Huawei debuts Mate X2 folding phone, starting at eye-popping $2,785

AppleInsider

Huawei has announced the Mate X2, the third foldable device in the company's lineup and one that carries a completely new design compared to its predecessors -- and a hefty price to boot.

Credit: Huawei

Compared to its predecessor, the Mate X2 has been redesigned with a display that folds from the inside of the device, rather than the outside. Similar to Samsung's own Galaxy Fold series, the handset has a second smaller screen on the outside.

The Mate X2 measures eight inches when unfolded and sports a 2480x2200 resolutions. Its second display is a 6.45-inch screen with a 2700x1160 resolution. Both displays are OLED and have 90Hz refresh rates. It's powered by Huawei's own Kirin 9000 chipset, packs 8GB of RAM, and has a 4,400 mAh battery that supports fast charging up to 55W.

As far as cameras, the device has a 50MP wide-angle, a 16MP ultrawide, a 12MP telephoto with a 3x zoom, and an 8MP telephoto with a 10x optical zoom. There's a fifth 16MP selfie camera on the exterior.

Because it's a Huawei smartphone, the Mate X2 won't support Google apps or services. It runs EMUI 11.0 software based on Android, but could be updated to Huawei's proprietary HarmonyOS in April.

Huawei says the Mate X2 will retail with 256GB of internal storage for about 17,999 yuan (about $2,785) or 18,999 yuan (about $2,940) with 512GB of storage. It'll be available in China on Feb. 25 in blue, pink, black, and white.

The new device follows in the footsteps of Huawei's previous Mate X, which was released in 2019. In 2020, Huawei also released an incrementally updated Mate XS device with a faster processor and a more durable display.

As companies like Huawei and Samsung release foldable smartphones, Apple is said to be developing its own folding iPhone. It has filed numerous patent applications related to folding display technology, and reports suggest the company is testing prototype displays sourced from Samsung and LG.

georgebmac

So?  This high end smart phone is designed to run Harmony OS rather than Android?

If Google were smart, they would pressure the U.S. government to end these silly, useless sanctions immediately before any more alternative OS's enter the market to compete against their OS.   Google is an American company with an American product that is being punished by these silly, worthless sanctions that accomplish nothing and benefit nobody.

Huawei was happy to support this U.S. company and its product.   It is we who forced them to abandon American products and develop their own.

And, the same is going on in the world of chips:   while the auto market is hobbled by a shortage of chips, the Chinese have been forced to develop their own to compete against American backed products.   They didn't want to have to do that.  But we forced them to compete against us.

Hopefully both countries can soon return to mutually beneficial sanity.

muthuk_vanalingam

GeorgeBMac said:

So?  This high end smart phone is designed to run Harmony OS rather than Android?

If Google were smart, they would pressure the U.S. government to end these silly, useless sanctions immediately before any more alternative OS's enter the market to compete against their OS.   Google is an American company with an American product that is being punished by these silly, worthless sanctions that accomplish nothing and benefit nobody.

Huawei was happy to support this U.S. company and its product.   It is we who forced them to abandon American products and develop their own.

And, the same is going on in the world of chips:   while the auto market is hobbled by a shortage of chips, the Chinese have been forced to develop their own to compete against American backed products.   They didn't want to have to do that.  But we forced them to compete against us.

Hopefully both countries can soon return to mutually beneficial sanity.

Agreed completely with you on this. Except for the OS part, because it still runs a flavor of Android, i.e. EMUI without Google's play store and core services, not Harmony OS. It is quite possible that Huawei may not show any interest in using Google's play store/core services anymore and are in a position to push their own app store/core services going forward. Based on the reviews that I have read in GSMArena, Huawei's Android (with EMUI skin) phones without Google play store/core services have progressed from "unusable" at the beginning (2 years ago) to "very difficult to use with many compromises" about 1 year ago to "usable with limitations" now. The progress is significant and they may not look back (at incorporating Goolgle's play store/core services) at all. Not sure about their plan to move away from EMUI to Harmony OS though.

strangedays

It's parody at this point. This isn't a product, it's a prototype.

muthuk_vanalingam

StrangeDays said:

It's parody at this point. This isn't a product, it's a prototype.

Any links to substantiate your claim?

georgebmac

muthuk_vanalingam said:

GeorgeBMac said:

So?  This high end smart phone is designed to run Harmony OS rather than Android?

If Google were smart, they would pressure the U.S. government to end these silly, useless sanctions immediately before any more alternative OS's enter the market to compete against their OS.   Google is an American company with an American product that is being punished by these silly, worthless sanctions that accomplish nothing and benefit nobody.

Huawei was happy to support this U.S. company and its product.   It is we who forced them to abandon American products and develop their own.

And, the same is going on in the world of chips:   while the auto market is hobbled by a shortage of chips, the Chinese have been forced to develop their own to compete against American backed products.   They didn't want to have to do that.  But we forced them to compete against us.

