Introduction
It’s only April, somehow, and we’ve already done teardowns on 2 foldable phones this year! Now we’ve got our hands on a 3rd, the Huawei Mate Xs. Unlike the other foldables we’ve seen, the Mate Xs wears its fragile plastic OLED screen on the outside, even when folded.
The mate Xs isn’t sold in the US, and can’t utilize any of Google’s mobile services without a little hacking. Ins tead, Huawei has built their own suite of services, including an App Gallery and Mobile Cloud service. No Play Store here! Let’s tear it down and see what else Huawei has done to make this 2700 dollar foldable tick.
Video Overview
- Many components are modular and can be replaced independently.
- The fragile folding display is replaceable, if you're determined.
- Battery replacements are straightforward, but unnecessarily difficult thanks to the herculean adhesive.
- Every repair starts (and ends) with stubborn, glued-on outer covers.
- The charging port is soldered directly to the main board.
Final Thoughts
Repairability Score
(10 is easiest to repair)