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.

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.

Display Measurements:

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 gets an overall rating of 145 on our PA Camera Score benchmark. In comparison, the OnePlus Open scored 144, followed by the Z Fold 6 with 142, and the Pixel 9 Pro Fold with 139. For a pioneering tri-fold phones which doesn't rely on its camera to win people over, the Huawei Mate XT performs very reassuringly. 

In terms of photo quality with the wide camera, the Mate XT is about on par with other foldable flagships. The 1x camera draws in a good level of detail and there's only a tinge of oversharpening. Most of the time, the shots you can take have good definition and well-balanced battery life. Two our of three shots will probably turn out a bit overexposed, but generally there aren't any notable issues related to exposure or color reproduction.

It's great news that the Ultra Wide camera doesn't seem to lag too much behind. Again looking at the scores, the XT nether excels, nor does it leave too much to ask for. Once again we see mild oversharpening, which isn't a big deal for the UW camera.

The selfie snapper seemed a bit iffy – it actually produced somewhat bleak colors in some situations. Thankfully, you don’t have to use the selfie camera too much, because this is a foldable, which means you can use the rear camera to take higher-quality selfies. Huawei also lets you fine-tune the zoom level to your liking, instead of making you choose either 1x or 2x or 3x, meaning you easily take a well-distanced selfie with an optimal look.

I was very pleased with the selfies I took using the main camera on the back. It works especially well with portrait mode.

You can do a 2x sensor crop with the Mate XT, and there's also the 5.5x periscope zoom lens to let you cover greater distances. The 2x sensor crop produces marvelous results, with great detail definition and no artificial sharpening. Meanwhile, the 5.5x camera does its job decently, although it's not the most impressive periscope zoom we've seen. Still, it's clear enough and the flexibility it offers will surely be appreciated.

Video recording from the Huawei Mate XT comes with a pretty decent quality. The main, zoom and ultrawide cameras hold up quite well. The selfie cam is once again not very impressive, but at least you have the luxury of using the rear camera for selfies. I also noticed that the audio quality of the recorded clips isn't particularly great. We've definitely heard better sounding video.

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.

The PhoneArena Battery Life Test returns a Battery Life estimate of 7h 24min, which is decidedly better than most of the competition, including the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, OnePlus Open and Galaxy Z Fold 6, which all hover around the 5.5-hour mark. It's important to note here that we tested the Huawei Mate XT in half-open position, meaning the screen size was resembling that of a standard foldable. Obviously, battery life will vary wildly with the Mate XT, depending on your balance between closed, semi-open and fully-open modes. This is why we decided running it through our PA Battery Test in semi-open position would probably deliver a result that presents a good balance for most users.

This could explain the Mate XT's higher Battery Live estimate compared to the other foldables we've tested. After all, it's total battery is also considerably bigger: it's 27% bigger than that of the Z Fold 6; 20% bigger than that of the 9 Pro Fold, and 16.5% bigger than that of the OnePlus Open.

One thing you'll notice in the Battery Test results above is that while the Huawei Mate XT delivers great battery times for lighter workloads, like browsing and video, our 3D gaming battery test seems to have taxed it more, resulting in a time that is about equal to those of the foldable competition (despite the XT's bigger battery). As we've already discovered, the Kirin 9010 lags more significantly in the GPU department, which can explain the unimpressive gaming longevity result here. 

The 5600 mAh battery is massive, but the Huawei Mate XT manages to charge it fully in the very reasonable 1h 15min. A 30-minute charge is enough to bring it up from 0% to 74%.

In comparison, the Fold 6 takes 1h 25min to charge fully, while the Pixel 9 Pro Fold takes 1h 39min.

The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design is a bold, visionary product, quite possibly paving the way for the future of smartphones. As the first tri-fold phone, it is far from perfect, but it gives us a glimpse of the extraordinary 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 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. This is why we decided to give the Mate XT a Breakthrough Innovation badge, to honor what we value most: fearless innovation.

Make no mistake, the Mate XT is an eXTremely impressive product. 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.

The Mate XT Ultimate Design is not the end of the road, it is only the beginning.