Huawei’s Mate XT already turned heads as one of the first triple-fold phones to hit the market. But the company appears to be thinking about a completely different take on the concept, one that folds vertically instead of horizontally, and fits in your pocket like a traditional flip phone.
A newly published Huawei patent, spotted and reported by Huawei Central via leakers xleaks7 and PostFast, shows a device that folds twice along a vertical axis using an S-shaped mechanism. The result is a handset that collapses into a much smaller form than current flip phones, which typically fold just once.
This is not a minor tweak to an existing design. It’s a genuinely different product category, and it signals that Huawei is actively exploring what triple-fold technology can look like beyond the large-screen, tablet-style format the Mate XT introduced.
So what does this phone actually look like? Based on the patent images, here’s what stands out:
- The device folds twice vertically, using an S-shaped crease pattern
- When fully open, the phone has a tall, thin body, similar in proportions to a remote control
- When closed, it becomes significantly more compact than any current flip phone
- It uses a single punch-hole camera cutout at the top, rather than a multi-camera front panel
- It includes an optimized structural layer designed to keep antennas and internal components working properly despite the compact folding and thin profile
The antenna detail is worth paying attention to. One of the practical problems with folding phones is that extreme form factors can interfere with signal performance. Huawei’s patent specifically addresses this, suggesting the engineering team has already thought through the real-world challenges of making such a thin, multi-folding device actually work as a phone.
There is some speculation around what this device could be called. Given Huawei’s existing product lines and the design direction, “Pura X TriFold” has been floated as a possible name, though the company has not confirmed anything officially.
It’s important to be clear about what this is and isn’t. A patent filing is not a product announcement. Companies file patents for concepts that never make it to market all the time, and this design is still at the application stage. There is no confirmed timeline, no official specs, and no guarantee this phone will ever actually be produced.
That said, the context here matters. Huawei has a track record of turning experimental folding concepts into actual products. The Mate XT itself was considered a long shot by many before it launched. The foldable phone market is also moving fast, with more manufacturers pushing into flip and fold categories. A vertical tri-fold, if it works, would be something genuinely different from anything currently available.
Whether this patent becomes a real product or stays on paper, it shows that Huawei is thinking seriously about where foldable design goes next, and that the Mate XT was not the end of that exploration.