Tri-fold smartphone designs were a prominent feature at MWC 2025, with Tecno’s Phantom Ultimate 2 standing out as a notable contender. First teased in August 2024, the device was shown off in a glass enclosure.
While I was unable to go hands-on with this concept foldable phone, I did manage to persuade a Tecno representative to remove it from the case to demonstrate the folding and unfolding mechanism, offering a closer look at this concept device.
Unmistakably thin
The Phantom Ultimate 2’s most striking feature when I first saw it is its noticeably thin profile when unfolded. At a mere 3.5mm at its thinnest point, it surpasses the Honor Magic V3, currently considered the thinnest book-style foldable smartphone on the market at 4.35mm unfolded.
Of course, Tecno has yet to release this publicly but it’s an impressive feat nevertheless. It also hasn’t given us an indication of how much its tri-fold would cost if the handset was to make it out of concept and into stores, but going by the other premium foldable phones on the market, it’ll be a lot.
When folded, the device maintains an 11mm thickness, and while that’s thicker than a standard smartphone, it’s still pretty impressive considering its trifold nature.
It means it’s thinner than the first trifold phone to hit the market (in China and Malaysia at least), the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate when both folded and unfolded.
The triple-array camera bump is integrated into a symmetrically raised body that extends across that part of the device, providing a notable illusion that adds some bulk even if my eyes didn’t notice it at first. I would love to throw this device in my pocket to see how friendly and comfortable it is in daily use.
Sharp and vibrant display
The Phantom Ultimate 2 boasts impressive display specs, with an outer display featuring a 6.48-inch OLED 3K LTPO screen with 392 PPI when folded.
It looks like a pretty competitive and natural candybar smartphone in that configuration with the Android operating system scaling in an uncompromising way.
Fully unfolded, the display measures a sizable 10 inches at a 4:3 aspect ratio. The display looked rich in color and had sharp and clear fidelity to my eyes. Fold creases were noticeable but not in a particularly unsightly way.
Innovative dual hinge system
Tecno has coupled the display with a thin hinge system for the Phantom Ultimate 2, which it claims can withstand over 300,000 folds. In a device that has two separate folding areas, this type of durability is even more crucial.
From what I could see during the demonstration, the folding action appeared robust and stable with noticeable resistance that helped the device hold its form in various positions.
The Tecno Phantom Ultimate 2 can be fully folded for traditional mobile use in smartphone mode, fully unfolded for a large 10-inch display experience in tablet mode, set up in tent mode for media consumption or drawing applications, or arranged in laptop mode with one display flat on the table showing an on-screen keyboard while the other two displays extend vertically for better multitasking. This sort of flexibility is a big selling point for the tri-fold design.
Having seen tri-fold designs online and from a distance before this trip to Barcelona, I find myself more convinced at their place in the smartphone market.
As a concept, there’s no way to know exactly when it might hit the market if at all, but I really like where Tecno is headed with the Phantom Ultimate 2.
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