Huawei Mate XT Ultimate’s repair costs are truly eye-watering

Huawei’s Mate XT Ultimate is the world’s first tri-fold smartphone, announced yesterday. It’s a truly unique product and a showcase of Huawei’s innovation capability, but since it’s the first of its kind it’s also very expensive: CNY 19,999, which right now translates into a whopping $2,809 or €2,549.

The phone’s price, however, is far from the only expensive thing about it. It turns out that the repair costs are eye-watering too. According to the official price list published by Huawei itself, repairing the Mate XT Ultimate’s screen will set you back CNY 7,999 normally, which is $1,123 or €1,019.

Thankfully there’s a limited number of repairs available for CNY 6,999 ($983, €892), and you can also pay CNY 3,499 ($491, €446) or CNY 3,999 ($561, €509) in advance to enjoy one screen replacement within one year of the phone’s purchase.

Moving on, the mainboard, if it ever needs replacing, costs CNY 9,099 ($1,278, €1,160), while the battery is a much more palatable CNY 499 ($70, €63).

The back covers of the device are priced at CNY 1,379 ($193, €175) for the one with the camera lens, and CNY 399 ($56, €50) for each of the other two. The telephoto camera costs CNY 578 ($81, €73), the selfie camera is CNY 379 ($53, €48), the main rear camera is CNY 759 ($106, €96), and the ultrawide is CNY 269 ($37, €34).

So, if you buy a Mate XT Ultimate, make sure you take very good care of it so that nothing bad happens to its screen and mainboard. Otherwise, you’ll be paying more than you would for most phones just for a repair.