Huawei has reinvented the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s top feature

Huawei has announced a new tri-fold phone in the Mate XT 2 – and it makes for interesting reading.

The Chinese manufacturer made a minor splash early last year when the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design (title image) – the world’s first tri-fold foldable – hit limited global markets.

It had two hinges rather than one, thus creating a much larger ‘wide foldable’ than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 and other such on-trend devices.

The Huawei Mate XT 2 Ultimate Design, to give the device its full unwieldy name, takes a slightly different approach to its pioneering predecessor.

Like the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold, its 10.2-inch flexible OLED display folds in on itself (a ‘G’ shape) rather than the ‘Z’-shaped concertina effect of the original Mate XT. Huawei has also managed to boost dust and water resistance to IP58/59.

Also noteworthy is the Huawei Mate XT 2’s privacy display. Like the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, it can activate pixels that only emit light in a very specific direction, all but blacking out sensitive display elements for all but the holder.

Unlike Samsung, Huawei is only applying this feature as an optional extra, and only to the top 16GB of RAM/1TB of storage model.

The Huawei Mate XT 2 runs on the company’s own Kirin 9050 Pro chip, which apparently boosts performance by 42% compared to the original.

It also boasts a triple camera system with True-to-Color Camera 3.0 technology, which apparently improves colour reproduction by 95% through filtering out infrared light interference. There’s also an ultra-wide aperture periscope telephoto camera.

It’s out on 12 September in China, with pricing starting from ¥19,999 (about £2,200). That isn’t cheap by any means – in fact, it’s one of the most expensive phones on the market – but it’s notable that the price hasn’t increased since the original Mate XT launched in late 2024.

How many 2026 phones can we say that for?

Huawei Pura X View

In separate but related news, Huawei has officially unveiled some key details concerning the Huawei Pura X View – its new passport-shaped phone like the iPhone Duo and Galaxy Z Fold 8 but in a regular candybar form factor.

Many of these have been leaked already, but here we go:

The Huawei Pura X View features a stout 6.39-inch OLED screen with a 16:9.5 aspect ratio and a 1320 x 2232 resolution, as well as a 120Hz refresh rate and 6,500 nits peak brightness.

It’s IP68/IP69 certified, and that stubby form factor has led to a side-mounted fingerprint scanner.

There are three cameras on the back, including a 200Mp f/1.8 main camera, a 50Mp f/2.6 telephoto, and an 8Mp ultra-wide. There’s a 50Mp front camera for selfies.

It runs on a lesser Kirin 9030S processor with 12GB of RAM and 256GB/512GB/1TB of storage.

Huawei has packed in an impressive 7000mAh battery with 66W wired charging and 50W wireless charging support.

Pricing starts from ¥5,999, or about £660, and will be available in China from 9 September. A similar phone was leaked in the Oppo Find W, but it was fake.