A few months ago, a relatively unknown tipster on Weibo claimed that the Huawei Mate XT2 will debut in October. Now, the reliable Digital Chat Station has reported that the next-gen triple foldable is coming in the second half of this year – and that it won’t be alone.
The new foldables will likely feature the Kirin 9050 Pro chipset that should be introduced with the Mate 90 series. This chipset is said to have a performance comparable to 3nm chips, though it probably won’t be manufactured on a 3nm node. The current best chip from Huawei is the Kirin 9030 and that is made on SMIC’s N+3 node, which is a 6nm-class node comparable to TSMC’s N6.
The Huawei Mate XT2 will focus on refining the tri-folding structure of the original XT and the XTs. However, not much else is known about it.
The other big foldable release will be the Huawei Mate X9. This will be a traditional book-style foldable with a 6.5” cover and a larger 8.15” inner display. For comparison, the Mate X7 has a 6.5” cover and an 8.0” inner display and uses the Kirin 9030 Pro.
The X9 will have a larger battery – it will be over 6,000mAh, but the exact capacity is not known yet (the X7 has a 5,600mAh battery).
Additionally, the new model will feature a main camera with an improved 1/1.3” sensor and a telephoto module (most likely an ultra-wide too). The Mate X7 has a 50MP 1/1.28” main (with an f/1.4-f/4.0 aperture), 50MP 3.5x/81mm periscope and a 40MP 120° ultra-wide.
The expected price for the Huawei Mate X9 is in the CNY 10,000 range ($1,475/€1,290/₹140,500). For reference, the base Mate X7 (12/256GB) started at CNY 13,000. There’s no word on the Mate XT2 pricing and it’s probably best not to ask (the XTs started at CNY 18,000).
For next year, DCS says that Huawei will release a new small wide foldable – and if we’re reading this correctly, this means a Huawei Pura X sequel.