Back in China on September 7 the company has finally announced another series of its foldable flagship, Mate XT2 that pushes yet another precursor into the foldable group, still highly niche in a world of wide-spread adoption. Arrived now after a side-flip fold design with a sleek trifold style built-in and updated, a new generation equivalent for a fresh a renovated folding process, a brand new powerful Kirin 9050 Pro processor and an up-scaling, tablet-sized screen.
Although the Mate XT2 is labeled as a dual-folded device, as it folds two times, in fact it is a tri-fold smartphone. When opened it has two levels, making from a normal phone a huge 10.
2 inches block. There is also a shift in the way the flexible display folds, now instead of the fold on the outside it extends inside, shielding the main screen when the device is not used: or this design change could be a key enhancement. Tri-fold phones made slightly more of the fold-able display visible on the outside when closed, possibly increasing the potential for scratches and everyday wear and tear.
The Mate XT2 folds the large flexible section back in instead, with another cover display for daily phone use. When closed, the phone sports a 6.5-inch OLED cover screen with an adaptive refresh rate up to 120Hz. Fully unfolded, the flexible display increases to 10.2 inches, offering a significant increase in real estate to multitask, view videos, read documents and other tablet-like activities. Huawei has also created software focused on the increased screen real estate, with the ability to run three applications at the same time.
If the redesigned hardware is perhaps the least interesting part of the launch, then the bit that lies under that hardware is even more so, and that is, Huawei’s latest Kirin 9050 Pro chip. Huawei claims the chip works with a new LogicFolding architecture of which the company calls the Tau Scaling Law. This is a departure from solely shrinking transistor size and instead emphasizes reducing distances by stacking logic units vertically in layers. The company asserts this enhances computing power whilst consuming less energy.
Huawei states that in company testing, the Mate XT2 achieved 42% better overall performance relative to its predecessor, the Mate X7. The Kirin 9050 Pro also enables hardware-accelerated ray-tracing and hardware-based processing of enormous AI models, which suggests that Huawei is trying to make the device “more than an eye-catching folding display”, and instead, also an occasion to demonstrate its semiconductor design advances at a period when access to foreign advanced chip technology continues to be limited.
The camera has been also much improved.
The Mate XT2 has a triple-camera setup, including the 50MP main camera with a variable aperture, a 40MP ultra-wide camera, and a 50 MP periscope telephoto camera. The telephoto system supports 3.5x optical zoom and 100 x digital zoom, on top of optical image stabilisation and its new colour-imaging tech.
Battery life has not been overlooked, regardless of the complex folding structure. The Mate XT2 comes with a 5,600mAh power cell with fast wired charging at 66W and wireless at 50W. Huawei has also enhanced the durability ratings of the device with an IP58 and IP59 dust and water protection rating.
