Overview
- Tipster Digital Chat Station and two outlets reported Monday that Huawei is said to be planning both a refined tri‑fold called the Mate XT2 and a larger book‑style foldable labelled Mate X8 or X9 for the second half of 2026, and the company has not confirmed those plans.
- The leaks link both Huawei foldables to a next‑generation Kirin 9050/9050 Pro chipset expected to arrive with the Mate 90 series, though the chipmaker and manufacturing node remain unconfirmed.
- Reported specs for the book‑style model include an about 8.15‑inch inner display, a roughly 6.5‑inch cover screen, a battery above 6,000mAh and an upgraded camera setup with a ~1/1.3‑inch main sensor plus telephoto or periscope optics, with leaked pricing around CNY 10,000.
- Separately, the same tipster said Honor is testing a wide foldable prototype with a 7.6‑inch inner display, a 5.5‑inch cover screen, a 200MP main sensor and a battery exceeding 7,000mAh, and Honor has not confirmed a launch date.
- If true, these moves would escalate a hardware arms race in China by prioritizing larger displays, much bigger batteries and stronger camera modules while chip advances such as the Kirin 9050 aim to narrow the performance gap with rivals despite not necessarily using bleeding‑edge foundry nodes.