Just look at Huawei’s trifold phone

After 24 hours with Huawei’s Mate XT — a.k.a. the world’s first trifold smartphone — I have this to say for it: the novelty hasn’t worn off.

I’ve tried the Mate XT twice before, first shortly after it launched last September, and then again in February after it was released outside of China. But now Huawei is ready to actually let me review its one-of-a-kind hardware, which at today’s exchange rates would set you back just under $4,000.

I’ll be spending the next week with my SIM card in the Mate XT, as I get used to life with triple the usual space and none of the usual Google Mobile Services support, but one day in, I figured I’d share my first — or is it third? — impressions and a bunch of pictures.

There are really three ways to use the XT: as a regular-ish phone with a 6.4-inch display, in a square shape that resembles other foldables and measures 7.9 inches, or fully opened into what’s essentially a 10.2-inch tablet.

It feels a little unnatural to open at first. Since each segment folds in a different direction, it took me a few hours to get used to where I push and where I pull, and I spent most of that adjustment period worrying I was about to snap something. Once you have it figured out though, the process is pretty satisfying, even if opening the phone is absolutely a two-handed job.

The three segments attach magnetically when closed, and they at least feel sturdy, even if I wouldn’t trust this thing to survive being sat on. You’ll also have to live with part of the display being permanently exposed on the phone’s right edge, and the front screen doubling as the phone’s back when it’s halfway open. Scratches — and fingerprint smudges — are an inevitability.

Unsurprisingly, it’s thicker than your average phone, and heavier, but it’s more comfortable than you’d think. It’s also thinner and lighter than your average 10-inch tablet, so it’s all a matter of perspective.

It’s hard to tell from looking, but Huawei has tapered the body: at its thinnest it’s actually slimmer than even Oppo’s Find N5, but the third of the phone with a USB-C port is a hair thicker.

Let’s get the software question out of the way: no, this doesn’t have any official support for Google Mobile Services, which means no Play Store and no Google apps — at least not out of the box. Sideloading all things Google is easier than ever, which is to say it takes an hour and is a bit of a headache, but if you can get through that then you’ve essentially got a regular Android experience.

With the help of open source tools like Aurora Store and microG, I got every Android and Google app I tried up and running, with the sole (and understandable) exception of Google Wallet. I’ll miss NFC payments, but everything else works.

Will they work forever? I don’t know. Will they update properly? I also have no idea. Does sideloading every single app introduce a whole new set of exciting security vulnerabilities into my life? Almost certainly!

I also don’t know how long even Huawei will let this sort of setup work. My Mate XT is running on HarmonyOS 4.2, which still has a little Android at its heart. But the company is slowly moving towards HarmonyOS Next, which isn’t compatible with Android apps at all, so the Mate XT’s next iteration — or simply its next software update — might kill off Android support for good.

Just like on an Android tablet, some apps make better use of the full display than others. It’s just about the perfect size for streaming, but Instagram has no idea what to do with all the extra space.

Multitasking is a bit basic, too. Three screens should mean three apps, right? Wrong. The split-screen mode only supports two at a time, and if you want a third, it’ll have to be an awkward “Floating Window” getting in the way of something else.

24 hours in, I can confirm that the Mate XT feels like an engineering marvel. Whether it’s a phone anyone should drop four grand on is what I’ll spend the next week figuring out.

Photography by Dominic Preston / noti.group