Huawei’s MateBook Fold S is a tiny folding laptop with a screen on the lid

Huawei is making a smaller version of its folding computer. It’s called the MateBook Fold S, and it opens out into one 14.7-inch screen. Unlike the bigger model, it also has a small square screen on the outside of the lid. Huawei announced it on 10th November 2026. Reservations open in China on 14th November. Huawei hasn’t said what it costs, what it weighs or what chip it uses.

If you’ve not seen one before, Huawei’s folding computer is a laptop with no separate keyboard half. The whole inside is one flexible OLED screen. So when you fold it halfway, the top half becomes your display and the bottom half shows a keyboard on the screen, or sits under the wireless keyboard that comes with the 18-inch model. Lay it flat and you get one big screen, a bit like a large tablet.

Huawei’s first one, the 18-inch MateBook Fold, came out in May 2025. A new version followed on 5th August 2026 weighing about 1.16kg without its keyboard, costing USD 3,740, or about KES 487,000. Huawei’s post describes the new Fold S as light and thin, something you carry around. Richard Yu, who chairs Huawei’s consumer business, showed it the same morning in a teaser video. He put the 18-inch model in a paper envelope, folded the envelope in half and pulled out the S.

The marketing goes the same way. On 11th November Huawei named actress Yang Mi “pioneer ambassador” for its folding computers. Her poster has her sliding a two-tone Fold S into a handbag. So far, Huawei has confirmed the name, the lid screen, three colours and the reservation date. You’ll be able to reserve one from its online store, its own shops and authorised sellers in China.

What the screen on the lid does

Huawei calls it the Live mini screen. On the official poster, it sits in a raised square in the top corner of the lid, next to three openings marked “AI Camera”.

Folding phones have had screens like this on the outside for years. They let you see the time and your notifications without opening the phone. Leaked footage shows the one on the Fold S working much like the outside screen on Huawei’s Pura X, a folding phone. If it does, you’d check messages with the computer shut and only open it when you need to work, though Huawei hasn’t shown that yet. Huawei hasn’t listed what the screen can do, how big it is, or what’s behind the three openings.

What we don’t know yet

The weight, the chip and the keyboards are still leaks. A Chinese tipster, who says they first reported the product in June, puts its weight at around 600g. If that’s right, it’s about half the weight of the 18-inch model without its keyboard. One Chinese tech site says it uses a Kirin X9-series chip and runs HarmonyOS 6.1. Huawei’s poster calls it a HarmonyOS computer, but it doesn’t give the chip or the version.

Photos from another tipster show two ways to type: an on-screen keyboard with its own touchpad area, and a physical keyboard that folds too, with the keys on one side and a touchpad on the other.

As for the price, guesses on Chinese social media run from about half the 18-inch model’s price to the same price, and none of them come from Huawei. Yu says Huawei is saving “more surprises” for a launch event, which hasn’t been dated. So the price may not be out by the time reservations open.

Can you get one in Kenya?

Not officially. Only through third party retailers once they become available.

Both MateBook Folds run HarmonyOS, Huawei’s own operating system, which we covered when version 7 arrived in September. Huawei built it to replace Android on its phones, and it now puts it on some of its computers in place of Windows. That means the programs you use on a Windows laptop won’t install on it directly. It’s the same catch as the Qingyun L420z we looked at in September, a Huawei laptop that’s interesting on paper and hard to buy here.

Going by the envelope trick and the handbag poster, we think Huawei means the 18-inch Fold as a big screen that happens to fold, and the S as a computer you take everywhere, with a lid screen so you don’t have to open it every time. For now, though, it’s a China launch. If you import one, you’re buying a computer Huawei Kenya doesn’t sell, built for HarmonyOS apps. Whether that’s worth it comes down to the weight and the price, and Huawei hasn’t published either yet.