Hopefully both countries can soon return to mutually beneficial sanity.

Agreed completely with you on this. Except for the OS part, because it still runs a flavor of Android, i.e. EMUI without Google's play store and core services, not Harmony OS. It is quite possible that Huawei may not show any interest in using Google's play store/core services anymore and are in a position to push their own app store/core services going forward. Based on the reviews that I have read in GSMArena, Huawei's Android (with EMUI skin) phones without Google play store/core services have progressed from "unusable" at the beginning (2 years ago) to "very difficult to use with many compromises" about 1 year ago to "usable with limitations" now. The progress is significant and they may not look back (at incorporating Goolgle's play store/core services) at all. Not sure about their plan to move away from EMUI to Harmony OS though.

I'm not sure how many people would want to buy a premium phone with a junk OS.

They are moving to Harmony for a reason.  Hopefully, that reason is taken away before that happens.  It benefits no one for them to compete with American products -- which they are obviously capable of doing.

I suspect they are simply warning the U.S. government where this can and will go if they don't make corrections.

Google needs to speak up soon to protect their product and their company.  But, if they do, heads in the echo chamber will be exploding.  So, I suspect this is being handled behind the scenes.

tmay

FFS

Huawei is just trying to use its remaining stock of Kirin 9000 to generate the most revenue, since TMSC fabbed a limited number, something on the order of 8 million SOC's, before the trade ban went into effect. HiSilicon is a fabless chip designer, depending on U.S. design tools, and TMSC, and without those Western technologies, is DOA.

GeorgeBMac said:

muthuk_vanalingam said:

GeorgeBMac said:

So?  This high end smart phone is designed to run Harmony OS rather than Android?

If Google were smart, they would pressure the U.S. government to end these silly, useless sanctions immediately before any more alternative OS's enter the market to compete against their OS.   Google is an American company with an American product that is being punished by these silly, worthless sanctions that accomplish nothing and benefit nobody.

Huawei was happy to support this U.S. company and its product.   It is we who forced them to abandon American products and develop their own.

And, the same is going on in the world of chips:   while the auto market is hobbled by a shortage of chips, the Chinese have been forced to develop their own to compete against American backed products.   They didn't want to have to do that.  But we forced them to compete against us.

Hopefully both countries can soon return to mutually beneficial sanity.

Agreed completely with you on this. Except for the OS part, because it still runs a flavor of Android, i.e. EMUI without Google's play store and core services, not Harmony OS. It is quite possible that Huawei may not show any interest in using Google's play store/core services anymore and are in a position to push their own app store/core services going forward. Based on the reviews that I have read in GSMArena, Huawei's Android (with EMUI skin) phones without Google play store/core services have progressed from "unusable" at the beginning (2 years ago) to "very difficult to use with many compromises" about 1 year ago to "usable with limitations" now. The progress is significant and they may not look back (at incorporating Goolgle's play store/core services) at all. Not sure about their plan to move away from EMUI to Harmony OS though.

I'm not sure how many people would want to buy a premium phone with a junk OS.

They are moving to Harmony for a reason.  Hopefully, that reason is taken away before that happens.  It benefits no one for them to compete with American products -- which they are obviously capable of doing.

I suspect they are simply warning the U.S. government where this can and will go if they don't make https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/orrections.

Google needs to speak up soon to protect their product and their company.  But, if they do, heads in the echo chamber will be exploding.  So, I suspect this is being handled behind the scenes.

Harmony OS is nothing but a fork of Android OS;

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/


"To hear Huawei tell the story, HarmonyOS is an original in-house creation—a defiant act that will let the company break free of American software influence. Huawei's OS announcement in 2019 got big, splashy articles in the national media. CNN called HarmonyOS "a rival to Android," and Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, told the outlet that HarmonyOS "is completely different from Android and iOS." Huawei President of Consumer Software Wang Chenglu repeated these claims just last month, saying (through translation), "HarmonyOS is not a copy of Android, nor is it a copy of iOS."

Horseshit...

m68000

I don’t care what OS is on it,  no way i’m spending that much cash on a phone.  I think $1200 is plenty for an upper limit these days.  Even $800 is a good bit.

edited February 2021

avon b7

StrangeDays said:

It's parody at this point. This isn't a product, it's a prototype.

That is pure nonsense!

It's a third generation phone. The first two were very well received and haven't had durability issues AFAIK. 

Of course, it's still early days for folding technologies but considering the very first version was considered to be a very well developed phone by many reviewers (I suggest you read a few), this third generation model is anything but a 'parody' or 'prototype'. 

They are expensive and delicate. If you have the money to buy one, you will look after it. 

Delicate and durable aren't the same here.

Durability (the big question in my mind) seems to be very good so far and if something is delicate, you make more effort to look after it.

No doubt many who had the cash to get a first generation model will jump on this one or a Samsung folding phone. For those people the price isn't even a consideration.

