When I first heard about the Huawei Mate XT in September 2024, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I’ve thought that large, foldable displays were the key to truly game-changing foldable devices for some time, fueled by my keen appreciation for the OnePlus Open, but seeing one come to life took a moment to sink in.
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, a fragile, unreliable device that sparked as much skepticism as excitement. It didn’t exactly help that the Mate XT was, and still is, a China exclusive, so there would be little opportunity to test it myself.
Fortunately, foldable display technology has come a long way in the past five years or so – so much so that the Mate XT has become more of a technical marvel than a prototype. TechRadar’s phone editor, Axel Metz, was recently lucky enough to get hands-on with the Mate XT, finding the phone to be a “very exciting device” — and despite only seeing the phone for myself through the power of the Internet, I’m leaning towards it. I agree with my colleague on this one.
Apparently, as soon as the dust settled around the Mate XT, the rumor mill released word about a successor – tentatively titled Huawei Mate XTs. We know little about this follow-up other than a proposal being in the works, but what this tells us is that the Mate XT tri-fold wasn’t unique. If one of the successors succeeds in reaching production, tri-fold phones will have escaped the “experimental” category’s event horizon, so Huawei can continue to put pressure – albeit from a distance – on other phone makers like Samsung and Google.
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The current foldable phone market has two form factors that all foldable phone makers suit their respective devices, with very few exceptions. The cheaper of the two phones is the foldable phone, a modern revival of classic Y2K-style foldable phones that are typically intended to be more stylish than functional. The second are booklet-style foldable devices like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 or Google Pixel 9 Pro, which are more focused on productivity.
Now, I’m a fan of foldable phones, but as much as I loved using the sturdy and sleek OnePlus Open, it led me to realize that a foldable phone can rarely do something a tablet can’t. I liked using the Open’s 7.82-inch internal screen 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 internal screen. It wasn’t big enough to be practical.
What’s more, half the things we do every day with a phone are so fast that it’s not even worth unlocking the phone to begin with. By the end of my time with the Open, I was mostly using it folded.
Be bold with pleats
Perhaps it’s this middle-of-the-road mentality that’s starting to cost foldable phone sales. As previously mentioned, the end of 2024 saw a decline in the number of foldable display orders across the industry, indicating a decline in foldable device production. Tri-fold devices may be the shot in the arm that this niche segment of the phone industry needs.
Fortunately, the latest updates suggest that Huawei is not alone in its belief in the tri-fold form factor. At CES 2025, Samsung Display showed off two new displays for the tri-fold phone, and while these are still proof of concept at the time of writing, it’s very encouraging to see physical proof of Samsung’s long-rumored explorations into the… Tri-fold.
This is according to a rumor issued by a Korean news agency CISA-E Magazine (via GSMArena), Samsung is scheduled to produce a unique tri-folding device that does not reveal the internal screen when folded in the second half of 2025 – albeit in a very small run of 300,000 units.
Personally, I think tri-fold phones have the potential to deliver on the productivity promises of foldable phones. A 10- or 11-inch screen, especially mounted vertically, is an ideal size for writing documents and has enough room for two or perhaps three multitasking windows. Laptops will still outperform it in terms of screen space and performance, especially laptops with the same hefty price tag as the Mate XT.
Whether or not the displays seen at CES will turn out to be usable devices will be decided by Samsung, but with these recent rumors and demos, I’m hopeful we’ll see more tri-fold devices popping up as the coming years (I’ll see myself out there) .