According to rumors, Huawei’s triple-folding device was recently spotted in the wild, fueling rumors that the company may have a functional foldable handset as wide as three phones.

With the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, foldable phones have been ready for over half a decade now, and competition has increased with models from OnePlus, Google, Xiaomi, and others. All of these devices are a foldable device that functionally has two connected screens. Aside from a few tri-fold display concept devices Samsung has shown off at CES over the years, phone makers have not hinted that a tri-fold phone is coming – which makes Huawei’s apparent progress all the more interesting.

In photos posted by the WHYLAB account on Chinese social media platform Weibo, the Huawei tri-fold device was seen in the hands of Huawei Consumer Group CEO Richard Yu – and unlike an earlier preview of the device opened, these new images show the foldable fully closed. As Android Authority noted, the tri-fold phone doesn’t look much thicker than fully closed, single-sided folding devices. If that’s true, it stands to reason that Huawei has made each of the handset’s three sections significantly thinner.

That’s hard to tell from some photos seen on Weibo, and since none show the device in action — or better yet, a video of the software being used — it’s impossible to tell if the foldable will have an operating system or the features users typically expect from phones, as consumers expect. A photo of Yu seen last week showed him holding a very wide, phone-like device that was supposedly the tri-fold device, as Android Authority previously reported, though it was unfolded completely flat and its two hinges were not visible.

The foldable devices sold today are only slightly thinner than traditional smartphones, meaning they’re quite thick when folded and take up more space in your pocket. To create a slimmer foldable device would require a slimmer smartphone – and that’s exactly what Apple is reportedly working on for its 2025 iPhone lineup. Whoever manages to release a thinner smartphone first could set a precedent that the rest of the phone industry could follow, but at least we can now see the potential benefits of multi-hinged foldables – whether they one day see the light of day or not.

Check this out: Galaxy Z Fold 6 review: Samsung’s best foldable device yet has a high price

07:57