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If you liked the Huawei Mate X6, then you’ll probably like the new Huawei Mate X7 as well, because the X7 doesn’t deviate much from the formula that made the Mate X6 a great foldable phone, if you’re comfortable with software workarounds in order to get Google apps up and running.
The key improvements this year revolve around improved durability, battery and performance, which sounds great. I thoroughly appreciate all the progress Huawei’s made with regards to durability, and I definitely enjoy the long battery life of the Mate X7. Performance-wise, the new Kirin 9030 chipset seems to be more of a minor upgrade, so, unfortunately, you shouldn’t expect any major performance uplifts.
Huawei Mate X7
What we like
Very stylish design
IP58 + IP59 durability
Impressive battery life
What we don't like
Raw performance isn't very strong
No native access to Google services
6.9
PhoneArena Rating
7
Price Class Average
Battery Life
7.2
6.3
Photo Quality
6.5
6.7
Video Quality
5.9
5.5
Charging
8.4
7.5
Performance Heavy
5
6.3
Performance Light
6.6
7.4
Display Quality
8
8
Design
9
8.2
Wireless Charging
7.9
7.9
Biometrics
8
7.5
Audio
7
7.3
Software
4
7
Why the score?
This device scores 1.4% worse than the average for this price class, which includes devices like the Honor Magic V5, Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold and Huawei Mate X6
As usual with Huawei, the Mate X7 is getting low ratings for software support, mostly because the company is not the most generous one when it comes to releasing regular updates. This is probably different in China, but when it comes to its international EMUI releases, like the X7, these appear to be treated as second priority. Due to being denied access to Qualcomm chips, the Mate X7 also gets a relatively low performance score. On the flip side, the we're giving it great scores for battery life, charging and design, as it definitely outperforms most of the foldable competition in these categories.
A stylish exterior making use of some very cool and robust materials
The Huawei Mate X7 hasn’t changed much, visually, from its predecessor. This isn’t a bad thing, as Huawei’s design language is very, very stylish and practical. It looks fancy and is among the more robust designs at the same time, thanks to the special faux leather back cover materials. The latter applies to the black model I’m testing, as well as the red model. There’s a “Brocade White” model which looks very cool, but I can’t speak to its durability.
The most obvious exterior change compared to the X6 is the new camera bump design, which Huawei lovingly calls the Time-Space Gate. The old design wasn’t bad, by any means, but the new one is also cool – it has more of a futurist vibe.
Other than that, I love the Mate X7 design, its stylishly glossy metal frame and the fact that Huawei has done numerous reliability improvements.
It’s got a new Kunlun glass (Huawei’s version of Gorilla Glass), which they say is harder to crack and about 20% more reinforced against drops. The slightly larger foldable display is also equipped with a new internal structure and hinge design that are said to make it more resistant to impact and bending. (And yes, the crease is reduced compared to the Mate X6, but it’s still there.)
The coolest design improvement in the Huawei Mate X7 has to do with water and dust resistance. The Mate X7 is among the very few foldable phones that come with IP58 + IP59 certification. This is almost as good as a normal flagship! Sure, don’t throw it in the sand on the beach, but you can at least rest assured now that the phone is expected to not break if the tiniest innocent particle somehow lands on its hinge.
Both the cover and the internal screens are superb. They’ve gotten ever so slightly larger compared to the X6, but it’s not a noticeable difference.
These are big, bright, high-refresh rate OLED panels every step of the way, so I have zero complaints about them.
Of course, it’s cool that the Mate X7’s cover screen is very reasonably sized, so any operation I’ve wanted to do on the fly, such as typing out a message or opening a website, has been very convenient.
The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set(area)of colors that a display can reproduce,with the sRGB colorspace(the highlighted triangle)serving as reference.The chart also provides a visual representation of a display's color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The 'x:CIE31' and 'y:CIE31' values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. 'Y' shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while 'Target Y' is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, 'ΔE 2000' is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.
The Color accuracy chart gives an idea of how close a display's measured colors are to their referential values. The first line holds the measured (actual) colors, while the second line holds the reference (target) colors. The closer the actual colors are to the target ones, the better.
The Grayscale accuracy chart shows whether a display has a correct white balance(balance between red,green and blue)across different levels of grey(from dark to bright).The closer the Actual colors are to the Target ones,the better.
The camera of the Mate X7 is not a significant step forward, but continues to be a competent all-around performer
Foldable phones aren’t typically known for having all the cutting-edge camera tech, due to size and cost reasons, but Huawei generally tries to equip its folding phones with overachieving camera hardware.
The Mate X7 comes with a bigger 50 MP camera sensor (1/1.28”), as well as a new, 3.5x telephoto (versus the Mate X6’s 4x telephoto) with a wider aperture of F2.2. The change in the zoom camera potentially means longer-range zoom shots would look better on the Mate X6, but if you stick within short to mid-range zoom levels (3.4x to 8.3x), the Mate X7 could gain the upper hand.
Huawei Mate X7
PhoneArena Camera Score
BEST 158
137
PhoneArena Photo Score
BEST 165
141
Main (wide)
BEST 87
72
Zoom
BEST 30
25
Ultra-wide
BEST 26
21
Selfie
BEST 30
23
PhoneArena Video Score
BEST 155
133
Main (wide)
BEST 83
70
Zoom
BEST 27
22
Ultra-wide
BEST 24
18
Selfie
BEST 28
22
There are a bunch of things happening with the Huawei Mate X7 camera. First, I notice that its shots are every so slightly colder-looking than those of the X6. This is totally fine and is a matter of personal preference. It takes the Mate X7 a bit farther from our ideal target in the PhoneArena Camera Score benchmark, though.
