Huawei’s trifold phone launches outside China

Huawei’s trifold Mate XT phone is launching outside of China, but it won’t come cheap. The world’s first and only phone that folds at two separate points in the display costs €3,499 (about $3,660) — and like other Huawei phones, won’t officially support any Google apps.

The Mate XT launched in China in September 2024. It features a dual-hinge folding display that gives users three different screen configurations: a 6.4-inch panel when closed, a 10.2-inch tablet-sized screen when fully opened, and a 7.9-inch display when only partially unfolded.

The trifold is also impressively thin, just 3.6mm thick at its thinnest point when open. That’s even thinner than the upcoming Oppo Find N5, which is also being promoted as the “world’s thinnest” foldable. That phone will be thinner than Huawei’s when shut, helped by only having two panels rather than three.

The 5,600mAh battery should be sufficient to last the day, even with the larger screen size, and the Mate XT supports wired or wireless charging. The rear camera looks impressive too, with a 50-megapixel main sensor joined by 12-megapixel ultrawide and periscope shooters. The big downside is that like other Huawei hardware, there’s no support for Google apps and services, including the Play Store. The company has launched its own Android-free operating system, HarmonyOS Next, but the Mate XT has not yet been upgraded to that software, even in China.

I got the chance to try the Mate XT shortly after its September unveiling, and was struck by how sturdy it feels despite the delicate design. It’s a little unintuitive having to fold each screen segment in a different direction to close the phone, but that’s a small price to pay — at least compared to the rather large price you’ll have to pay just to own the thing.

At its Kuala Lumpur launch event Huawei didn’t confirm exactly which markets the phone will launch in outside Malaysia, nor when. Huawei UK public relations specialist Elliot Mulley-Goodbarne did confirm to The Verge that it’s “not coming to the UK or US for the time being.” It’s launching in a single configuration, with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

The Mate XT launched alongside a new pair of open-ear earbuds called the FreeArc, the Band 10 fitness tracker, and a MatePad Pro 13.2 tablet with a matte OLED display.