Tecno Unveils the Phantom Ultimate 2 Trifold Design Phone

 The Phantom Ultimate 2 is Tecno’s first triple foldable concept phone. It follows the Phantom Ultimate, a rollable concept phone.

Following the discovery of a trifold phone from Huawei, we now have another Chinese company in the mix: Tecno's Phantom Ultimate 2, a concept phone that was unveiled on Tuesday at the Berlin IFA technology conference. According to Tecno, this foldable phone "reimagines the large-screen experience in a pocket-sized device." In contrast to book-style folding phones like Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 6 or Google's Pixel 9 Pro Fold, the Phantom Ultimate 2's cover screen unfolds into a larger "screen" measuring 10 inches, which is noticeably larger than the 7.6- and 8-inch displays found on its book-style peers.

Tecno claims that portability is not compromised by the Ultimate 2. The proposed trifold phone model has a thickness of 11.1 millimeters, which is marginally thicker than the existing book-style phones. The Phantom Ultimate 2's tiny design is aided in part by its ultra-thin 0.25-millimeter battery. The device's weight was not disclosed, but according to Tecno, the concept foldable was created using hinges that have been tested to withstand 300,000 folds—200,000 folds less than popular book-style phones like the Honor Magic V3.

Tecno is no stranger to the foldable phone space; it launched the Phantom V Flip 5G, the world's first flip phone, and the Phantom V Fold, the world's first book-style phone, globally last year. Next-generation models are scheduled to launch in September. Tecno, along with competitors Huawei, OnePlus, and Google, is eager to take a larger piece of the foldable phone market, which is usually dominated by Samsung, which launched its sixth generation series of handsets in August.

According to research firm International Data Corporation, the global foldable industry is expected to reach 25 million devices by the end of 2024, up 37.6% from the 18.1 million units sold in 2023. IDC projects that global shipments of foldable phones would reach 45.7 million units by 2028, a compound annual growth rate of 20.3% from 2023 to 2028.

Tecno has released a video that showcases the Phantom Ultimate 2's multiple applications. In a single frame, a single person was using each of the three vertically aligned windows to multitask. Another section demonstrated the different ways the Ultimate 2 could be folded, one of which was to simulate the use of a laptop by using the base screen as a keyboard by keeping it flat and the other two displays stacked like a laptop screen.

Furthermore, according to Tecno, it enables face-to-face language conversations in many languages when folded into "tent mode" (see picture below), with artificial intelligence handling the real-time language translation. The Phantom Ultimate 2 is powered by software that provides a "user experience specifically tuned for the trifold architecture," according to the company. 

For their part, concept phones that fold into three are nothing new. CES in 2022 offered us a sneak peek at Samsung's conceptual trifold display designs. TCL had previously shown off an idea in 2020. However, not one of them has been made available or mass produced for retail sales. However, earlier this month, Richard Yu, the former CEO of Huawei's consumer business branch, was seen holding the company's alleged trifold foldable phone. This observation sparked rumors that Huawei would be the first company to release a triple-folding phone on the market. 

In the competition to produce the thinnest foldable phone, phone manufacturers are vying for the title. Honor, a former Huawei subsidiary, is in the lead with its Magic V3, narrowly defeating Xiaomi's Mix Fold 4. A phone with two displays is practically just as portable as a conventional candy bar smartphone because to the advantages of incredibly thin book-style phones. Whether or not the Ultimate 2 is released, it is not hard to see the advantages that compact hardware could bring to multi-hinged phones.