We're expecting to see the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold at this week's Google event, but it seems that double-screened folding phones are already old hat: the first tri-fold foldable phone has been spotted in the wild, and it appears to be a Huawei.
As the name suggests, a tri-fold display consists of three panels; today's best foldable phones all have two. And the person holding the tri-folding just happens to be Richard Yu, the former CEO of Huawei. Yu isn't the CEO any more, but he is the chairman of the firm's board of directors – and that means he's not going to be waving a top-secret prototype around by accident. This looks very much like a spoiler.
What we know about the Huawei tri-fold phone
According to tipster Digital Chat Station, the phone in the photo is either the same as, or a very close relation of, an R&D prototype that the tipster has already seen. It's believed to have a display area of around ten inches and a Kirin 9-series processor. The OS is believed to be HarmonyOS Next, a new version of Huawei's mobile OS.
The tri-fold phone was previously rumoured for a launch before that of the Huawei Mate 70, most likely this June, but of course it isn't June any more and the phone hasn't launched. However there's still time for the prediction to come true, as the Mate 70 hasn't launched yet either.
In terms of the hardware here, adding a third panel is both good and bad: good because it expands the possibilities, enabling you to have a comparatively big screen in a comparatively small folded form factor; bad because it adds an extra point of failure by having two hinges instead of one. However, just last week it was reported that Huawei had managed to pass "the 28μm test", which apparently is a measurement of durability and crease visibility.
Digital Chat Station has previously said that an unnamed manufacturer's 10-inch tri-fold phone was scheduled for production and both its specification and price "are going to hit new highs". That makes it seem awfully likely that Huawei will beat Samsung to the tri-fold punch, at least in China – but it might not be a global foldable. Huawei is still banned from selling phones in the US, no matter how many folds they have.
