China’s Huawei Technologies unveiled their anticipated first tri-fold smartphone, the Mate XT, a day after Apple launched its iPhone 16 series.
“Today we bring you a product that everyone can think of but could not make. Our team has been working hard for five years and has never given up,” Huawei Executive Director Richard Yu said at the launch. “Today we will once again rewrite the history of the industry, turn science fiction into reality, and lead a new era of folding devices.”
Huawei Mate XT pricing starts at CNY 19,999 (approx. UGX10.5 million) for the base model with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of inbuilt storage. The handset will also be available in 512GB and 1TB storage variants priced at CNY 21,999 (approx. UGX11.5 million) and CNY 23,999 (approx. UGX12.6 million), respectively.
The foldable tri-fold smartphone comes in Dark Black and Rui Red color options and can be pre-ordered via Huawei Vmall and will go on sale in China starting September 20 —the same date as the iPhone 16 series —and according to the company’s website, they have already received more than 4 million pre-orders, for which no deposit is required.
But with this hefty price tag —which is more than twice the starting price of the comparable iPhone 16 Pro Max —and limited production, the tri-fold phone is likely to become more of a symbol of Huawei’s tech prowess than a major sales driver, analysts said, reports by Reuters.
“Production constraints and the high price point mean the new phone will likely not have a huge impact in terms of shipments,” said Will Wong, a Senior Researcher at consultancy IDC. Adding “But it’s telling the consumers that Huawei is still the tech leader and the potential challenge it brings to Apple may be far beyond just market share.”
Specifications and features
The Huawei Mate XT comes with a 10.2-inch OLED display screen. The company says the display is made of flexible materials that can be bent in multiple directions. When folded, it has a 10.2-inch screen that turns into a 7.9-inch screen when folded once, and a 6.4-inch screen when folded a second time. At 3.6mm wide, Huawei said the tri-fold smartphone is the world’s slimmest foldable phone and has a keyboard attachment that fits in your pocket.
The Huawei Mate XT comes with dual-SIM (Nano+Nano) support and runs on HarmonyOS 4.2 mobile operating system. Under the hood, the tri-fold smartphone comes with a Kirin 9010 7nm chipset, octa-core processor, Maleoon 910 GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB (also available in 512GB, and 1TB) onboard storage.
It comes with a triple outer camera setup with a 50-megapixel primary camera, a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera, and a 12-megapixel periscope telephoto camera. The primary and telephoto cameras come with optical image stabilization (OIS). As for the front, there’s an 8-megapixel camera housed in a center-aligned hole-punch cutout on the display. Both cameras can shoot videos in 1080p and 4k.
The Huawei Mate XT is equipped with a non-removable Si/C 5,600mAh battery —with supports for 66W wired and 50W wireless charging —as well as 7.5W reverse wireless and 5W reverse wired charging.
As for connectivity, the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate includes 5G, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS, NFC, and a USB 3.1 Type-C port.
There’s a side-mounted fingerprint scanner for biometric authentication.
The launch of the Huawei Mate XT underscores Huawei’s ability to navigate U.S. sanctions and solidifies its position against Apple in China.
According to IDC, the foldable smartphone market grew 57% year-on-year in the second quarter with 3.9 million units shipped, largely as Chinese smartphone makers pushed into overseas markets. “That remains just 1.3% of the wider smartphone market, with 292.2 million smartphones shipped in the second quarter,” IDC said.
Huawei ranked as the world’s biggest foldable smartphone seller in the second quarter with a 27.5% market share, ahead of South Korea’s Samsung, with 16.4%, according to IDC.
