When I first heard of the Huawei Mate XT back in September 2024, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. I’d believed that larger folding displays were the key to truly game-changing foldable devices for some time, spurred on by my fervent appreciation of the OnePlus Open, but seeing one come to reality took a moment to sink in.
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The Evolution of Folding Phones
Looking back, I suppose I had a case of what you could call the first-generation jitters – cast your mind back to 2019 and the original Samsung Galaxy Fold. It was an unreliable and fragile device that created as much doubt as it did excitement. It didn’t exactly help that the Mate XT was to be, and still is, a China exclusive, so there’d be little chance of testing it myself.
Luckily, folding display technology has come a long way in the last five or so years – so much so that the Mate XT landed as a technical marvel rather than a prototype. TechRadar’s Phones Editor Axel Metz was recently lucky enough to go hands-on with the Mate XT, finding the phone to be “a supremely exciting device” – and despite only seeing the phone for myself through the internet, I’m inclined to agree with my colleague on this one.
The current folding phone market features two form factors that all folding phone makers appropriate for their own devices, with very few exceptions:
- Flip phones: A modernized revival of classic Y2K-style flip phones, these devices typically aim to be more stylish than functional.
- Booklet style foldables: Devices like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 or the Google Pixel 9 Pro focus more on productivity.
Tri-Fold Technology: A Glimpse Ahead
Seemingly as soon as the dust has settled around the Mate XT, the rumor mill has produced word of a successor – tentatively titled the Huawei Mate XTs. We know little about this follow-up other than the suggestion that it’s being worked on, but this does tell us that the tri-fold Mate XT was not a one-off. If a successor makes it to production, tri-fold phones will have escaped the event horizon of the “experimental” category, and with that, Huawei can continue to exert pressure – albeit from afar – on other phone makers like Samsung and Google.
Furthermore, half of the things we do every day with a phone are so quick that it hardly makes unfolding the phone worth it to begin with. By the end of my time with the OnePlus Open, I was using it folded more often than not. Perhaps it’s this middle-of-the-road mentality that is beginning to cost folding phones sales. As we previously reported, the end of 2024 saw a downturn in the number of folding display orders across the industry, which signals less production of folding devices. Maybe tri-fold devices are the shot in the arm this niche part of the phone industry needs.
The Performance Promise of Tri-Folding
Luckily, the latest updates suggest that Huawei isn’t alone in its belief in the tri-fold form factor. At CES 2025, Samsung Display demonstrated two new tri-fold phone displays, and while these remain proofs of concept at the time of writing, it’s very encouraging to see physical evidence of Samsung’s long-rumored explorations into tri-fold territory.
According to a rumor stemming from Korean news outlet Sisa Journal-E (via GSMArena), Samsung is set to produce a unique tri-fold device that does not expose the inner screen when folded in the second half of 2025 – albeit in a very small run of 300,000 units.
Personally, I think tri-fold phones have the potential to make good on the productivity promise of folding phones. A 10- or 11-inch screen, especially mounted vertically, is an ideal size for writing documents and has enough space for two, maybe three, multitasking windows. It’ll still be outclassed in screen real estate and performance power by laptops, particularly laptops of the same exorbitant price that the Mate XT sells for.
With the recent rumors and demos, it seems we may see more tri-fold devices popping up as the coming years unfold (I’ll see myself out).
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