Ever since the Galaxy Fold release date was pushed back, people have been asking about how that would affect the launch of the Huawei Mate X. Originally slated to arrive in June, the phone was quietly put on hiatus without much information on when it might eventually be released.
But, according to Richard Yu, the man behind Huawei’s mobile division, it could arrive as early as next month.
According to Yu the phone’s release was postponed for two reasons, the main one being that Huawei wanted to give app developers more time to redevelop their software for the Mate X’s wider screen. Apparently in the months since the phone was announced the situation is much better, though the company still wants to give the others a bit more time to get their work done.
Mhmm.
The second reason, which is more believable, was all about 5G. Because 5G is still rolling out across the world, Yu said Huawei needed to do more testing to ensure that they could guarantee the Mate X’s performance. Which, frankly, is a pretty good reason not to release a phone too quickly. If it sucks then you’re basically screwing with your own future release plans.
What wasn’t mentioned was Samsung, which has been making some tweaks to the Galaxy Fold after all the issues with the screen and dust. Obviously Samsung pushing the Fold’s release took a bit of pressure off Huawei to have their phone ready to compete, and word is there have been some changes made to the Mate X over the past few months. Sadly there’s been no official word on what those tweaks might be.
Yu also confirmed news we heard last month, that the Mate X would also likely get the new Kirin 990 chipset in the future. If a launch does happen next month as he predicts, that model will still be running the Kirin 980 as originally planned. If that’s the case, however, an upgraded 990-toting model may arrive afterwards. When? No idea, but in the future.
This wasn’t an official announcement, so things might change in the coming weeks, but we can probably expect to hear more at the launch of the Mate 30 on 19th September.
This post originally appeared on Gizmodo UK, which is gobbling up the news in a different timezone.