The first tri-fold smartphone is here. The Huawei Mate XT unveiled on September 10th—with a calculated timing after Apple’s announcements—is a regular smartphone that can unfold its internal display along two vertical axes to become a full-fledged tablet.
The Mate XT’s internal screen measures either 7.9” when partially unfolded, or 10.2” when fully open. The device is equipped with Huawei’s Harmony OS and packs a number advanced AI features. It can also pair with a foldable keyboard that fits in a suit jacket pocket.
I have always dreamed of putting our tablet in my pocket, and we did it.
Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group
When fully closed, the Mate XT resembles a regular smartphone with a 6.4” screen. With a thickness of 12.8mm, the phone is just slightly chunkier than the recently unveiled Samsung Galaxy Fold 6. With its $2800 price tag, the Huawei tri-fold is intended as a luxury product and won’t probably be sold outside of China for the foreseeable future. Consumers there can already preorder one, with sales starting on September 20th.
“It’s a piece of work that everyone has thought of but never managed to create,” said Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group. “I have always had a dream to put our tablet in my pocket, and we did it.”
Huawei, whose global business has been impacted by US sanctions, has recently focused mostly on its internal market. The company is determined to prove that it’s still playing a fundamental role in pushing China’s tech and innovation agenda forward. The Mate XT follows the launch, last year, of the Mate 60 Pro, the first Huawei phone to sport a China-made advanced chipset, the kind of technology development that the US sanctions were exactly trying to stifle.