Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design: Madness in phone form, but it sort of makes sense

I’ve seen my fair share of concept phones over the years, and most have never made it to market. The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design, however, is different. It’s one of those products that looks like it shouldn’t be possible but has made its way out of the factory and into shops, albeit only in China at the moment, where there are huge waiting lists for it. It’s a phone that probably should never have been made, but I’m pleased to have got my hands on one for a sneaky early look.

Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design hands-on: Specifications

• 10.2in, triple panel folding LTPO OLED display, 120Hz, 3,184 x 2,234
• 7nm Kirin 9010 processor; Maleoon 910 GPU
• 16GB RAM
• Up to 1TB storage
• 12.8mm thick folded; 3.6mm to 4.8mm folded
• Main cameras: 50MP f/1.4-f/4 primary; 12MP 5.5x periscope telephoto; 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide
• Selfie camera: 8MP f/2.2
• Software: HarmonyOS
• Price: Approximately £2,500 to £3,000
• Expected availability: Early 2026

Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design hands-on: Design and first impressions

The Mate XT Ultimate Design is a folding phone with a difference. Huawei calls it a “tri-fold” phone, but that’s a bit of a misnomer. It “only” has two hinges and one big 10.2in screen. But that screen folds into three segments, making this the most advanced and flexible folding phone yet. Yep, the Huawei Mate XT’s unfolded display is as big as a proper tablet and yet, it still fits in a pocket.

Is it unwieldy? You bet it is. All bits of metal and engineering that go together to make such a product possible means this is a hefty old block of tech. It weighs nearly 300g, and you need two hands to unfold it. It isn’t as thick as you might think when folded, and it’s only a little thicker than the OnePlus Open, but at 12.8mm it is still a fair old chunk.

Is it expensive? Of course it is. In a world where even the cheapest single-hinge book-style folding phones cost upwards of £1,400, you’d expect this high-concept device to fetch a princely sum. Even so, though, it’s awfully expensive (I’d expect it to cost between £2,500 and £3,000 if it eventually launches in the UK). At that price, I’d be so nervous about dropping this thing that I think I’d never take it out. I shudder to think what you’d be paying every month if you were able to buy this thing on contract.

Is it complicated? By jingo, yes. Just perusing the full specifications list made me feel slightly giddy. This is a phone, after all, with not one, not two but three screen configurations: in fully folded mode, it’s effectively a 6.4in smartphone, with a resolution of 1,008 x 2,232; unfold one leaf from the rear, flip it over and you get a 7.9in screen with 2,048 x 2,234 pixels. Finally, in fully unfolded mode you have a 10.2in diagonal, a 3,184 x 2,232 resolution, 120Hz expanse of LTPO OLED that will look great when you’re watching TV and movies.

There’s no cover screen here because a third of the inner screen is exposed to the outside world when the phone is fully folded, but you do get the usual plethora of cameras. There are three on the rear, housed in a raised octagonal bump: a 50MP main camera with a variable f/1.4 to f/4 aperture; a 12MP, f/3.4 5.5x periscope telephoto shooter and a 12MP, f/2.2 13mm ultrawide camera for those close up group selfies.

There is a selfie camera – only one – and it’s a simple 8MP f/2.2 affair but I can’t imagine you’ll be using this much, as you can simply flip the main camera unit around and frame your selfies using the “cover” display. Inside, this enormous display is powered by a 7nm 12-core Kirin 9010 chip with 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage.

Despite all the complexity, though, this is weirdly a phone that makes some degree of sense – far more than you might at first think. The main benefit, for me, is that the inner screen is much less square than it is on most normal folding phones when fully unfolded. Play a YouTube video on it and there’s far less wastage in the form of black bars above and below the screen.

And this is a screen that’s large enough to use as a compact laptop replacement. I can easily imagine slotting it into a portable Bluetooth keyboard for a bit of impromptu writing on a flight or train journey and, in this context, a few extra grams doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

Importantly, though, what does it feel like? Does it feel – like those early folding phones did – as if it will fall to pieces after a few days, weeks or months of use? Not at all. Indeed, after picking it up and playing around with the thing, I have to say I’m impressed. The hinge mechanism feels smooth and rigid. There are no unsightly gaps or gritty-feeling mechanics. It’s incredibly thin – 3.6mm at its thinnest point – but it doesn’t feel wobbly or insubstantial.

And when it’s folded up, there isn’t much difference in feel compared with the single-hinge phones of a couple of generations ago. It’s almost as if Huawei skipped the slightly shonky first iteration of this phone and went straight to the Mate XT 2 or even 3.

The other big advantage of a folding phone like this is that only needs one big folding display. You don’t need a cover screen and this helps keep the weight manageable.

I will, however, say that I am very nervous about the fact that there’s an exposed spine of display along one edge of the phone when folded. Given how fragile folding screens can be, I’d be terrified of scratching this or cracking the display by simply knocking it against the edge of a table. It looks to be a weak point, a fact that Huawei seems to have tacitly acknowledged by introducing a protective flap to keep it covered.

And, as with all folding phones, the creases are visible if you look at the display from an angle. You’re unlikely to notice them when the screen is on and you’re viewing it head-on, but you can feel the creases under your finger when you swipe across the display.

Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Edition hands-on: Early verdict

The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Edition is big, gold and a rather miraculous achievement. The big shame is that with such an exotic and exciting piece of hardware, it doesn’t have the Google Play Store or Google’s core apps installed out of the box, and that means it can be a faff to get the software you want installed. It’s also ludicrously expensive.

But does that matter? Do those facts make this phone any less of a marvel? In my humble opinion, not really.

The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate is, quite simply, the most ambitious piece of smartphone design I’ve come across in my long years as a technology journalist. It may not be practical but it is a wonder of engineering and product design. Admire it simply for that.