Huawei Mate XT Preview: Here’s to the crazy ones

The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design, aka the first tri-fold phone, marks a monumental shift in smartphone design and technology. Huawei has achieved what might be considered the smartphone endgame – merging a phone and a full-size tablet into a single device compact enough to comfortably fit into your pocket. With the Mate XT, I believe we’re witnessing the dawn of a new 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.

This innovative design is likely to reignite interest in foldables and lead to faster mainstream adoption.

Folded, the Huawei Mate XT is undoubtedly thicker and heavier than a regular smartphone, but it stands shoulder-to-shoulder with other foldable competitors like the Galaxy Fold 6 and OnePlus Open in terms of size. While it weighs in at just below 300 grams, it remains manageable and surprisingly comfortable in the hand. What’s interesting is that when you unfold into its fully expanded, 10.2” form, it feels like some feather-light tablet. Because for a tablet with such a large display, it really is extraordinarily light. Crazy beast, this Mate XT is!

The Mate XT’s tri-fold mechanism is its standout feature, allowing it to transform from a standard-sized 6.4” smartphone into a 10.2-inch tablet with a 16:11 aspect ratio. This flexibility makes it a versatile tool, ideal for both everyday tasks on the go, and more complex, productivity-driven applications.

For such a forward-looking phone, the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design actually doesn’t feel like a first-gen product. I believe that’s because of the sophisticated components that make it possible – the flexible OLED panel and the hinges, which have already been perfected over the last few years.

Both hinges snap solidly into place to form a fully flat 10.2” display. The phone’s design feels very much refined, devoid of any awkward, flimsy, or unfinished elements. This level of execution positions the Mate XT at the very helm of the foldable market and sets a higher standard for future products in this 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 ideal for tasks like watching videos or gaming, which is where previous foldables didn’t quite hit the mark.

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 other 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.

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 the Kirin 9010 processor, which is built on the older 7nm process. While this is a disadvantage compared to the latest 3nm Apple A17 Pro or 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, in practice, the Mate XT handles most tasks perfectly smoothly.

Running Huawei’s Harmony OS, it feels snappy and efficient for general tasks, productivity apps, and even gaming. The Kirin 9010 may be faster to start throttling under heavy load, but this should happen only when doing very demanding things like playing heavy 3D games.

One of the significant limitations for international users is the lack of native Google Services. Their absence could be a concern for some users, but there’s usually a very easy solution provided to get them installed. In China, the Mate XT ships with Harmony OS, while in international markets, Huawei’s EMUI will likely be the software interface of choice. At this point, both user interfaces are refined, full of features and showcasing pleasant, iOS-inspired visuals.

While the Mate XT doesn’t feature Huawei’s most advanced camera setup, the octagonal camera island houses a capable configuration, including a 5.5x periscope zoom lens. The camera module, although not the device's main selling point, is likely to produce high-quality images in most situations.

We’ll have to wait a bit more before we can put the Huawei Mate XT through our rigorous Camera Score test to be sure exactly how it performs.

With its sizable 5600 mAh battery, the Mate XT promises decent battery life, but its longevity remains to be seen.

The large display is likely to be power-hungry, so achieving full-day battery life under heavy usage could be a challenge.

However, 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 won’t have to stay glued to the charger.

The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design is a bold, visionary product, paving the way for the future of smartphones. As the first tri-fold device, it brings new possibilities for multitasking, media consumption, and productivity.

My honest take is that its exorbitant price right now shouldn’t bother us. Personally, I’m thinking less about this product in particular, and more about the tri-fold phones that are going to come in the future, further perfecting this form-factor and making it more accessible.

Make no mistake, though, the Mate XT product itself is eXTremely impressive. This isn’t just a phone – it’s a bold statement about the future of mobile devices. While foldables have been around for a few years now, the Mate XT demonstrates that something even bigger, better and more innovative is right around the corner. I can’t wait.