The good news is that everything learned from these phones will eventually filter down to models in lower price brackets. 

I think folding phones are here to stay. And by 'folding' I mean every possible variant, including scrolling screens.

Outward, inward, flip up and tri-panel models will all probably find their markets. 

georgebmac

tmay said:

FFS

Huawei is just trying to use its remaining stock of Kirin 9000 to generate the most revenue, since TMSC fabbed a limited number, something on the order of 8 million SOC's, before the trade ban went into effect. HiSilicon is a fabless chip designer, depending on U.S. design tools, and TMSC, and without those Western technologies, is DOA.

GeorgeBMac said:

muthuk_vanalingam said:

GeorgeBMac said:

So?  This high end smart phone is designed to run Harmony OS rather than Android?

If Google were smart, they would pressure the U.S. government to end these silly, useless sanctions immediately before any more alternative OS's enter the market to compete against their OS.   Google is an American company with an American product that is being punished by these silly, worthless sanctions that accomplish nothing and benefit nobody.

Huawei was happy to support this U.S. company and its product.   It is we who forced them to abandon American products and develop their own.

And, the same is going on in the world of chips:   while the auto market is hobbled by a shortage of chips, the Chinese have been forced to develop their own to compete against American backed products.   They didn't want to have to do that.  But we forced them to compete against us.

Hopefully both countries can soon return to mutually beneficial sanity.

Agreed completely with you on this. Except for the OS part, because it still runs a flavor of Android, i.e. EMUI without Google's play store and core services, not Harmony OS. It is quite possible that Huawei may not show any interest in using Google's play store/core services anymore and are in a position to push their own app store/core services going forward. Based on the reviews that I have read in GSMArena, Huawei's Android (with EMUI skin) phones without Google play store/core services have progressed from "unusable" at the beginning (2 years ago) to "very difficult to use with many compromises" about 1 year ago to "usable with limitations" now. The progress is significant and they may not look back (at incorporating Goolgle's play store/core services) at all. Not sure about their plan to move away from EMUI to Harmony OS though.

I'm not sure how many people would want to buy a premium phone with a junk OS.

They are moving to Harmony for a reason.  Hopefully, that reason is taken away before that happens.  It benefits no one for them to compete with American products -- which they are obviously capable of doing.

I suspect they are simply warning the U.S. government where this can and will go if they don't make https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/orrections.

Google needs to speak up soon to protect their product and their company.  But, if they do, heads in the echo chamber will be exploding.  So, I suspect this is being handled behind the scenes.

Harmony OS is nothing but a fork of Android OS;

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/


"To hear Huawei tell the story, HarmonyOS is an original in-house creation—a defiant act that will let the company break free of American software influence. Huawei's OS announcement in 2019 got big, splashy articles in the national media. CNN called HarmonyOS "a rival to Android," and Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, told the outlet that HarmonyOS "is completely different from Android and iOS." Huawei President of Consumer Software Wang Chenglu repeated these claims just last month, saying (through translation), "HarmonyOS is not a copy of Android, nor is it a copy of iOS."

Horseshit...

It wasn't to "break free of American software influence".

It was the necessary end result of a misguided America shutting off access to one of its premier products.

And, posting an editorial doesn't change anything.

georgebmac

M68000 said:

I don’t care what OS is on it,  no way i’m spending that much cash on a phone.  I think $1200 is plenty for an upper limit these days.  Even $800 is a good bit.

But if it could replace both your $1,000 phone AND your $1,000 iPad?

It's a new product category so it's likely that its price will come down while its functionality goes up.

But, we have yet to see where this goes.   At the very least the category (if not this model) will fill a niche market.

muthuk_vanalingam

GeorgeBMac said:

M68000 said:

I don’t care what OS is on it,  no way i’m spending that much cash on a phone.  I think $1200 is plenty for an upper limit these days.  Even $800 is a good bit.

But if it could replace both your $1,000 phone AND your $1,000 iPad?

It's a new product category so it's likely that its price will come down while its functionality goes up.

But, we have yet to see where this goes.   At the very least the category (if not this model) will fill a niche market.

The category will be a niche only until the product matures and prices come down. After 3-4 years, they could become mainstream so long as reliability reaches a good-enough level for the masses and prices come down. Guess what - Apple could be leading this category couple of years down the line.

tmay

GeorgeBMac said:

tmay said:

FFS

Huawei is just trying to use its remaining stock of Kirin 9000 to generate the most revenue, since TMSC fabbed a limited number, something on the order of 8 million SOC's, before the trade ban went into effect. HiSilicon is a fabless chip designer, depending on U.S. design tools, and TMSC, and without those Western technologies, is DOA.

GeorgeBMac said:

muthuk_vanalingam said:

GeorgeBMac said:

So?  This high end smart phone is designed to run Harmony OS rather than Android?

