Huawei Mate XT
The world’s first tri-fold device doesn’t disappoint, with impressively slim hardware and a big 10.2-inch screen, but it has hurdles to overcome, not least availability and pricing.
Pros
Cons
Key Features
- World’s first tri-fold designThe Mate XT is the first tri-fold device, offering a regular 6.4-inch smartphone, 7.9-inch book-style foldable and 10.2-inch tablet in one.
- Impressively thinDespite the tri-fold design of the foldable, it’s only just over half a milimeter thicker than the regular Galaxy Z Fold 6 when folded, and 4.8mm thick unfolded.
- Wired and wireless chargingThe Huawei Mate XT boasts not only fast 66W wired charging, but 50W wireless charging.
Introduction
Huawei was among the first manufacturers to show off a working foldable smartphone, and so it’s no surprise it’s the first to show off the next evolution in foldable hardware in the form of the Mate XT, the world’s first tri-foldable.
It’s another great example of how manufacturers can use this flexible, folding technology for new form factors, sporting a design which folds twice, splitting a large tablet-sized screen in three, to give you even more space when unfolded.
But what’s it actually like to use? I’ve spent a bit of time with the hybrid foldable device, and here’s what I found out.
Design
- Tri-fold design
- Slightly thicker than Z Fold 6 when folded
- No IP rating
Perhaps the surprising thing about this new foldable device style is that, thanks to having a few years under the belt developing large flexible phones, it feels mature.
The hinges open smoothly, and feel pretty sturdy, holding at whatever angle you want to put them in. At the same time, the magnets that hold it shut are strong, to the point where it does take a little more effort to open than I was expecting. Certainly more effort than it’d take to open phones like the Galaxy Z Fold 6 or Pixel Fold models.
And despite being a phone that folds over itself, it doesn’t feel especially thick either. When fully folded it feels a bit like last year’s generation of book-style foldables in thickness, but when open fully, it’s remarkably slim.
In its thinnest sections, it’s only 3.6mm, and about 4.75mm at its thickest. Fully shut it measures 12.8mm, which is obviously a good few millimetres thicker than a standard smartphone, but only about half a millimetre thicker than the Galaxy Z Fold 6.
It does have a bit of a trick up its sleeve too, in that – because it folds twice – it doesn’t just have the two open and shut modes like most foldable.
You can open it up to have what Huawei calls the dual-screen mode, where it uses two sections of the screen in a similar view to what most book-style foldables have, for those times when having the mammoth 10.2-inch screen inside fully open is inconvenient, but you still want a big panel.
Then, of course, you still get the regular smartphone mode too, using one 6.4-inch section of the display. In this mode, that front display being folded around a hinge does introduce one potential area for weakness.
It means there is one part of the flexible display that’s exposed around the outside of one of the hinges, and so could end up being a part of the screen that gets scratched, if it’s not protected.
Thankfully, there is a case with the phone that covers that slim portion of the screen. It’s also worth noting at this point that there is no IP rating for water and dust resistance, so there’s no official waterproofing on this particular foldable.
Still, it does feel good in the hand in pretty much any mode thanks to that grippy, textured surface on the back which comes in either a black or red colour, both of which come with a gold aluminium finish around the metal edges.
Displays, specs and performance
- 10.2-inch OLED foldable screen
- Kirin 9010 processor
- Fast wired and wireless charging
As for that display, it’s a foldable OLED LTPO panel that supports adaptive refresh rates. It can go up to 120Hz, and when fully open has a resolution of 2232 x 3184 pixels, which is an unusual aspect ratio but means a pixel density of close to 400 pixels per inch.
Open, it feels pretty close to using a widescreen full-sized tablet screen. So unlike book-style horizontal folding phones, it’s like having a proper tablet that folds up to fit in your pocket.
It displays up to a billion colours too, and – as I’ve already mentioned – can be used in either a single smartphone screen mode or dual screen mode which measures 6.4 inches and 7.9 inches respectively.
The software that runs on it is Harmony OS 4.2, which, being Huawei’s software, means no Google Play as usual. Since this is a China-only device for now, that’s not a particularly problematic omission.
There is some optimisation for the large screen in that you can run two apps side by side and have a floating window on top, but that’s largely the same kind of setup you’ll find in most book-style foldable phone software.
In other words, there’s nothing especially new for this larger display size yet, so it feels a little like more could be done to make use of that huge 10-inch panel.
Inside, there’s a 7nm octa-core Kirin 9010 processor alongside 16GB RAM and a choice of 256GB, 512GB or 1TB storage.
There’s also a 5600mAh battery capacity, which is about the typical size for a standard flagship Android, and that supports 66W fast wired charging and 50W wireless charging if you have Huawei’s proprietary wireless charging stand.
Cameras
- Triple camera setup
- Main camera offers variable aperture
- 8MP selfie camera
It is worth briefly discussing the cameras on the back too, and not just because they’re set in an ornate, multi-faceted jewel-like metal island. Which, by the way, we’re told are finished by hand, individually, so that all of those camera units have slightly different markings on them.
It’s a triple-camera system, which is fairly commonplace now. As is typical, the primary camera is the strongest. It features a 50-megapixel sensor which has variable aperture, so you can move between f/1.4 to f/4 to adjust light capture and depth of field.
It’s also optically stabilised to help with motion blur. The other two cameras both have 12MP sensors, one of which is an ultra-wide angle lens, and the other is a periscope style zoom lens capable of roughly 5.5x optical zoom.
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Early Thoughts
In the end, it’s exciting to see companies try new things again in this foldable phone market. Clearly, having a large full-screen tablet fold down into the size of a phone has always seemed an inevitability ever since the first folding phones started to appear in 2018.
The major downside of making them bigger, however, is the price. In China, where this is launching, you’re looking at the equivalent of nearly $3000 or £2,500 to be among the first to own this emerging technology. And that, by any comparison, is very expensive. It’d be cheaper to just buy a regular smartphone and a full-size tablet.
But that’s the price to pay for being an early adopter of new tech, I suppose.
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