Huawei Technologies has launched the Mate XTs – its second trifold smartphone, which is more affordable than its predecessor – just five days before Apple is set to unveil its new iPhone 17 series.
Powered by Huawei’s self-developed Kirin 9020 chipset and running on the company’s proprietary HarmonyOS ecosystem, the Mate XTs boasted a 36 per cent performance improvement, Richard Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei’s consumer business group, said during the launch event in Shenzhen on Thursday.
The handset features three screens between 3.6mm to 4.75mm thick, which extends into a 10.2-inch display when fully opened. It weighs 298 grams – identical to the previous model, the Mate XT. Available in four colours, the 256-gigabyte version starts at 17,999 yuan (US$2,520). Higher storage options are priced at 19,999 yuan and 21,999 yuan – about 2,000 yuan less than comparable versions of the Mate XT.
The Mate XTs comes with the new Huawei M-Pen 3 stylus, designed for navigating the device’s interface, as well as for note-taking and sketching.
Huawei unveiled the Mate XTs during an event in Shenzhen on Thursday. Photo: HandoutFor the first time, Huawei has enabled the installation of apps originally designed for personal computers on a smartphone. They included the desktop version of WPS – a Chinese alternative to Microsoft Office – and Wind, a local competitor to the Bloomberg Terminal, Yu said.