If Google were smart, they would pressure the U.S. government to end these silly, useless sanctions immediately before any more alternative OS's enter the market to compete against their OS.   Google is an American company with an American product that is being punished by these silly, worthless sanctions that accomplish nothing and benefit nobody.

Huawei was happy to support this U.S. company and its product.   It is we who forced them to abandon American products and develop their own.

And, the same is going on in the world of chips:   while the auto market is hobbled by a shortage of chips, the Chinese have been forced to develop their own to compete against American backed products.   They didn't want to have to do that.  But we forced them to compete against us.

Hopefully both countries can soon return to mutually beneficial sanity.

Agreed completely with you on this. Except for the OS part, because it still runs a flavor of Android, i.e. EMUI without Google's play store and core services, not Harmony OS. It is quite possible that Huawei may not show any interest in using Google's play store/core services anymore and are in a position to push their own app store/core services going forward. Based on the reviews that I have read in GSMArena, Huawei's Android (with EMUI skin) phones without Google play store/core services have progressed from "unusable" at the beginning (2 years ago) to "very difficult to use with many compromises" about 1 year ago to "usable with limitations" now. The progress is significant and they may not look back (at incorporating Goolgle's play store/core services) at all. Not sure about their plan to move away from EMUI to Harmony OS though.

I'm not sure how many people would want to buy a premium phone with a junk OS.

They are moving to Harmony for a reason.  Hopefully, that reason is taken away before that happens.  It benefits no one for them to compete with American products -- which they are obviously capable of doing.

I suspect they are simply warning the U.S. government where this can and will go if they don't make https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/orrections.

Google needs to speak up soon to protect their product and their company.  But, if they do, heads in the echo chamber will be exploding.  So, I suspect this is being handled behind the scenes.

Harmony OS is nothing but a fork of Android OS;

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/


"To hear Huawei tell the story, HarmonyOS is an original in-house creation—a defiant act that will let the company break free of American software influence. Huawei's OS announcement in 2019 got big, splashy articles in the national media. CNN called HarmonyOS "a rival to Android," and Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, told the outlet that HarmonyOS "is completely different from Android and iOS." Huawei President of Consumer Software Wang Chenglu repeated these claims just last month, saying (through translation), "HarmonyOS is not a copy of Android, nor is it a copy of iOS."

Horseshit...

It wasn't to "break free of American software influence".

It was the necessary end result of a misguided America shutting off access to one of its premier products.

And, posting an editorial doesn't change anything.

That would be true, had Huawei not been actually working on Harmony OS before the trade sanctions occurred, but there's also the obvious point that Harmony OS is just Android OS, not a new OS at all. Nonetheless, I doubt Harmony OS will take off in any Western markets, so, who cares.

georgebmac

tmay said:

GeorgeBMac said:

tmay said:

FFS

Huawei is just trying to use its remaining stock of Kirin 9000 to generate the most revenue, since TMSC fabbed a limited number, something on the order of 8 million SOC's, before the trade ban went into effect. HiSilicon is a fabless chip designer, depending on U.S. design tools, and TMSC, and without those Western technologies, is DOA.

GeorgeBMac said:

muthuk_vanalingam said:

GeorgeBMac said:

So?  This high end smart phone is designed to run Harmony OS rather than Android?

If Google were smart, they would pressure the U.S. government to end these silly, useless sanctions immediately before any more alternative OS's enter the market to compete against their OS.   Google is an American company with an American product that is being punished by these silly, worthless sanctions that accomplish nothing and benefit nobody.

Huawei was happy to support this U.S. company and its product.   It is we who forced them to abandon American products and develop their own.

And, the same is going on in the world of chips:   while the auto market is hobbled by a shortage of chips, the Chinese have been forced to develop their own to compete against American backed products.   They didn't want to have to do that.  But we forced them to compete against us.

Hopefully both countries can soon return to mutually beneficial sanity.

Agreed completely with you on this. Except for the OS part, because it still runs a flavor of Android, i.e. EMUI without Google's play store and core services, not Harmony OS. It is quite possible that Huawei may not show any interest in using Google's play store/core services anymore and are in a position to push their own app store/core services going forward. Based on the reviews that I have read in GSMArena, Huawei's Android (with EMUI skin) phones without Google play store/core services have progressed from "unusable" at the beginning (2 years ago) to "very difficult to use with many compromises" about 1 year ago to "usable with limitations" now. The progress is significant and they may not look back (at incorporating Goolgle's play store/core services) at all. Not sure about their plan to move away from EMUI to Harmony OS though.

I'm not sure how many people would want to buy a premium phone with a junk OS.

They are moving to Harmony for a reason.  Hopefully, that reason is taken away before that happens.  It benefits no one for them to compete with American products -- which they are obviously capable of doing.

I suspect they are simply warning the U.S. government where this can and will go if they don't make https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/orrections.

