Huawei and Apple’s latest smartphones go on sale in China on Friday, with the Chinese tech company’s much-anticipated $2,800 tri-foldable phone offered at more than twice the price of the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

The phone is a piece of engineering marvel: when unfolded, the device measures only 3.6mm thick, making it the new thinnest portable computing device in the world. This slimness is needed, because when completely folded up, it is essentially three stacked layers, which then does increase thickness to 12.8mm.

Huawei has a host of AI features on the Mate XT, including AI Senior Editor, AI Information Consultant, AI Translation Expert, and AI Photo Editor. The $2,800 phone ships with 256GB storage, but you can upgrade to 512GB for around $3,090 (converted from Chinese Yuan) or 1TB for a whopping $3,371. The RAM is 16GB across all variants.

Huawei enthusiasts were left disappointed as the anticipated $2,800 tri-foldable Mate XT was unavailable for walk-in customers upon its launch in China. Supply chain issues restricted availability to pre-order holders only.

The report says Samsung will launch its rollable phone with a comically large 12.4-inch display. That would be much larger than Huawei's Mate XT Ultimate Design, which features a 10.2-inch tri-fold display. Sure, 10.2 inches is enormous, but you could have a phone with a screen about one foot in size.

The Mate XT comes in red and black, in three storage options with prices ranging from 19,999 yuan ($2,809) to 23,999 yuan ($3,371).

The prestige product counter-launch to the AI-powered iPhone gets noticed, but few say they'll pay that much for the device.

Foldable phones have been very hit or miss over the past five years, and now Huawei is moving into uncharted territory. Begging the question of whether a tri-fold phone like the Huawei Mate XT is a trendsetter or a one-off.

Another eager consumer surnamed Guo said he took a day off from his job in manufacturing to queue from Thursday night

HUAWEI and Apple’s latest smartphones go on sale in China on Friday (Sep 20), with the Chinese tech company’s much-anticipated US$2,800 tri-foldable phone offered at more than twice the price of the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Xiaomi on Wednesday promoted a new triple-fold smartphone patent, following Huawei’s launch of the Mate XT, the industry’s first triple-fold smartphone,