Huawei has already received over 2.8 million reservations for Mate XT tri-fold
Huawei’s website in China reveals that it has collected over 2.8 million reservations for its new tri-fold handset called the Mate XT. The company started accepting reservations on Saturday and the phone will be officially introduced in China on Tuesday, September 10th at 2:30 pm local time. The specs of the device, pricing, and other details will be made known tomorrow during Huawei’s event. We do know that the Mate XT, which will be offered in black and red, will be released on September 20th.
Huawei has already released folding handsets including the book-style Mate X5 and the clamshell Pocket P50. Research firm TechInsights says that shipments of foldable phones grew 85% during the second quarter on a year-over-year basis. The company has made a remarkable comeback in China over the last year ever since it shrugged off U.S. sanctions preventing the firm from obtaining cutting-edge chips.
Huawei has received over 2.8 million reservations for its tri-fold Mate XT device. | Image credit-Huawei
The company had to use Snapdragon chips tweaked to prevent them from working with 5G networks to power flagships like the P50, Mate 50, and P60 phones. Then, shockingly, last year Huawei introduced the P60 line powered by its home-grown 7nm Kirin 9000s chip which supports 5G. It was the first Kirin-powered phone supporting 5G released by Huawei since the Mate 40 in 2020.
The only drawback for Huawei is that the foundry producing its new Kirin chips, SMIC, is blocked from receiving the latest lithography equipment which means that its chips are two generations behind the 3nm chips produced this year by TSMC and Samsung Foundry. But the most important thing that came from this in Huawei’s eyes was the ability of the manufacturer to source its own 5G processors even as rumors percolate about a future 5nm chip in the works. It isn’t known yet which processor will power the Mate XT.
Powering their last two flagship models (the Mate 60 series and Pura 70) with chips two generations behind the pack didn’t seem to impact the design and feature set of the handsets. And now Huawei is on the verge of introducing the first commercially available tri-fold handset that opens up to deliver a 10-inch tablet-sized display to users. Also setting records could be the price tag of the Mate XT which might carry a price as high as 28,440 Chinese yuan or $4,000.