Google needs to speak up soon to protect their product and their company.  But, if they do, heads in the echo chamber will be exploding.  So, I suspect this is being handled behind the scenes.

Harmony OS is nothing but a fork of Android OS;

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/


"To hear Huawei tell the story, HarmonyOS is an original in-house creation—a defiant act that will let the company break free of American software influence. Huawei's OS announcement in 2019 got big, splashy articles in the national media. CNN called HarmonyOS "a rival to Android," and Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, told the outlet that HarmonyOS "is completely different from Android and iOS." Huawei President of Consumer Software Wang Chenglu repeated these claims just last month, saying (through translation), "HarmonyOS is not a copy of Android, nor is it a copy of iOS."

Horseshit...

It wasn't to "break free of American software influence".

It was the necessary end result of a misguided America shutting off access to one of its premier products.

And, posting an editorial doesn't change anything.

That would be true, had Huawei not been actually working on Harmony OS before the trade sanctions occurred, but there's also the obvious point that Harmony OS is just Android OS, not a new OS at all. Nonetheless, I doubt Harmony OS will take off in any Western markets, so, who cares.

You could make the same point that Android OS "is just iOS".   But claiming something doesn't make it fact -- unless you're on a propaganda site.

And, hopefully Harmony never does displace an OS from a western company.   Perhaps we should not be forcing them into it with misguided sanctions?

kiltedgreen

avon b7 said:

They are expensive and delicate. If you have the money to buy one, you will look after it.

😆 😆

I consider the cost of an iPhone, even the cheapest iPhone to be an expensive piece of kit, yet people drop them, throw them, smash the screens and who knows what else. I’ve owned various Apple touch screen devices continuously since the iPod 2nd generation and none of them have ever been in a case. Not one of them, since that first one, has even had a crack or chip in the screen. They are expensive and should be taken care of. Given how people trash their iPhones, even IN cases I don’t see why a nearly $3000 phone would be treated much different.

tmay

GeorgeBMac said:

tmay said:

GeorgeBMac said:

tmay said:

FFS

Huawei is just trying to use its remaining stock of Kirin 9000 to generate the most revenue, since TMSC fabbed a limited number, something on the order of 8 million SOC's, before the trade ban went into effect. HiSilicon is a fabless chip designer, depending on U.S. design tools, and TMSC, and without those Western technologies, is DOA.

GeorgeBMac said:

muthuk_vanalingam said:

GeorgeBMac said:

So?  This high end smart phone is designed to run Harmony OS rather than Android?

If Google were smart, they would pressure the U.S. government to end these silly, useless sanctions immediately before any more alternative OS's enter the market to compete against their OS.   Google is an American company with an American product that is being punished by these silly, worthless sanctions that accomplish nothing and benefit nobody.

Huawei was happy to support this U.S. company and its product.   It is we who forced them to abandon American products and develop their own.

And, the same is going on in the world of chips:   while the auto market is hobbled by a shortage of chips, the Chinese have been forced to develop their own to compete against American backed products.   They didn't want to have to do that.  But we forced them to compete against us.

Hopefully both countries can soon return to mutually beneficial sanity.

Agreed completely with you on this. Except for the OS part, because it still runs a flavor of Android, i.e. EMUI without Google's play store and core services, not Harmony OS. It is quite possible that Huawei may not show any interest in using Google's play store/core services anymore and are in a position to push their own app store/core services going forward. Based on the reviews that I have read in GSMArena, Huawei's Android (with EMUI skin) phones without Google play store/core services have progressed from "unusable" at the beginning (2 years ago) to "very difficult to use with many compromises" about 1 year ago to "usable with limitations" now. The progress is significant and they may not look back (at incorporating Goolgle's play store/core services) at all. Not sure about their plan to move away from EMUI to Harmony OS though.

I'm not sure how many people would want to buy a premium phone with a junk OS.

They are moving to Harmony for a reason.  Hopefully, that reason is taken away before that happens.  It benefits no one for them to compete with American products -- which they are obviously capable of doing.

I suspect they are simply warning the U.S. government where this can and will go if they don't make https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/orrections.

Google needs to speak up soon to protect their product and their company.  But, if they do, heads in the echo chamber will be exploding.  So, I suspect this is being handled behind the scenes.

Harmony OS is nothing but a fork of Android OS;

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/


"To hear Huawei tell the story, HarmonyOS is an original in-house creation—a defiant act that will let the company break free of American software influence. Huawei's OS announcement in 2019 got big, splashy articles in the national media. CNN called HarmonyOS "a rival to Android," and Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, told the outlet that HarmonyOS "is completely different from Android and iOS." Huawei President of Consumer Software Wang Chenglu repeated these claims just last month, saying (through translation), "HarmonyOS is not a copy of Android, nor is it a copy of iOS."

Horseshit...

It wasn't to "break free of American software influence".

It was the necessary end result of a misguided America shutting off access to one of its premier products.

