Huawei Patent Document Describes 'Vertical' Trifold Smartphone With Two Hinges

The Huawei Pura X Max was recently launched in China as the smartphone maker's first wide-folding book-style handset. The tech firm was also among the first OEMs to introduce a twice-folding pamphlet-like smartphone, dubbed Huawei Mate XT. Now, the company appears to be working on another trifold handset, which might fold and unfold vertically, as the tech firm has filed a design patent application for the same in the US. It appears to feature two hinges, aligned horizontally. The foldable is shown to fold into a relatively smaller S-shaped flip phone. Moreover, the patent application suggests that the device will also sport a foldable display.

Huawei Patent Application Hints at the Presence of a Single Flexible Screen

PostFast, in collaboration with tipster David Kowalski (@xleaks7), spotted a patent application filed in the US by Huawei that suggests the Chinese smartphone maker could be working on a new vertically twice-folding handset. The foldable is shown to feature two horizontally placed hinges, which might allow the smartphone to fold vertically into an S-shaped design.

Huawei has filed the patent application for the design of the phone in the US.
Photo Credit: PostFast/ @xleaks7

Huawei's patent application also shows that its vertical twice-folding handset will fold into a relatively smaller flip phone, which might have a smaller horizontal footprint than the company's Huawei Pura X flip handset. The hinges divide the internals into three different compartments. However, the smartphone might sport a single flexible screen. According to the report, the tech firm is expected to launch it as the Huawei Pura X Trifold.

As previously mentioned, the company already has a book-style trifold in the market. The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design was launched in China in September 2024. To recap, the handset sports a 10.2-inch flexible LTPO OLED display with up to 90Hz refresh rate, up to 240Hz touch sampling rate, 1,440Hz PWM dimming rate, and 382 ppi pixel density. After the first fold, the screen size reduces to 7.9 inches, which can be further reduced to 6.4 inches when folded twice.

The company also became one of the first OEMs to launch a wide-folding handset with the debut of the Huawei Pura X Max, which was launched in China on April 20 at a starting price of CNY 10,999 (roughly Rs. 1,50,000) in China for the base variant, featuring 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The phone is equipped with a 7.7-inch LTPO 2.0 Flexible OLED screen, offering up to 120Hz refresh rate, up to 3,000 nits peak brightness, 1,440Hz PWM dimming, up to 240Hz touch sampling rate, 1.07 billion colours, and DCI-P3 colour gamut.