I just tried the phone science fiction has promised us for years

As many tech journalists were wrapping up their coverage of one notable phone launch in the West last week, Huawei was busy breaking new ground in its homeland of China.

The company was showing local press a new foldable, the likes of which we’ve only ever seen in science fiction until now. And I just got to spend some time with it in person.

The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design is the world’s first ‘tri-fold’ foldable phone. Teased by company CEO Richard Yu in an interview back in July, the XT combines the sensibilities of the company’s inward-folding Mate X5 and outward-folding Mate XS 2 into a single device.

When closed, it resembles a conventional 6.4-inch smartphone, but the screen can concertina out to become a fully-realised 10.2-inch tablet at its maximum extension.

First-generation products like this usually come with some pretty glaring compromises, and while this new form-factor isn’t impervious to criticism, getting hands-on with it immediately eased one of my biggest concerns: the hinge (or, rather, hinges).

When I first handled Huawei’s debut foldable – the original Mate X – bending its then-ambitious Falcon Wing hinge open and closed was accompanied by a heart-wrenching crunching sound and sensation. Luckily, subsequent foldables from the company overcame this issue, but my assumption was that Huawei would have to go back to the drawing board to realise the Mate XT. How wrong I was.

The ‘Tiangong hinge’ feels incredibly solid, offering nice tension without being too stiff to easily manipulate into the form factor you’re aiming for. At the same time, it’s not so loose that you’d be worried about it folding or unfolding under its own weight.

This is made all the more impressive by the incredibly thin profile the XT possesses when fully expanded into its tablet form, clocking in at just 3.6mm at its thinnest point (that’s thinner than the current thin foldable champ, the Honor Magic V3).

The Mate XT actually realises the user experience foldables have always promised us

As for the LTPO OLED panel itself, while it doesn’t match the company’s MatePad tablets with stylus support, or an IP rating for water and dust resistance, it does possess an appealing 144Hz dynamic refresh rate, pleasing colours, and more competent contrast and viewing angles than I expected.

The real magic is, of course, in the XT’s ability to morph through three discreet form factors: the 6.4-inch phone (with a 2232 x 1008 resolution), a 7.9-inch dual-screen arrangement (with a 2232 x 2048 resolution) – reminiscent of foldables like the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 – or its full-size 10.2-inch tablet mode; leveraging the panel’s total 2232 x 3184 resolution.

The Mate XT actually realises the user experience foldables have always promised us, solving the issue of having to carry multiple devices at once. Pair a mouse and keyboard, and there’s the potential such a design would allow you to go laptop–free, too.

With two apps capable of running in split-screen, while a third remains mobile within a floating window, the device’s Android-based HarmonyOS 4.2 user experience is excellent for multitasking.

Huawei, admittedly, isn’t the first to give us a tri-folding phone, but even previous examples from the likes of TCL have only ever made it as far as the concept stage. The big difference here is that the Huawei Mate XT is actually coming to market – it’s now available to buy in China.

As you can imagine, the cost of innovation for a device like this isn’t cheap. With the already-high asking price of existing single-hinged foldables like the £1,749/$1,799 Pixel 9 Pro Fold and £1,799/$1,899 Galaxy Z Fold 6, it shouldn’t shock you to learn that the Mate XT is even more eye-wateringly expensive.

It comes in at CNY¥19,999 (approximately £2,135/$2,820) for 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, though there are also two tiers above that, with the fully kitted-out 16GB RAM/1TB build costing CNY¥23,999 (£2,560/$3,380). And remember, those direct conversions to UK and US figures usually understate the true price in the West.

But even with the astronomical price tag that this first-generation dual-hinge foldable commands, just an hour after launch, pre-orders had already reportedly surpassed 2.7 million.

The most recent claims at the time of writing state that that figure has since risen to over 6 million (Huawei also confirmed to us that it is ready to manufacture the XT at that scale, if needed).

Of course, pre-orders do not equal sales at a 1:1 ratio, but they do at least confirm engagement and demand for a new product like the Mate XT; so much so that key rivals in the foldable space (namely Google, Honor, OnePlus and Samsung), will unquestionably be taking note.

What’s more, sources have confirmed to us at Tech Advisor that the company is planning an international release sometime in Q1 2025, meaning direct competition with the foldable big hitters in Europe and North America relatively soon.

Of course, Huawei’s continued lack of native access to Google apps (including the Play Store) will rule out casual users. But this device was only ever likely to be of interest to enthusiasts, for whom the workarounds required to get Google access shouldn’t be a major issue.

Either way, it feels like Huawei is onto something with this new tri-fold design, and it could usher in a new era for foldables.

Note: The Huawei Mate XT featured in this article belongs to a Huawei representative and depicts non-standard apps and user experience elements not present on a retail device.