And, posting an editorial doesn't change anything.

That would be true, had Huawei not been actually working on Harmony OS before the trade sanctions occurred, but there's also the obvious point that Harmony OS is just Android OS, not a new OS at all. Nonetheless, I doubt Harmony OS will take off in any Western markets, so, who cares.

You could make the same point that Android OS "is just iOS".   But claiming something doesn't make it fact -- unless you're on a propaganda site.

And, hopefully Harmony never does displace an OS from a western company.   Perhaps we should not be forcing them into it with misguided sanctions?

It's a fact that it is an Android Fork.

Read the linked article, and stop carrying water for China, and Chinese companies.

"No discernible difference between Huawei's "all-new" OS and Android."

edited February 2021

sflocal

The hypocrisy going on in the non-iPhone community is rancid.

Had Apple come out with an almost $3K "phone", the entire Twitterverse would be having a hissy-fit accusing Apple of being "greedy" and screwing customers.  

But no, it's not Apple so Huawei gets a free pass.  I suppose everyone has such low expectations of this "phone", that it will be forgotten about right after its release.

avon b7

tmay said:

FFS

Huawei is just trying to use its remaining stock of Kirin 9000 to generate the most revenue, since TMSC fabbed a limited number, something on the order of 8 million SOC's, before the trade ban went into effect. HiSilicon is a fabless chip designer, depending on U.S. design tools, and TMSC, and without those Western technologies, is DOA.

GeorgeBMac said:

muthuk_vanalingam said:

GeorgeBMac said:

So?  This high end smart phone is designed to run Harmony OS rather than Android?

If Google were smart, they would pressure the U.S. government to end these silly, useless sanctions immediately before any more alternative OS's enter the market to compete against their OS.   Google is an American company with an American product that is being punished by these silly, worthless sanctions that accomplish nothing and benefit nobody.

Huawei was happy to support this U.S. company and its product.   It is we who forced them to abandon American products and develop their own.

And, the same is going on in the world of chips:   while the auto market is hobbled by a shortage of chips, the Chinese have been forced to develop their own to compete against American backed products.   They didn't want to have to do that.  But we forced them to compete against us.

Hopefully both countries can soon return to mutually beneficial sanity.

Agreed completely with you on this. Except for the OS part, because it still runs a flavor of Android, i.e. EMUI without Google's play store and core services, not Harmony OS. It is quite possible that Huawei may not show any interest in using Google's play store/core services anymore and are in a position to push their own app store/core services going forward. Based on the reviews that I have read in GSMArena, Huawei's Android (with EMUI skin) phones without Google play store/core services have progressed from "unusable" at the beginning (2 years ago) to "very difficult to use with many compromises" about 1 year ago to "usable with limitations" now. The progress is significant and they may not look back (at incorporating Goolgle's play store/core services) at all. Not sure about their plan to move away from EMUI to Harmony OS though.

I'm not sure how many people would want to buy a premium phone with a junk OS.

They are moving to Harmony for a reason.  Hopefully, that reason is taken away before that happens.  It benefits no one for them to compete with American products -- which they are obviously capable of doing.

I suspect they are simply warning the U.S. government where this can and will go if they don't make https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/orrections.

Google needs to speak up soon to protect their product and their company.  But, if they do, heads in the echo chamber will be exploding.  So, I suspect this is being handled behind the scenes.

Harmony OS is nothing but a fork of Android OS;

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/


"To hear Huawei tell the story, HarmonyOS is an original in-house creation—a defiant act that will let the company break free of American software influence. Huawei's OS announcement in 2019 got big, splashy articles in the national media. CNN called HarmonyOS "a rival to Android," and Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, told the outlet that HarmonyOS "is completely different from Android and iOS." Huawei President of Consumer Software Wang Chenglu repeated these claims just last month, saying (through translation), "HarmonyOS is not a copy of Android, nor is it a copy of iOS."

Horseshit...

I participated in that thread and brought up questions that no one has been able to answer. 

Time will tell but calling HarmonyOS a fork of Android isn't really seeing the bigger picture IMO. 

I've actually seen the HDC presentation of HarmonyOS and based on that and the ARS article, there is A LOT that is still to be revealed/clarified. 

First off, the Android connection was known late last year. That was nothing new. 

What I can tell you is that Huawei stated there are over 14,000 APIs in HarmonyOS and over a 1,000 modules. As far as I can tell they are NOT Android APIs. Huawei even said it had more APIs than Android. 

HarmonyOS is also 'multi kernel' and has a kernel abstraction layer. I know of at least three kernels that can be used with the OS. Eventually it will use just one kernel. 

HarmonyOS has also achieved higher security certifications than Android. 

As for the development state of HarmonyOS there are also questions that need to be answered.

