Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design Goes on Sale in China; Lack of Availability Reportedly Disappoints Customers

Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design — the world's first tri-fold smartphone — went on sale in China on Friday, alongside Apple's iPhone 16 series of smartphones which is now available in global markets, including India. However, customers in China who were looking to purchase the novel foldable phone from Huawei were reportedly disappointed that the company is only selling the phone to customers whose pre-orders it had confirmed, an indication that supplies of the Mate XT Ultimate Design might be limited in the country.

According to a Reuters report, walk-in customers in Shenzhen and Beijing were dismayed to find out that they couldn't purchase the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design on Friday, and that only customers who had pre-orders that were confirmed by the smartphone maker would be able to purchase it. 

Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design expands to form a 10.2-inch display
Photo Credit: Huawei

The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design is priced at CNY 19,999 (roughly Rs. 2,37,000) for the base model with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, while the company also offers 512GB and 1TB storage variants that cost CNY 21,999 (roughly Rs. 2,60,800) and CNY 23,999 (roughly Rs. 2,84,500), respectively.

Meanwhile, the top-of-the-line variant of the phone (with 1TB of storage) was available for purchase from one vendor in Shenzhen at a whopping CNY 150,000 (roughly Rs. 17,77,800) — or five times the official price of the handset — as per the report.

Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design Specifications, Features

The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design is a dual-SIM phone that runs on HarmonyOS 4.2. It sports a 10.2-inch flexible LTPO OLED screen when unfolded, but users can turn it into a 7.9-inch screen by folding it once, or a smaller 6.4-inch screen with a second fold.

A recent report suggests that the tri-fold phone runs on an octa-core Kirin 9010 chipset. The phone has 16GB of RAM and ships in 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage configurations.

There's a 50-megapixel camera with optical image stabilisation (OIS), along with a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera, and a 12-megapixel periscope telephoto camera with 5.5x optical zoom and OIS . There's also an 8-megapixel camera on the smartphone's display, for taking selfies or video calls.

The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design features a side mounted fingerprint scanner for biometric authentication. It has a 5,600mAh battery that can be charged at 66W (wired) or at 50W when using a compatible wireless charger. There's no word from the company on whether it will launch the handset in global markets.