HUAWEI launched its first 5G mobile phone for commercial use in Shenzhen on Friday.

The smartphone, Huawei Mate 20 X (5G), is priced at 6,199 yuan (US$898).

Huawei started taking orders for the handset Friday afternoon. The phone will hit the market  Aug. 16.

The phone is said to have a downlink rate reaching 1.85Gbps in a laboratory test environment, which is the highest rate measured in a laboratory under the same conditions that has been reported so far.

Powered by the Balong 5000, Huawei’s first 7nm multi-code 5G chipset with the Kirin 980, the smartphone is currently the world’s only dual-mode 5G cellphone that supports standalone/nonstandalone (SA/NSA) simultaneously as well as a 4G/5G dual SIM.

The smart screens can connect multiple devices, even from multiple brands, and also become a control center for smart home systems, said Yu Chengdong, chief executive officer of Huawei’s consumer business.

He Gang, head of Huawei’s mobile phone division, said at the launching ceremony that the smartphone gained China’s first 5G network access license June 25.

A field test at the launch ceremony showed that it only took the 5G smartphone a few seconds to download a 1.9 gigabyte game, while a 4G device had only downloaded 20 percent of the game within the same amount of time.

Also on Friday, Huawei said its smart screens equipped with its own Hongmeng OS will hit the market soon as it seeks to enter the TV business.

The Shenzhen-based telecom giant is said to have continuously increased its investment in 5G technology research and innovation over the past decade.

The company had employed more than 2,000 experts and engineers in 5G research and development, and established more than 10 5G research centers around the world by the end of March.

As of June, Huawei had held the most 5G standard patents declared to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute worldwide, which accounted for 20 percent of the total patents in the field.

(Zhang Yu)