 I'm also impressed by how little the folds are bothering me. 141 00:10:54,960 --> 00:10:59,840 Once I've actually got content on the screen, you can see as I move it around and catch the light, 142 00:10:59,840 --> 00:11:04,960 you'll catch a glimpse of them once in a while, especially when it's directly reflected towards your eyes. 143 00:11:04,960 --> 00:11:09,360 But overall, pretty good at most of the angles that you would actually care about. 144 00:11:09,360 --> 00:11:14,880 Even though it does have an older processor in it, it's got a 5600 milliamp hour battery in here. 145 00:11:14,880 --> 00:11:18,080 That'll help a lot. You'll probably get a day out of it. All right, let's put on the case. 146 00:11:18,080 --> 00:11:24,160 This little flappy guard thing kind of gets in the way when you go from bifold to trifold. 147 00:11:24,160 --> 00:11:28,160 But apparently it's there because people were concerned about the unprotected screen here. 148 00:11:28,160 --> 00:11:31,600 And like this way, it's right there when you're holding it. So I guess that's something. 149 00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:34,720 Oh yeah, I was going to try out the stand. Oh yeah, that could work. There we go. 150 00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:37,840 Okay. Oh yeah, oh yeah. 151 00:11:37,840 --> 00:11:40,480 Okay, she's stable. She's stable, she's stabilized. 152 00:11:43,680 --> 00:11:48,320 Oh yeah, there we go. No problem, bud. I mean, look, you laugh, laugh all you want. 153 00:11:48,320 --> 00:11:51,680 But this was an engineering challenge that someone at Huawei had to solve. 154 00:11:51,680 --> 00:11:54,480 And they did a pretty, pretty okay job. 155 00:11:56,560 --> 00:11:58,960 Oh, not bad, not bad. 156 00:12:00,480 --> 00:12:05,040 Nope. A little inconsistent. 157 00:12:05,040 --> 00:12:08,560 Oh, it'll be better without the case, I think. 158 00:12:08,560 --> 00:12:13,360 So much better. Nope, it failed. I think it comes down to when I enrolled it, 159 00:12:13,360 --> 00:12:16,960 it was kind of wonky because I had the case on. I would definitely recommend 160 00:12:16,960 --> 00:12:23,200 enrolling with the case not on. I want one so bad, but there are multiple deal breakers here. 161 00:12:23,200 --> 00:12:27,360 Even if it did support North American bands, which did may vary well. 162 00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:30,640 There's no Google services on here, which doesn't mean, oh yeah, 163 00:12:30,640 --> 00:12:35,040 well just go get the Play Store and add Google service. No, they won't run on it. 164 00:12:35,040 --> 00:12:39,360 Not unless you like, I don't know, root it somehow, but then you're going to lose a lot of the optimizations 165 00:12:39,360 --> 00:12:42,800 that Huawei has made to Harmony OS. You literally cannot put the Play Store on here 166 00:12:42,800 --> 00:12:46,160 and you can't run Google apps like Google Maps, for example. 167 00:12:46,160 --> 00:12:49,440 Wait, Google Maps works? Ah, I see. 168 00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:54,880 The rotation bug? Pretty brutal. And even though we have it set to English right now, 169 00:12:54,880 --> 00:12:58,080 there are many aspects of the device that remain Chinese only. 170 00:12:58,080 --> 00:13:02,000 There's no IP rating, so you drop this thing in the drink. 171 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:06,400 It is dead and setting up an account in Canada was extremely difficult 172 00:13:06,400 --> 00:13:09,920 because Huawei devices are banned in the country over security concerns. 173 00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:15,120 Finally, the SOC and camera. Well, actually I thought the camera seemed pretty solid, 174 00:13:15,120 --> 00:13:20,720 but the SOC is very last gen, estimated to be about on par with a Snapdragon 888, 175 00:13:20,720 --> 00:13:23,680 which came out in 2020. I really want one though. 176 00:13:24,480 --> 00:13:29,120 And I want you to subscribe to ShortCircuit. Thanks again to Dbrand for making it possible 177 00:13:29,120 --> 00:13:36,160 for us to get our hands on this thing. I was not expecting it to blow my mind this effectively.