If you only base your opinion on the ARS article you would think it was in an embryonic state. However, one of the largest electrical appliance companies on the planet (Midea) announced HarmonyOS integration for a suite of products at the same HDC presentation last year.

https://www.gizmochina.com/2020/11/11/huawei-harmonyos-midea-smart-home-products/

It is shipping on cars and other companies have announced support for it too. HarmonyOS has been shipping on Huawei TVs, routers and as a kernel component of its LiteOS (watches) for over a year. 

I have no idea why ARS didn't download the beta IDE which is available.

Look and feel. HarmonyOS will initially run something like EMUI 11. That makes all the sense in the world but Huawei has already made it clear that the look and feel will change soon. 

Of course EMUI is more than a skin for Android. For example it home to a plethora of features including the Huawei AI runtime. 

Looking at all of this makes it look very different to Android even if there is a connection at the lowest level. 

Huawei says it wants to have HarmonyOS on up to 400 million devices this year and today said it hoped to have HarmonyOS on the Mate X2 by April. Could the ARS article have missed something? How could what they describe possibly deploy on a handset in two months? 

By now, you should at least be seeing that something in the ARS or Huawei take isn't matching up very well. 

Perhaps there are more questions than answers at this point, so time will tell. 

As for 'forks', we may be talking of 'fork' in the sense of iOS/MacOS and Darwin/BSD/Mach. Or maybe we won't.

Why not just wait and see? 

edited February 2021

avon b7

sflocal said:

The hypocrisy going on in the non-iPhone community is rancid.

Had Apple come out with an almost $3K "phone", the entire Twitterverse would be having a hissy-fit accusing Apple of being "greedy" and screwing customers.  

But no, it's not Apple so Huawei gets a free pass.  I suppose everyone has such low expectations of this "phone", that it will be forgotten about right after its release.

No hypocrisy. 

Android phones retailed for over $1,000 before Apple reached that price. In fact, double that price for even non-folding phones.

There was no free pass! These were (and are) cutting edge phones with the latest technologies. Of course, they don't come cheap. 

avon b7

tmay said:

GeorgeBMac said:

tmay said:

GeorgeBMac said:

tmay said:

FFS

Huawei is just trying to use its remaining stock of Kirin 9000 to generate the most revenue, since TMSC fabbed a limited number, something on the order of 8 million SOC's, before the trade ban went into effect. HiSilicon is a fabless chip designer, depending on U.S. design tools, and TMSC, and without those Western technologies, is DOA.

GeorgeBMac said:

muthuk_vanalingam said:

GeorgeBMac said:

So?  This high end smart phone is designed to run Harmony OS rather than Android?

If Google were smart, they would pressure the U.S. government to end these silly, useless sanctions immediately before any more alternative OS's enter the market to compete against their OS.   Google is an American company with an American product that is being punished by these silly, worthless sanctions that accomplish nothing and benefit nobody.

Huawei was happy to support this U.S. company and its product.   It is we who forced them to abandon American products and develop their own.

And, the same is going on in the world of chips:   while the auto market is hobbled by a shortage of chips, the Chinese have been forced to develop their own to compete against American backed products.   They didn't want to have to do that.  But we forced them to compete against us.

Hopefully both countries can soon return to mutually beneficial sanity.

Agreed completely with you on this. Except for the OS part, because it still runs a flavor of Android, i.e. EMUI without Google's play store and core services, not Harmony OS. It is quite possible that Huawei may not show any interest in using Google's play store/core services anymore and are in a position to push their own app store/core services going forward. Based on the reviews that I have read in GSMArena, Huawei's Android (with EMUI skin) phones without Google play store/core services have progressed from "unusable" at the beginning (2 years ago) to "very difficult to use with many compromises" about 1 year ago to "usable with limitations" now. The progress is significant and they may not look back (at incorporating Goolgle's play store/core services) at all. Not sure about their plan to move away from EMUI to Harmony OS though.

I'm not sure how many people would want to buy a premium phone with a junk OS.

They are moving to Harmony for a reason.  Hopefully, that reason is taken away before that happens.  It benefits no one for them to compete with American products -- which they are obviously capable of doing.

I suspect they are simply warning the U.S. government where this can and will go if they don't make https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/orrections.

Google needs to speak up soon to protect their product and their company.  But, if they do, heads in the echo chamber will be exploding.  So, I suspect this is being handled behind the scenes.

Harmony OS is nothing but a fork of Android OS;

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/


"To hear Huawei tell the story, HarmonyOS is an original in-house creation—a defiant act that will let the company break free of American software influence. Huawei's OS announcement in 2019 got big, splashy articles in the national media. CNN called HarmonyOS "a rival to Android," and Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, told the outlet that HarmonyOS "is completely different from Android and iOS." Huawei President of Consumer Software Wang Chenglu repeated these claims just last month, saying (through translation), "HarmonyOS is not a copy of Android, nor is it a copy of iOS."

Horseshit...

It wasn't to "break free of American software influence".

It was the necessary end result of a misguided America shutting off access to one of its premier products.

