Huawei Mate XT Review: The first tri-fold phone

There’s a lot you can say about the first-ever tri-fold phone, the Huawei Mate XT. When faced with such an intriguing, super-impressive gadget, most people often skip the niceties and go straight for the big question – how much does it cost? And sure, we can turn this into a conversation about the eyebrow-raising price of €3500 and how very few would actually be able to afford it. But that wouldn’t be a very useful thing to do, would it?Instead, how about we focus on the Mate XT’s state-of-the-art hardware, the way the tri-fold design enhances user experience, and whether or not Huawei’s vision of the ultimate phone makes sense. Now, that sounds way more exciting!

The big question which I’ll aim to answer in this Huawei Mate XT review is whether this will be the future of smartphones: a phone that effectively turns into a tablet. One device to rule them all! The Mate XT is not the destination, but the starting point of an exciting new direction in the great smartphone journey. It’s here to give us a glimpse of a future era, where smartphones will be able to offer a new range of use cases, unlocking even more powerful applications and expanding the boundaries of what’s possible to experience on a handset.

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The Mate XT is the first smartphone that Huawei lovingly bestows with the Ultimate Design moniker. I can see why. This is not just a triple-folding phone, it’s a premium product every step of the way.

The faux leather material on the back is durable and convenient. The glossy, polished metal frame looks shiny and luxurious. The Mate XT’s red-gold and black-champaigne color schemes scream bad-ass. In the current day and age, this really is the epitome of premium smartphone design. The ultimate flex – no pun intended.

Folded, the Huawei Mate XT is significantly thicker (12.8mm thick) and heavier than a regular smartphone, and slightly thicker and heavier than a dual-folding phone. Compared to something like the Galaxy Z Fold 6 (12.2mm) or the OnePlus Open (11.7mm), the difference isn’t huge, but it’s definitely noticeable.

With its considerable 298 grams, the Huawei Mate XT doesn’t exactly disappear in the palm of your hand, but it’s nothing you can’t get used to. All in all, the Mate XT feels pretty manageable and surprisingly comfortable in the hand.

The Mate XT’s tri-fold mechanism is its standout feature, allowing it to expand into a 10.2-inch tablet with a 16:11 aspect ratio. It’s truly remarkable how the perception changes when you unfold it into its fully open, 10.2” form. All of a sudden, it transforms from a hefty phone into a feather-light tablet.

The 16:11 aspect ratio is slightly wider than 4:3, which makes it extremely flexible and ideal for both everyday tasks on the go, as well as more complex, productivity-driven applications.

Both hinges feel solid enough, but they could use a little bit of a reassuring click when opening. Aside from that, the Huawei Mate XT’s design feels very much refined, devoid of any awkward, flimsy, or unfinished elements. This level of execution positions the Mate XT at the helm of the foldable market and sets a high standard for future products in this ultra-premium category.

The Mate XT takes foldable displays to the next level, particularly when it comes to media consumption. Its 16:11 aspect ratio makes it way more tailored for tasks like watching videos or gaming, unlike the squarish aspect ratios of traditional dual-folding phones.

The 10.2-inch display offers a larger-than-life experience, providing ample space for productivity apps while still offering a cinematic display for content consumption. The high-resolution, 3K OLED screen is a stunner, on par with the OLED displays on modern flagships.

It might be surprising that it comes with “just” a 90 Hz refresh rate. While slightly lower than the 120 Hz seen on most flagships nowadays, it still offers very smooth scrolling and animations without noticeable lag. This probably was one of the few compromises Huawei engineers had to make in order to hit certain targets for power efficiency and performance.

In day-to-day use, the 90 Hz refresh rate feels satisfyingly fluid and responsive, and this is coming from a high-refresh rate fanatic.

Due to the US ban, Huawei has been facing significant challenges in the chipset arena. The Mate XT Ultimate Design comes with Huawei’s in-house Kirin 9010 processor, which is built on the older 7nm process. This is a definite disadvantage compared to the latest 3nm Apple A18 or Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite, both of which offer superior CPU and GPU performance. As a matter of fact, the last several generations of high-end Snapdragons can all easily outperform the Kirin 9010.

Still, running Huawei’s EMUI 14.2, the Mate XT feels snappy and efficient for general tasks, productivity apps, and even most games out there. If you’re in for some truly graphics-intensive gaming, you’ll definitely see the Mate XT start lowering the frame-rates, especially if you don’t lower the graphics settings. Most mainstream apps and games don’t pose any problems, though.

One of the significant limitations for international users is the lack of native Google Services. Their absence could be a concern for some users, especially those who aren’t particularly tech-savvy.

The reality is that if you’re using a standard Google account, you shouldn’t have much of a problem using pretty much everything Google on the Huawei Mate XT, courtesy of the open-source Google Mobile Services implementation microG.

Google Workspace professional users will run into bigger troubles when trying to set things up. These accounts generally don’t work with microG. It’s still possible to get your data like contacts, calendars, Gmail and Drive up and running, but it’ll require employing further workarounds, which isn’t particularly convenient.

While the Mate XT doesn’t feature Huawei’s most advanced camera setup, the octagonal camera island houses a very capable configuration which includes a 5.5x periscope zoom lens.

All in all, the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design puts up a very respectable camera performance. It’s just solid across the board. This may be no S25 Ultra, but it is pretty much on par with phones like the Galaxy Z Fold 6 or the Pixel 9 Pro Fold when it comes to photo quality, and even beats them at video recording.

The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design packs a huge, 5600 mAh battery, which will take you through a full day of use, if you don’t use the full 10.2” screen too much. This is one more area where having access to a modern-day Snapdragon could have probably led to an even better showing. However, the great news is that even with the 7nm Kirin 9010, the Mate XT delivers a very satisfying result.

It’s comforting to know that there’s fast wired charging on board (up to 66W), as well as fast wireless charging of up to 50W, meaning you don’t have to stay glued to the charger for too long before you can grab your Mate XT and get busy with the beautiful 10.2” screen again.

PhoneArena Battery Test Results:

The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design is a bold, visionary product, potentially paving the way for the future of smartphones. As the first tri-fold device, it is far from perfect, but it gives us a glimpse of the new possibilities for multitasking, media consumption, and productivity on the phones of the future.

In a market where customers have long been complaining of phones that don’t seem to improve much from year to year, the Mate XT is exactly the type of radical innovation we want to see more of. It’s bold, it’s beautiful, it’s aggressive.

Frankly, for all its politically-inflicted shortcomings, the Huawei Mate XT is a technological meisterwerk. A breakthrough product that is obviously ahead of its time. Such kind of radical innovation can only be the result of endless hours of tireless work, and a company that refuses to play the victim. Huawei could have simply quit, but no, they are still here, and with a vision that is bigger and bolder than ever.