Huawei has announced the first triple-screen foldable phone, the Mate XT Ultimate Design, and its price starts at a whopping $2,800. Built with a dual-hinge design, it's sure to catch your eye—but the real question is how practical is a phone that folds like a napkin in everyday life?
The Mate XT Ultimate Design, with a long name apt for its size, starts at 19,999 yuan ($2,809) for the 256 GB model, while the 512GB and the 1TB models start at 21,000 yuan ($3,089) and 23,999 yuan ($3,370). It has an inverse dual-hinge design that allows it to fold in a "Z" shape, an OLED 10.2-inch display when fully unfolded, and measures at 6.4 inches when fully collapsed like a traditional phone.
All three [storage] models have 16GB of RAM and a 5,600mAh battery with 66W wired charging and 50W wireless charging. The rear camera set up [on the right-end] has a 50MP main camera, 12MP ultrawide, and 12MP periscope camera, and then an 8MP selfie camera [on the left-most screen].
A tri-foldable design is new. The Mate XT Ultimate Design is the first. The "Z" folding mechanism makes the phone versatile, allowing users to switch between three different configurations based on their needs. Fully folded, you get to use it like a traditional phone, while partially and fully unfolding the phone transforms it into a tablet-like device, which is ideal for watching videos or multi-tasking across several apps. With a wireless keyboard and a stand for it, perhaps one could even turn it into a PC.
What the phone trades it for is portability. More screen means more thickness and weight. Unfolded, it is 6–4.8 mm thick. Folded, it is 12 mm thick. 12mm is double the average thickness for smartphones today. And the phone weighs 298 g. You are definitely going to always feel it in your hands or pocket. The phone, however, makes up for it with some flexibility and the display luxury of high screen resolutions.
The tri-foldable phone has undoubtably impressive storage and processor. The 16 GB RAM paired with the [7nm] Kirin 9010 chipset, octa-core CPU, and Maleoon 910 GPU are sure to handle demanding tasks and provide a smoother experience. It will perform excellently with gaming and video editing.
What is a little bit of disappointment is the 5,600 mAh battery. For a phone this powerful, this is a little small for it. It has a much wider area, so it only makes sense that it should have a much bigger battery. It comes with high charging watts, though, and the HarmonyOS 4.2 that should do well with managing the phone's power consumption.
Something that would be of big interest to photography enthusiasts is the camera system. The Mate XT Ultimate Design's rear camera setup can shoot videos up to 4K and is equipped with gyro-EIS and OIS for stabilisation and HDR for capturing details in the lightest and darkest parts of a photo. The selfie camera, however, has an 8 MP camera, which is quite small but still capable of shooting 4K.
It's an expensive phone, really. It costs more than a brand-new 16-inch MacBook Pro. And it's even three times the price of the new iPhone 16 series. Definitely not a phone that many people will get to use or would want to buy. It's something for luxury, I would say, as it does stand strong with what it offers in the foldable phones category. There is no confirmation yet on its availability outside of China, however.
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Image credit: Huawei