08/17/2022
Cameras: triple trouble
The original Mate Xs didn’t have any kind of front-facing camera, instead relying on the rear snappers. That changes for ’22, with the new version getting a 10MP hole punch cam in addition to the three-lens rear array. Making video calls and taking selfies feel a little more natural as a result, but while it takes colourful snaps with decent dynamic range, it would regularly focus on the background rather than our face.
You can still use the rear cameras instead if you want the best quality, and turn the back half of the display into a second viewfinder. It’s a fiddly process, though. Once you’ve open the camera app and enabled the rear screen, you turn the phone around and use the volume keys as a shutter button – which is almost impossible to do without triggering the fingerprint sensor. Want to change lens or camera mode? You’ve got to head back to the front half of the screen. Huawei could easily have added a few onscreen buttons here to make things more intuitive.
