Two Best Foldable Phones of 2020: Huawei Mate XS and Samsung Galaxy ZFlip – Which Is Right For

Flip phones seem to have made a comeback in 2020. We have here today 2 impressive flip phones, the Huawei Mate Xs and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip. Which phone should you get? Let’s take a look.

The Mate Xs looks like a standard smartphone with a 6″ OLED display. When you open it up, it’s 8 inches, very thin and sleek.

There are 2 batteries in there, so it is a weighty phone weighing at about 300 grams, but it feels very premium. One of Bobby’s personal favourite phones that Huawei has released in years. When you open and close the display, there is a bit of a cracking sound. It has a bit to do with the material of the plastic, but don’t worry, it’s not broken. In terms of battery life, 4,500mAh. It charges quickly, about an hour and you will get it fully charged. However, there is no option to wirelessly charge the phone.

All the circuitry is located at the bar of the phone. There are 2 speakers, one at the top and one at the bottom. They are not the loudest speakers, but they do the job just fine. There is also the Huawei Freebuds earbuds that you can use with the phone. There is no headphone jack, so you can only use either USB-C or Bluetooth earbuds.

It has an aluminium body frame and the display is plastic. The plastic display makes it more likely to get scratches on it than glass, but it does come with a screen protector which you can get replaced at any Huawei store if it is faulty.

The Galaxy Z Flip brings you back to the nineties. When fully unfolded, it reveals a gorgeous 6.7” FHD+ AMOLED display that uses what Samsung calls its Ultra-Thin Glass. It comes in 3 colours, purple, black and gold. It has a battery capacity of 3,300mAh. The resolution of the display stands at 1080 x 2636 (FHD+), going at 425 pixels per inch. In it, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus processor. There is also cloud storage on this along with 256GB of internal storage and 8GB of RAM. On the back, the Z Flip has two 12 megapixel cameras with one being ultra-wide. It has a 10-megapixel camera at the front. The image quality is not bad although we feel that this is more of a lifestyle phone.

The thing about the Galaxy Z Flip though is that on the front of it, there’s a small display. Through the display, you get notifications, time and you can take selfies with it but that’s about it. The display is a bit too small in our opinion, Samsung says it is because of the engineering of the device but oh well.

The Mate Xs has a Kirin 990 5G processor. You have 512 GB of storage and 8GB RAM. For the display, it is 6.6″ folded and 8″ unfolded. The resolution is 2480 x 1148 folded and 2480 x 2200 unfolded, going at 414 pixels per inch.

Camera-wise, you get a 40-megapixel lens, 8-megapixel telephoto lens and a 16-megapixel ultra-wide lens. Video capabilities are really good but there is no image stabilization in the camera. The device is a heavy investment, costing about S$3000.

With the Samsung Z Flip, you can position the angle of the phone when open to your usability, making it convenient for vloggers. On the other hand, with the Mate Xs, you won’t be able to do that. But on the hindsight, you have the full power of 4 different cameras which is great for content creation.

Both of the phones have fingerprint readers at the side of it. Multi-tasking wise, the Galaxy Z Flip allows you to open various different windows. You can open 3 apps at once on the Mate Xs. However, the process for getting there is a bit cumbersome and only certain apps are able to be opened at once.

The Mate Xs does not come with Google services but there is a way to install them on the phone. Nevertheless, we tried the Mate Xs without the google services and it was already great. The apps from the Huawei App Gallery got you pretty well covered. Besides, you can always use apps like YouTube and Google Maps on the web instead.

Overall, both of these phones have really impressed us, being flexible displays. While the Huawei Mate Xs has better cameras compared to the Samsung Z Flip, the Samsung Z Flip will be a better option for flexibility and lifestyle.