Prakhar Khanna/ZDNET
Huawei introduced the world's first tri-fold phone, the Mate XT Ultimate, in its home country late last year. A global release seemed unlikely, but after breaking preorder records -- even before its price was revealed -- it finally launched beyond China in early 2025.
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The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate pushes the boundaries of what you can expect from a phone by fitting a 10.2-inch screen inside your pocket -- all in a slimmer form factor than more recent foldable phones. I've spent more several months now with the tri-fold phone, and here's what makes it better than any other book-style foldable on the market right now.
The design itself is a technological marvel
Prakhar Khanna/ZDNET
It's hard to be surprised or excited when seeing a new phone these days, but the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate is different. Despite knowing what to expect after unboxing, I was still pleasantly surprised when I first held it in my hands and folded it into a slab-phone form.
Within my first day, I used it for browsing, multitasking, gaming, attempting to install Google apps, and simply folding and unfolding it for the fun of it.
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If we're talking numbers, the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate is 3.6mm thin when fully unfolded and 12.8mm thick when folded. For context, Samsung's last-gen Galaxy Z Fold 5 measured 13.4mm in thickness, while the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is just 0.7mm thinner than Huawei's tri-fold.
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