In what is totally not an attempt to upstage Apple’s iPhone 16 announcement, Huawei has made its tri-fold Mate XT smartphone official. Not to be confused with the exoskeleton of the same name, the newest Mate has… well, two hinges and three sections that fold together.
Pre-orders for the device, which remained unannounced until early this morning, opened over the weekend in China. Since then, Huawei claims it has scooped up a whopping 3.7 million pre-orders. Those numbers are especially ridiculous when the Mate XT’s price is taken into account.
My new Mate XT
More on that in a second, however. The biggest part of Huawei’s announcement is the fancy form factor, with major Western outlets paying attention to little else. There are plenty of details available, however. When folded, the Mate XT is just 12.8mm thick – it’s a little thicker than the Galaxy Fold 6 but incorporates another fold, so…
The inner display measures 10.2in, a 2,232 x 3,184 LPTO OLED panel that may make your tablet feel nervous about its place in the world. A 5,600mAh battery and 66W wired charging are part of the device, as is a triple 50MP main camera sensor arrangement. The other specs are more murky, but a Kirin 9 processor is expected to be powering the whole thing.
Back to that nearly four million pre-order total – the global market for folding smartphones in Q2 2024 was four million. Huawei’s achievement here might seem a little bonkers in light of the R50,000+ asking price (20,000 yuan) but pre-orders for the Mate XT require no deposit and may not translate into sales. That said, the XT is undeniably a sexy proposition, and owning the first tri-fold smartphone from the brand has a certain attraction.
As for when folks outside China can own one, that’s wholly mysterious for now. No global launch has been announced or even hinted at yet.