channelnews : Huawei Unveils $4300 Trifold Mate XT Smartphone

Huawei says more than three million people have made “reservations” for its groundbreaking new trifold 5G smartphone, the Mate XT.

After years of development and months of fevered speculation and leaks, the handset was unveiled yesterday in China. 

Huawei waited until a day after Apple’s grand iPhone 16 launch in Cupertino, California, and many are viewing this as an aggressive market play, with the Chinese tech giant giving Apple no clear space to push its new suite of products.

The plan is that people will stop talking about the new iPhone and start talking about the Mate XT.

The advertising for Mate XT makes it clear that this is a phone aimed at the upper echelons. 

The storyline in the promotional video, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but looks very classy, shows a man in a suit being driven to a ballroom dinner. He is browsing stocks on his new Mate XT.

A woman, sat in cavernous, luxe digs, is using her Mate XT to flip pages – as if reading a magazine – on a story titled “Chic Apparel That Turns Heads”.

Screenshot from Huawei Mate XT promo video.

The man arrives at the grand venue and heads to a bar, where he meets another bloke, and they browse – on his new Mate XT – an auction website.

It’s called “The Most Profesional [sic] Auction Platform”. Yes, unfortunately the word professional contains a typo. Oops.

Oops. Screenshot from Huawei Mate XT promo video.

The main guy leaves the bar and walks to the dinner, Mate XT in hand for all to see.

He walks past the woman from before, they exchange glances.

At the podium, he unfolds his Mate XT once, and then twice, and we see that his speech – titled “Expanding Horizon On Art Investment” – is right there, ready for him to deliver.

Screenshot from Huawei Mate XT promo video.

With a Chinese price tag that converts to $4,300 Australian dollars, it all makes sense.

Gizmochina got its hands on a phone at the Chinese launch and says “the tablet is thin and light like other recent foldables on the market, but what’s different is that it folds in a Z shape instead of the traditional V. One side folds backwards while the other side folds towards the front. So folding the Mate XT will take some getting used to.

“Despite its innovative folding mechanism, the Mate XT maintains a remarkably slim profile. When folded, it measures just 12.8mm in thickness—only marginally thicker than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6’s 12.1mm folded state.”

The site raised the issue of the crease, which it said was “visible and could be more obvious in long term use. We were impressed by the edges of the display, it was extremely thin, especially when compared with a similar sized tablet.”

The phone comes in red and black.