Huawei Mate Xs 2 review

EMUI 12 with foldable-specific tweaks

As is the norm with Huawei handsets thanks to the US-China trade dispute, the Mate Xs 2 is denied the latest Android, so it runs Android 11. There's an in-house overlay on top - EMUI 12 for the global version of the phone we have here, or HarmonyOS 2.0 for China-bound units.

We got to meet that combo on the P50 Pro and the P50 Pocket, and what we're seeing here is very similar to the experience on those phones. There are some touches to account for the different form-factor, but we'll get to those in a bit.

There's an AoD feature with numerous designs and the usual display mores - always, scheduled, or tap to show. You can set up a magazine lockscreen style that changes the wallpaper every time you wake up the screen and swiping up from the bottom of the lockscreen will bring up quick shortcuts to some commonly used utilities.

The side-mounted fingerprint sensor on the Mate Xs 2 works without issues. Face unlock is also available thanks to the newly incuded selfie camera - the Mate Xs didn't have that. As usual, the fingerprint option is more secure, since Face unlock is just camera based, with no 3D mapping of any sort.

On the homescreen, you will find all installed third-party and system apps, and there's no option for an app drawer. What there is, is support for large folders, where one occupies four spaces and holds up to 9 apps. You don't need to expand the folder to launch an app - you just tap on its icon. Simple, yet clever.

The Notification Center and Control Center are handled the Apple way - two separate panes, and you swipe down from the top for each. The rightmost one third of the status bar pulls the Control Center, the rest brings down the notifications.

The leftmost homescreen page, if enabled, is Today, part of the Huawei Assistant suite. An infotainment place of sorts, it houses a newsfeed tailored for you, weather reports, smart suggestions for apps, health info, battery info, AppGallery suggestions, a whole lot of things. You can customize this page - there are a lot of information services available from Huawei partners; you can also add game info, scores, and whatnot.

Swiping down anywhere on the homescreen takes you to the system-wide AI Search feature. Also part of the AI suite are AI Lens (for shopping, translation and finding images on the internet), AI Tips (suggestion to maximize your grasp on the UI), and AI Touch (another shopping-focused feature). Out of the P50 Pro, P50 Pocket and this Mate Xs 2 here, only the Pocket had Huawei's voice assistant Celia (also called AI Voice).

The default navigation in EMUI 12 is gesture-based - swipe up for Home, swipe up and stop midway for Task switcher, or swipe from the left or right edge of the screen for Back. You can opt for the classic virtual buttons, of course.

Huawei offers a lot of pre-installed apps to get you started. There is Huawei's Gallery, Music, Video, and Health apps. A File manager is available, as well as an IR remote control app.