diff --git a/mercurial/configitems.py b/mercurial/configitems.py
--- a/mercurial/configitems.py
+++ b/mercurial/configitems.py
@@ -587,6 +587,9 @@
 coreconfigitem('experimental', 'removeemptydirs',
     default=True,
 )
+coreconfigitem('experimental', 'revisions.prefixhexnode',
+    default=False,
+)
 coreconfigitem('experimental', 'revlogv2',
     default=None,
 )
diff --git a/mercurial/scmutil.py b/mercurial/scmutil.py
--- a/mercurial/scmutil.py
+++ b/mercurial/scmutil.py
@@ -437,6 +437,9 @@
     return '%d:%s' % (rev, hexfunc(node))
 
 def resolvehexnodeidprefix(repo, prefix):
+    if (prefix.startswith('x') and
+        repo.ui.configbool('experimental', 'revisions.prefixhexnode')):
+        prefix = prefix[1:]
     try:
         # Uses unfiltered repo because it's faster when prefix is ambiguous/
         # This matches the shortesthexnodeidprefix() function below.
diff --git a/tests/test-revset.t b/tests/test-revset.t
--- a/tests/test-revset.t
+++ b/tests/test-revset.t
@@ -1773,6 +1773,16 @@
 
 Test hexadecimal revision
   $ log 'id(2)'
+  $ log 'id(5)'
+  2
+  $ hg --config experimental.revisions.prefixhexnode=yes log --template '{rev}\n' -r 'id(x5)'
+  2
+  $ hg --config experimental.revisions.prefixhexnode=yes log --template '{rev}\n' -r 'x5'
+  2
+  $ hg --config experimental.revisions.prefixhexnode=yes log --template '{rev}\n' -r 'id(x)'
+  $ hg --config experimental.revisions.prefixhexnode=yes log --template '{rev}\n' -r 'x'
+  abort: 00changelog.i@: ambiguous identifier!
+  [255]
   $ log 'id(23268)'
   4
   $ log 'id(2785f51eece)'