Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design was launched by the company in September as the world’s first mass-market triple foldable smartphone, although it is only available in China (as of now). It comes with three screens that can be folded in a Z-style manner. However, a recent durability test of the smartphone carried out by a popular YouTuber suggests that the displays might be more susceptible to scratching compared to standard smartphones, or even regular foldable models.
Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design Durability Test
Before delving into the durability test of Huawei’s triple foldable smartphone, YouTuber Zack Nelson, popularly known by his alias JerryRigEverything, carried its unboxing. Being one of the most expensive production smartphones globally at a starting price of CNY 19,999 (roughly Rs. 2,36,700), the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design comes with a lot of goodies including a carbon fibre case, a 66W power adapter with two USB Type-C cables, an 88W-rated car charger, and a pair of Huawei FreeBuds 5.
In terms of durability, the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design appears to start showing scratches at level two on the Mohs hardness scale and has deeper grooves at level 3 with a razor blade. While this is bound to happen due to the laminated structure of the foldable soft-plastic screen, the test also revealed it was highly prone to being easily scratched by even fingernails. The scratches caused by the fingernails appear more prominently once the screen is turned off.
While the scratches caused by the razor blade aren’t any different from the durability of other foldable smartphones, such as the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, which got scratches at similar levels, the scratches caused by the fingernails on the Mate XT Ultimate Design appear more prominently once the screen is turned off.
Being a tri-fold smartphone, the hinge mechanism is said to be another weak point of the Mate XT Ultimate Design. While folding the screens in the wrong way brings up a warning, the smartphone was bent by the YouTuber without too much effort, suggesting that owning such an eloquent device might require extra care. Meanwhile, one of the folded edges of the screen is always exposed to the elements when fully folded.