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In brief: Folding phones are expensive. Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 5 launched with a $1,800 MSRP, but that's still $1,000 cheaper than the folding handset Huawei now has available to pre-order. The reason for the Mate XT Ultimate's astronomical $2,800 price tag is that it's a tri-folding phone, featuring two hinges and an iPad-like unfolded size of 10.2 inches.
We heard earlier this month that Huawei was looking to steal some of the attention from Apple by hosting its own product launch on September 9 (US time), the same day Cupertino revealed the iPhone 16 at its Glowtime event.
The 19,999 yuan (around $2,800) price of Huawei's flagship makes the iPhone 16 Pro Max look comparatively cheap, but the Mate XT Ultimate is unique within a phone market full of similar devices.
The Mate XT Ultimate measures a fairly standard 6.4 inches when fully folded. Its single-fold configuration increases the screen size to 7.9 inches, 0.3 inches larger than an opened Z Fold 5. Open Huawei's phone out completely, and it reaches a massive 10.2 inches, just half an inch less than a standard iPad.
Huawei Executive Director Richard Yu said the Chinese giant had been "struggling for five years" to bring the trifold model into production, due to the technical challenges stemming from the screen and hinge. There were also reliability issues that needed to be addressed, and the US sanctions on the firm and chip exports have caused problems. Ultimately, though, Yu said Huawei has "turned science fiction into a reality."
As for the rest of the phone's specs, it comes with 256GB of internal storage that can be increased for an extra cost, 16GB of RAM, a 50MP main camera, 12 MP ultrawide and periscope cameras, and a 5,600 mAh battery. Analysts believe it uses the Kirin 9010 5G SoC, a successor to the Kirin 9000S found in the Mate 60.
The display is a 120Hz 3K LTPO OLED with a 92% screen-to-body ratio. There's an optional folding keyboard, and it can use satellite connectivity when out of cell network range. Like all modern handsets, there's also a slew of AI features for the likes of photo editing and translations.
The Mate XT Ultimate weighs 298 grams (almost 50g more than the Z Fold 5). It measures 12.8mm thick when folded, which is slightly thinner than Samsung's latest foldable.
There have already been over 4.9 million pre-orders for the Mate XT Ultimate in China. It's unclear if the tri-folding handset will ever be released outside of the Asian nation, but it seems unlikely.
The history of tri-folding phones stretches back years. In 2010, long before foldables entered the market, Qualcomm patented a design for a folding device with three screens. TCL unveiled a concept tablet in 2020 that folded three times, and Samsung showed off a similar prototype tri-folding handset in 2021.