[Update: Now on sale in UK] The Huawei Mate 20X 5G is an update to the massive gaming phone but with 5G

Damien Wilde | Jul 26 2019 - 12:45 am PT

At a London launch event, Huawei unveiled the Mate 20X 5G, a refresh of the previous regional exclusive Mate 20X.

The device retains much of the massive footprint and power that we saw launched last October alongside the impressive Huawei Mate 20 Pro. The only core difference to consumers being the inclusion of 5G connectivity.

Huawei may currently be in hot water with the US government, but that isn’t stopping them in global markets. The release of the Huawei Mate 20X 5G makes it the first commercially available 5G smartphone from the Chinese tech giant.

[Update 07/26]: After the cooling of tensions between Huawei and the US government, the launch of the Huawei Mate 20X 5G has been suddenly brought forward to today. If you are in the UK, the Mate 20X 5G is available on Three, Sky Mobile and the Carphone Warehouse from today (July 26).

The dual SIM model is available in a solitary color — Emerald Green — and starts from £999 or approximately $1241.

Reliant on the Balong 5000 5G chipset, the Mate 20X 5G will be one of the first devices available in the United Kingdom with the superfast connectivity potential. That said, 5G is still very much in its infancy, meaning that you won’t currently be able to get close to the potential speeds touted by 5G.

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The rest of the internals remain relatively the same as the standard Mate 20X. That means the device relies heavily on the powerful Kirin 980 chipset, 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of expandable storage via the proprietary NM cards up to 256GB. Onboard graphics are handled via the Mali-G76MP10 GPU.

It’s worth noting that the device has had some tweaks though. The 5,000mAh battery has been bumped down to a 4,200mAh cell and there is no longer any support for wired headsets in the form of a headphone port. This is likely due to a reduced internal footprint thanks to the addition of that 5G hardware.

As for pricing and availability, the Huawei Mate 20X 5G can be acquired in June on the EE, O2, Three, and Vodaphone networks. Pricing starts at £999 for an unlocked device, while contract pricing will vary between carriers.