Huawei’s Mate XT 2 Tri-Fold Lands Two Days Before Apple’s Foldable iPhone

Apple's first foldable iPhone is expected on Wednesday. Huawei got out ahead of it on Monday with a phone that folds twice, and at the moment no other major manufacturer is selling one.

The Mate XT 2 Ultimate Design went official at Huawei's HarmonyOS 7 launch in China on September 7. It is the follow-up to the 2024 Mate XT, the first tri-fold phone anyone actually shipped, and it starts at 19,999 yuan. That is the same opening price the original carried two years ago.

About that price

You will see the number converted a few different ways: roughly $2,800 in some coverage, closer to $2,980 in other coverage, and $3,725 elsewhere. None of those is a US price, because Huawei does not sell phones in the United States. The announced figure is 19,999 yuan, and everything else is a conversion at a given day's exchange rate. The $3,725 you may have read is the 24,999 yuan configuration, the 1TB model with the privacy screen, not the base phone.

Here is the full ladder as Huawei announced it: 19,999 yuan for 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, 21,999 for 512GB, 23,999 for 1TB, 24,999 for the 1TB privacy-screen version, and 29,999 for a 2TB special edition that ships with a stylus. Converted at current rates, the base model works out to somewhere between $2,800 and $3,000, and the top one clears $4,000.

The fold changed

The original Mate XT folded in a Z, which left a third of that enormous screen sitting on the outside of the phone with nothing over it. Gorgeous, and slightly terrifying to carry. The Mate XT 2 switches to a G-shaped fold, so both outer panels wrap inward over the middle section and the flexible display is sealed inside when the phone is shut. A separate 6.5-inch cover screen handles the everyday stuff.

If that arrangement sounds familiar, it is the one Samsung used on the Galaxy Z TriFold. Samsung shipped that phone in December 2025 at $2,899, then told Bloomberg in March 2026 that it was discontinuing it in Korea and would stop selling it in the US once inventory ran out, with no successor planned. Huawei has picked up the design Samsung put down, which is a large part of why it currently has this shape of phone to itself.

The hardware

Open, the Mate XT 2 is a 10.2-inch 3K LTPO OLED running anywhere from 1Hz to 120Hz. That is tablet territory. Closed, it is 12.3mm thick and weighs 299 grams; unfolded it thins out to 3.5mm. Millimeters count for more than usual here, because folding a phone twice means stacking three of everything, and a couple of them is the difference between a device you pocket and one you leave at home.

Inside is the Kirin 9050 Pro, Huawei's own silicon, running HarmonyOS 7. There is a 5,600mAh battery with 66W wired and 50W wireless charging, IP58 and IP59 ratings, and a rear camera set built around a 50MP main sensor with a variable f/1.49 to f/4.0 aperture, a 40MP ultrawide, and a 50MP periscope with 3.5x optical zoom. It comes in black, white and purple.

The new trick is the privacy display on the 24,999 yuan model. Huawei calls it Lingdun, and it uses independent pixel control to collapse the viewing angle on command: double-tap and the screen goes dark for anyone sitting beside you. Unfold a 10.2-inch panel on a plane and the stranger in the next seat is reading your email. This is the fix for that.

Two days before Apple

Huawei announced the first Mate XT on September 10, 2024, one day after Apple introduced the iPhone 16. It is running the same play again, two days ahead of Apple's "Surprise and Shine" event on September 9, where the iPhone 18 Pro and a foldable iPhone are widely expected. Apple has confirmed the date and the venue. It has confirmed nothing about a foldable.

The complication is that this fight mostly takes place inside China. The Mate XT 2 goes on sale there this month, and Huawei has not announced pricing or a date for anywhere else. The original did eventually travel, launching in Kuala Lumpur in February 2025 at 3,499 euros for the 1TB model, well above what it cost at home. These phones also still ship without Google services, which is a hard sell in most of the markets Apple cares about.

So who is this actually for? In China, the person who wants the largest screen that will fit in a pocket and has four figures to spend on it. Everywhere else it is mostly a demonstration, and a well-timed one. Apple will spend Wednesday making the case for a phone that folds once. Huawei has been selling one that folds twice since 2024.