The second important observation has to do with the zoom camera. As expected, the move from 4x to 3.5x means mid-range zoom photos are pretty great, but the phone has lost some of its long-range capabilities (beyond 8.3x magnification). The Mate X7 relies heavily on AI to enhance photos, including zoom photos (just like any other phone out there), and I quite like its processing style. It tends to keep details relatively clean, and noise isn’t very apparent.
Video Quality
Video recording quality isn’t spectacular, but it’s solid. I observed some stabilization issues with some of the early software running on the X7, but those have been sorted out with software updates.
Overall, the Mate X7 is a very capable camera, but it’s mostly on par with that of the Galaxy Fold 7, for example – it cannot really pull ahead considerably. Still, a respectable performance overall.
Huawei Mate X7 Performance & Benchmarks
The new Kirin 9030 is not a speed demon but delivers snappy performance and a welcome upgrade over the Kirin 9020
Where Huawei’s phones tend to lag behind the competition is in the performance area, as Huawei essentially has to produce its own chips. It’s impressive how far Huawei has come with its Kirin line of chips, but there’s still a considerable performance gap between the Kirin line and the best Snapdragons by Qualcomm.
The new Kirin 9030 the Mate X7 comes with does feel a little bit faster than the Mate X6’s Kirin 9020. The great thing about Huawei’s phones is that even if their raw computing power isn’t that great, the devices themselves run flawlessly. Both UI operation and games move swiftly and smoothly, and that fully applies to the Huawei Mate X7.
Unfortunately, it’s a pain to run benchmark applications on Huawei phones. I always find a way to do so via workarounds, but the results should be taken with a grain of salt. Doubly so when it comes to the Mate X7, it seems, because some of the benchmark scores appear to be lower than those of the Mate X6. However, based on my personal experience with the phone, there are no indications that the performance has gotten worse – on the contrary, it feels a bit better and I think Huawei has improved its graphics drivers, based on my testing of running games via Winlator.
EMUI 15 offers a polished experience and fast everyday performance
The global version of the Huawei Mate X7 once again runs EMUI 15, which is a competent operating system. It comes with all sorts of features and customization options, but again – the most impressive thing is how well optimized it is, performance-wise. This thing flies!
The caveat, as usual, is that you need to use workarounds like microG and Gbox in order to get your Google account and applications to work on Huawei’s phones.
This is a definite inconvenience but for the most part there isn’t anything too complicated to sort out. Especially when it comes to personal Google accounts – it’s a very easy process to set yours up. And I personally wouldn’t worry about microG, as it’s a vey well documented, open-source solution which is considered perfectly safe.
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It’s a bit more complicated when it comes to professional Google Workspace accounts, but that is also doable, provided you’re willing to use third-party apps to handle some things like the calendar and email. (CalenGoo and eM Client are two great options.)
One of the bigger inconveniences is the inability to use G Pay. You can make NFC payments using a Curve account, which is fine, as far as I’m concerned, but it’s a bit tricker to make Play Store purchases and the like.
Huawei Mate X7 Battery
A massive, 5600 mAh battery keeps the Mate X7 going and going
Huawei has managed to stuff an even larger battery in the Mate X7, which now comes with an impressive, 5600 mAh cell. I really enjoyed the battery life of the Mate X7, as it reaches the spectacular 7h 11min on the PhoneArena Battery Score.
This may not seem record-breaking by phone standards, but it’s pretty great by foldable phone standards (yes, we run the battery tests with the phones unfolded). In comparison, the Mate X6 got a battery life estimate of 6h 25min and the Galaxy Z Fold 7 has a battery life estimate of 5h 31min! Other popular foldables, like the Google Pixel 10 Pro fold don’t fare much better – it has a result of 5h 16min on our test.
So, yes, Huawei’s efforts to fit increasingly larger batteries in its phones is paying off.
Another thing that’s paying off are the charging speeds, which can go up to 66W on the Mate 7 for wired charging, and up to 50W wireless. This is the same performance we saw out of the Mate X6 last year – and it’s still very, very fast.
The Huawei Mate X7 comes with significantly improved stereo speakers, which is great news. The Mate X6 didn’t sound too bad, but it didn’t shine with anything notable in the audio category.
The X7 is a step in the right direction, as it sounds a bit louder and with noticeably stronger lower end. This makes the sound fuller and more enjoyable.
Should you buy it?
The Huawei Mate X7 has a lot going for it, that much is certain. Huawei is not allowed to use Google service and Qualcomm chips, so it’s focusing its efforts in other areas in a bid to impress customers. And it works.
The Mate X7 comes with great battery life (courtesy of its giant battery), improved performance, and great durability for a foldable phone. The design is just as stylish as before, with a touch of luxury.
As usual with Huawei these days, this is not a phone for everyone, but if you know your way around the software and are comfortable doing some workarounds, the actual functional limitations can be reduced to a minimum. Huawei phones tend to be quite pricey, but if you can find a good deal for the Mate X7, then it becomes a legitimate option for a premium, albeit peculiar, foldable phone.
Rad Slavov is the Editor-in-Chief at PhoneArena. He joined the media in 2008, right on the cusp of the modern smartphone revolution. Through time and perseverance, he amassed a great deal of knowledge and industry know-how, allowing him to guide and organize the company's growing line-up of talented content creators and ever-expanding content portfolio.
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