The original Mate XT had a screen replacement cost of 4,999 yuan. Let that sink in. Huawei apparently heard the collective gasp from buyers and decided to do something about it with the Mate XT 2, because the new design is built around protecting that expensive inner display. And honestly? It looks like a smarter phone because of it.
Huawei has shown off the Mate XT 2’s design publicly, and the biggest change is the fold pattern. The original used a Z-shaped fold. This one goes with a U-shape instead, which means when the phone is fully closed, the flexible inner screen is tucked safely inside the body rather than exposed on the outside. That’s a real, practical improvement, not just a cosmetic refresh.
The U-shaped approach puts the Mate XT 2 closer to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Tri-Fold in terms of how the panels fold, though there’s a key difference. Samsung’s device opens from the left panel. The Mate XT 2 opens to the right. It’s a small detail, but for people who actually use these things day to day, that kind of thing matters.
On the front, the outer screen now has a pill-shaped cutout for the camera, matching the look of Huawei’s regular flagship phones. That’s a meaningful clue. It almost certainly means the Mate XT 2 will have 3D face recognition, similar to what’s rumored for the Pura 90 Ultra. So you’re getting flagship-level security on what is already a flagship-level price tag. On the back, the octagonal camera module is still there, largely unchanged from last year’s model.
Under the hood, the Mate XT 2 is expected to run on the Kirin 9030S chip, the same processor found in the Pura X View. The chip runs one super core at 2.69GHz, three large cores at 2.15GHz, and four medium cores at 1.62GHz. The GPU is a Maleoon 935F clocked at 933MHz with three compute units. It’s a solid, proven chip at this point, powering most of Huawei’s current flagship lineup, so performance should be right where you’d expect.
But the software story might be the most interesting part. The Mate XT 2 is set to be the first phone running HarmonyOS 7, and Huawei is making some bold claims about what that means. The new Ark Engine has a large AI model built directly into the system, trained on over 2 billion scene-learning data points. Huawei says this pushes performance up by 15% while keeping annual load growth under 10%. Those are specific numbers, which is either a sign of confidence or a sign of very good marketing. We’ll find out when reviewers get their hands on it.
The tri-fold category is still a niche within a niche, but it’s a niche that’s growing. Samsung entered it last year, and now Huawei is iterating fast. The fact that Huawei is already on its second generation while making meaningful structural changes tells you the company sees real long-term potential here. These aren’t phones for everyone, but for power users who want maximum screen real estate in a pocketable package, the competition is heating up in a genuinely interesting way.
No launch date has been confirmed, but with the design already out in the open, a full announcement can’t be far off. The key things to watch for when it does land:
- Final pricing compared to the original Mate XT
- Whether HarmonyOS 7 performance gains hold up in real-world use
- How the U-shaped hinge holds up over time
- Availability outside China, which remains a persistent question for Huawei flagships
So the Mate XT 2 is shaping up to be a more thoughtful device than its predecessor. Whether it’s worth whatever Huawei charges for it is a question for the full review. But right now, the direction looks right.