The Register Gets Its Claws On Huaweis Bonkers Tri-fold Phone

First Look Huawei’s triple-fold Mate XT smartphone is a classy creation that’s easy to handle even when fully extended, but disappoints because it’s ridiculously expensive and the included Android variant struggles to keep pace with the machine’s contortions.

The Register came upon the Mate XT in a Huawei store at a mall in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which we visited to escape the conference food during last week’s APRICOT 2025 event.

Your correspondent was able to use the phone for about ten minutes and came away impressed by the machine itself, which when unfolded to its maximum extent measures 156.7 x 219mm. By way of contrast, Apple’s basic iPad is 179.5x 248.6mm and the iPad Mini is 134.8 x 195.4mm.

Here it is, fully extended and nestled in my meaty paw.

The Huawei Mate XT with all three screens deployed - Click to enlarge

The two sections of the screen that fold out from the Mate XT’s body are 3.6mm deep, while the main body of the device measures 4.8mm as it includes cameras and other components. All three leaves are thinner than either of the abovementioned iPads.

When all three leaves are folded together only a single screen is available, and the device becomes 12.8mm deep but doesn’t feel bulky in the hand. My point of comparison here is Samsung’s Galaxy Z folding phones which in similarly brief encounters have always felt a little brutish thanks partly to the prominence of the hinge. The Huawei is more presentable and subtle, and its combination of a brassy chassis and oxblood colored rear leather panels looks classy.

The smartphone didn’t feel fragile, but its many corners felt like it will be prone to catching on clothing. I felt like I would never dare to toss it a few meters across a room to land on a bed or sofa as I often do with my 2023-vintage Samsung Galaxy S device.

As a long-term iPad owner I’ve often been frustrated at how hard it is to hold Apple’s tablet with one hand. The Huawei’s size and 298 gram weight made it easy to handle. I feel that when all three screens are folded out the machine’s weight and 2232 × 3184 pixels display would make it a fine device on which to read an electronic book.

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The device I looked at was running Android and the EMUI skin Huawei uses for that OS, not the Harmony OS the Chinese giant uses in its home market.

EMUI gave me ennui because Huawei hasn’t tweaked it to handle the Mate XT’s changing screen sizes.

On the machine I saw, the device’s fully-extended screen presented dozens of icons for apps, all at the same size they appear at on a single screen. The result, as depicted above, was a forest of folders. The device should resize app icons instead.

And here it is again, with just two screens deployed.

The Huawei Mate XT with just two screens deployed - Click to enlarge

When I tried the SMS app the keyboard smeared itself across the bottom fifth of the screen and rendered keys oddly thin and wide. Single-handed operation required long distance hunt and peck, or swiping a long way between characters. Two handed typing was not feasible when holding the device, and frustratingly hard if I put it down because the extra width of the phone’s body means it doesn’t sit flat on a surface.

Other apps also struggled to adapt to the Huawei’s wide expanses, with plenty of white space between familiar UI elements.

You pay plenty for those un-used pixels: Sticker price in the Huawei store was 14,999 Malaysian Ringgit – about US$3750 – an absurd sum in either currency. My brief experience also led me to believe that until Huawei encourages developers to write apps tuned to the device's big displays, it won't delight buyers and the novelty of a three-leaf phone will quickly dispel.

For what it’s worth, the mall where I found the Huawei store was also home to two Samsung-stores, plus retail outlets dedicated to Chinese handset brands Xiaomi, Oppo, Honor, realme, and Vivo.

All borrowed very heavily from the layout of Apple’s retail outlets. None were at all busy during my dinnertime visit. Huawei’s store was the largest, and felt even emptier than the others. ®