Huawei has confirmed that its Mate XT Ultimate tri-fold foldable phone is going global in a matter of weeks.
The Chinese manufacturer announced the Mate XT Ultimate , its advanced triple-folding phone, back in November but only for the domestic market. We knew it would be coming to Europe in early 2025, but we didn’t know exactly when.
Huawei has just put us out of our misery. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Huawei Mobile has officially announced that it will be holding an “Innovative Product Launch” for international markets in Kuala Lumpur on 18 February. That’s less than a fortnight away.
The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate will feature prominently, though we’ll have to wait until the event to learn about pricing and availability. It will compete with Samsung’s tri-fold phone , which may be called the Galaxy G Fold.
How will the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate handle?
We went hands-on with the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate back in September, around the time of its original launch, and we came away mightily impressed.
Unlike other full-sized foldables like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 and the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold , which have square screens that fold in half, the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate takes a large rectangular display and folds it in three.
When opened out, concertina style, you’re looking at a full-on 10.2-inch tablet. Despite that extra real estate, however, it still folds up into a relatively traditional 6.4-inch smartphone form factor, largely thanks to an impossibly slim 3.6mm-thick body when open.
The so-called ‘Tiangong hinge’ that makes this all possible truly is an engineering wonder (at least at first blush), offering ample tension and solidity. It’s a flexible set-up, too, allowing you to use the screen in a more traditional 7.9-inch 2232 x 2048 dual-screen arrangement, should you wish to.
As for the main display itself, it’s a classy LTPO OLED with a 144Hz dynamic refresh rate, so no compromises there.
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
Key questions that need answering
There are two glaring questions that we want answering come 18 February. Just how much money is this thing going to cost?
The Huawei Mate X6 costs €2,000, and that only has a traditional foldable display.
In China, the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate costs CNY¥19,999 (approximately £2,135/$2,820), so it’s going to be mightily expensive any way you cut it.
The second outstanding question relates to software. Huawei is still at the mercy of US sanctions, which means that it can’t run Google apps and services without a prohibitive amount of tinkering.
Do we really want to be struggling with compatibility and downloading questionable apps on our £2,000+ foldable? Has Huawei managed to improve the situation at all?
All will be revealed in less than two weeks.
Huawei Mate X6
Author: Jon Mundy, Contributor, Tech Advisor
Jon is a freelance journalist who got his start covering mobile games at the dawn of the App Store. He has since covered everything from smart home tech and laptops to food and culture, but always seems to return to his fascination with smartphones.
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