And, posting an editorial doesn't change anything.

That would be true, had Huawei not been actually working on Harmony OS before the trade sanctions occurred, but there's also the obvious point that Harmony OS is just Android OS, not a new OS at all. Nonetheless, I doubt Harmony OS will take off in any Western markets, so, who cares.

You could make the same point that Android OS "is just iOS".   But claiming something doesn't make it fact -- unless you're on a propaganda site.

And, hopefully Harmony never does displace an OS from a western company.   Perhaps we should not be forcing them into it with misguided sanctions?

It's a fact that it is an Android Fork.

Read the linked article, and stop carrying water for China, and Chinese companies.

"No discernible difference between Huawei's "all-new" OS and Android."

You are taking the quote out of context. I suppose you are well aware of that. 

ARS looked at only a very specific part of HarmonyOS. They are not talking about the entire system as they obviously haven't seen it. 

See my reply to you (above)

And take a look at this:

https://techielobang.com/blog/2019/08/25/what-is-huawei-harmony-os-and-its-roadmap/

That doesn't look like Android does it? 

edited February 2021

georgebmac

tmay said:

GeorgeBMac said:

tmay said:

GeorgeBMac said:

tmay said:

FFS

Huawei is just trying to use its remaining stock of Kirin 9000 to generate the most revenue, since TMSC fabbed a limited number, something on the order of 8 million SOC's, before the trade ban went into effect. HiSilicon is a fabless chip designer, depending on U.S. design tools, and TMSC, and without those Western technologies, is DOA.

GeorgeBMac said:

muthuk_vanalingam said:

GeorgeBMac said:

So?  This high end smart phone is designed to run Harmony OS rather than Android?

If Google were smart, they would pressure the U.S. government to end these silly, useless sanctions immediately before any more alternative OS's enter the market to compete against their OS.   Google is an American company with an American product that is being punished by these silly, worthless sanctions that accomplish nothing and benefit nobody.

Huawei was happy to support this U.S. company and its product.   It is we who forced them to abandon American products and develop their own.

And, the same is going on in the world of chips:   while the auto market is hobbled by a shortage of chips, the Chinese have been forced to develop their own to compete against American backed products.   They didn't want to have to do that.  But we forced them to compete against us.

Hopefully both countries can soon return to mutually beneficial sanity.

Agreed completely with you on this. Except for the OS part, because it still runs a flavor of Android, i.e. EMUI without Google's play store and core services, not Harmony OS. It is quite possible that Huawei may not show any interest in using Google's play store/core services anymore and are in a position to push their own app store/core services going forward. Based on the reviews that I have read in GSMArena, Huawei's Android (with EMUI skin) phones without Google play store/core services have progressed from "unusable" at the beginning (2 years ago) to "very difficult to use with many compromises" about 1 year ago to "usable with limitations" now. The progress is significant and they may not look back (at incorporating Goolgle's play store/core services) at all. Not sure about their plan to move away from EMUI to Harmony OS though.

I'm not sure how many people would want to buy a premium phone with a junk OS.

They are moving to Harmony for a reason.  Hopefully, that reason is taken away before that happens.  It benefits no one for them to compete with American products -- which they are obviously capable of doing.

I suspect they are simply warning the U.S. government where this can and will go if they don't make https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/orrections.

Google needs to speak up soon to protect their product and their company.  But, if they do, heads in the echo chamber will be exploding.  So, I suspect this is being handled behind the scenes.

Harmony OS is nothing but a fork of Android OS;

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/


"To hear Huawei tell the story, HarmonyOS is an original in-house creation—a defiant act that will let the company break free of American software influence. Huawei's OS announcement in 2019 got big, splashy articles in the national media. CNN called HarmonyOS "a rival to Android," and Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, told the outlet that HarmonyOS "is completely different from Android and iOS." Huawei President of Consumer Software Wang Chenglu repeated these claims just last month, saying (through translation), "HarmonyOS is not a copy of Android, nor is it a copy of iOS."

Horseshit...

It wasn't to "break free of American software influence".

It was the necessary end result of a misguided America shutting off access to one of its premier products.

And, posting an editorial doesn't change anything.

That would be true, had Huawei not been actually working on Harmony OS before the trade sanctions occurred, but there's also the obvious point that Harmony OS is just Android OS, not a new OS at all. Nonetheless, I doubt Harmony OS will take off in any Western markets, so, who cares.

You could make the same point that Android OS "is just iOS".   But claiming something doesn't make it fact -- unless you're on a propaganda site.

And, hopefully Harmony never does displace an OS from a western company.   Perhaps we should not be forcing them into it with misguided sanctions?

It's a fact that it is an Android Fork.

Read the linked article, and stop carrying water for China, and Chinese companies.

"No discernible difference between Huawei's "all-new" OS and Android."

Do you understand the difference between fact and opinion? 

... Never mind.  That was a rhetorical question.