Huawei could launch a more powerful Mate X after rolling out the original in October

Richard Yu, the business chairman of Huawei Business Group had mentioned the Mate X launched in March will finally go on sale in October in an interview with Digital Trends after his keynote at IFA 2019. Now there is word that a revised model with the latest 5G Kirin 990 processor may be in the works.

Yu claimed the slow rollout of 5G stopped the company from selling the device last month, which was their original release time. “Maybe we will start to sell the Mate X next month,” he continued, referring to October, and then added: “We are also considering an upgrade to the new chipset.”

The Huawei Mate X had the Kirin 980 processor and the Balong 5000 5G Modem, the best specs Huawei had at the time. Now the delay points to the company replacing the 980 with the Kirin 990, an all-in-one solution for 5G. The new processor offers better power and energy efficiency over the previous one.

However, the older Mate 980 would still sell. Yu said that the 980 Mate X would launch first in October followed by the more powerful Mate X with the Kirin 990 at a later time. While an exact time frame isn’t available, it is safe to assume that the newer variant will at least take a few months to hit the shelves.

While replacing processors isn’t a mammoth task in itself, Huawei has been facing numerous issues, mainly the US-service ban which has abruptly prevented the brand from using the Android ecosystem on their products. We may find out more about the Mate X exact launch date at the Huawei Mate 30 launch on September 19.