In the ongoing human pursuit of tools that bend to our will — sometimes literally — Huawei prepares to release a second-generation tri-fold smartphone this September that quietly acknowledges the lessons of its predecessor. The Mate XT 2 trades its Z-shaped geometry for a U-shaped form, growing 30 percent flatter and lighter in the process, a refinement that speaks less to spectacle and more to the quieter ambition of making complex technology feel natural in the hand. It is the familiar arc of invention: first we prove a thing is possible, then we ask whether it is livable.