When I first heard about the Huawei Mate XT back in September 2024, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. I’d believed that larger folding screens were the key to truly game-changing foldable devices for some time, spurred on by my heartfelt appreciation for the OnePlus Open, but it took a moment to sink in to see one come to fruition.
Looking back, I suppose I had a case of what you might call first-gen jitters – cast your mind back to 2019 and the original Samsung Galaxy Fold, an unreliable and fragile device that created as much doubt as it made excitement. It didn’t exactly help that the Mate XT was supposed to be, and still is, a China exclusive, so there would be little chance to test it for yourself.
Fortunately, folding screen 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 phone editor Axel Metz was recently lucky enough to go hands-on with the Mate XT, finding the phone to be “an extremely exciting device” – and despite only seeing the phone for myself through the power of the internet, I’m inclined to agree with my colleague on this.
Apparently, as soon as the dust has settled around the Mate XT, the rumor mill has produced a bid for a successor – tentatively titled the Huawei Mate XTs. We don’t know much about this follow-up beyond the suggestion that it’s in the works, but what this tells us is that the triple Mate XT wasn’t a one-off. If a successor goes into production, triple phones will have escaped the event horizon of the “experimental” category, allowing Huawei to continue to put pressure – albeit from a distance – on other phone makers such as Samsung and Google.
Picture 1 of 2
The current flip phone market has two form factors that all flip phone manufacturers fit into their own devices, with very few exceptions. The cheaper of the two is the flip phone, a modernized revival of classic Y2K-style flip phones that typically aim to be more stylish than functional. The other is foldables like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 or the Google Pixel 9 Pro, which are much more focused on productivity.
Now, I’m a self-proclaimed fan of flip phones, but as much as I loved using the powerful and elegant OnePlus Open, it made me realize that a flip phone rarely can do anything a flip phone can’t. I loved using the 7.82-inch internal display in the Open to watch movies, scroll through articles, and play games, but I wouldn’t find myself writing articles, editing videos, or playing anything deeper than Tetris on the large interior screen. It just wasn’t big enough to be practical.
Also, half the things we do every day with a phone are so quick that it hardly makes it worth unfolding the phone to begin with. By the end of my time with the Open, I was using it folded more often than not.
Go bold with the folds
Perhaps it’s this middle-of-the-road mentality that’s starting to cost flip phone sales. As we previously reported, the end of 2024 saw a decline in folding display orders across the industry, signaling less production of folding devices. Perhaps triple devices are the shot in the arm that this niche part of the phone industry needs.
Fortunately, the latest updates suggest that Huawei is not alone in its belief in the triple form factor. At CES 2025, Samsung Display demonstrated two new tri-fold phone displays, and while these are still proof 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.
And according to a rumor originating from Korean news outlet Sisa Journal-E (via GSMArena ), Samsung is set to produce a unique tri-fold device that doesn’t expose the inner screen when folded in the second half of 2025 – albeit in a very small print run of 300,000 units.
Personally, I think tri-fold phones have the potential to deliver on the productivity promise of flip phones. A 10- or 11-inch screen, especially mounted vertically, is an ideal size for typing documents and has enough room for two, maybe three multitasking windows. It will still be outclassed in screen real estate and performance by laptops, especially laptops at the same exorbitant price that the Mate XT retails for.
Whether or not the displays seen at CES translate into usable devices will be up to Samsung to decide, but with these latest rumors and demos, I’m hoping we’ll see more trifold devices pop up as the years to come develops (I’ll see myself).
