Huawei's Rumored Trifold Foldable Spotted in Public, Slimly Folded Up

Huawei’s rumored trifold foldable was spotted in the wild recently, fueling rumors that the company may have a functional folding handset that’s the equivalent of three phones wide.

With the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, we’re over half a decade into market-ready foldable phones, and competition has ramped up with models from OnePlus, Google, Xiaomi and more on the shelves. All these are single-hinged devices with functionally two conjoined screens. Aside from some trifold display concept devices Samsung has shown off at CES over the years, phone makers haven’t hinted that a trifold foldable is coming — making Huawei’s apparent progress more interesting.

A social media post with two photos attached: one of a man looking down at a folded-up phone and the other a close-up of the folded-up phone. — A Weibo social media post by the WHYLAB account (translated to English).

WHYLAB/Weibo

In photos posted by WHYLAB’s account on China’s Weibo social media platform, the Huawei trifold was seen in the hands of Huawei consumer group CEO Richard Yu — and unlike an earlier sneak peek of the device opened, these new images showed the foldable fully closed. As Android Authority pointed out, the trifold phone doesn’t look much thicker than fully closed, single-hinged foldables. If true, it stands to reason that Huawei made each of the handset’s three sections noticeably thinner.

A man stands looking down at the outer screen of a folded-up phone. — A photo from a WHYLAB post on Weibo.

WHYLAB/Weibo

That’s a lot to extrapolate from some photos seen on Weibo, and since none show the device in action — or better yet, a video of its software being used — it’s impossible to say that the foldable is running an operating system or is functional users typically expect for phones, the way consumers expect. A photo of Yu seen last week showed him with a very wide phone-like device that was purported to be the trifold device, as Android Authority previously reported, although it was unfolded completely flat and its two hinges were impossible to see.

A close-up photo of a folded phone showing its extreme thinness -- the three layers each look only a few millimeters thick. — A close-up image from WHYLAB’s post on Weibo.

WHYLAB/Weibo

The foldables sold today are only marginally thinner than conventional smartphones, meaning they’re pretty thick when folded up and take up more pocket space. To get to a slimmer foldable would require a slimmer smartphone — which is something that Apple is reportedly working on for its 2025 slate of iPhones. Whoever manages to come out with a thinner smartphone first could set a precedent that the rest of the phone industry could chase, but at least now we can see its potential benefits in multi-hinge foldables — whether they see the light of day someday or not.