Xiaomi does a foldy phone

The Mi Mix Fold claims to have the largest smartphone foldable display so far, as well as four speakers and a ‘liquid lens’.

Scott Bicheno

March 30, 2021

3 Min Read
Xiaomi does a foldy phone

The Mi Mix Fold claims to have the largest smartphone foldable display so far, as well as four speakers and a ‘liquid lens’.

While it’s still hard to see what the point of foldy phones is, Xiaomi deserves credit for putting its back into this one. Of course all flagship phone launches are littered with superlatives, but they seem more justified than usual in this case, which isn’t saying much.

The regular AMOLED display on the outside of the phone is 6.5-inches and, while the quirks of trigonometry mean that when you unfold the phone the resulting internal OLED screen has a diagonal of 8-inches. That is apparently larger than any other foldy phones and, as if that wasn’t enough, we’re told this is also the first smartphone to comes with no less than four speakers.

Apart from the screen, the major differentiator in smartphones these days is often the camera. Here, too, Xiaomi has pushed the boat out. This phone marks the debut of something called the Liquid Lens camera.

“The liquid lens uses the principle of human eye bionics, forming a lens-like structure with a transparent fluid wrapped in film, very different from traditional optical lenses,” says the Xiaomi press release. “The radius of curvature of the spherical surface can be accurately changed thanks to a high-precision motor based on Xiaomi’s self-developed technology, which allows for 3X optical zoom, up to 30X telephoto, and a minimum focus distance of 3cm. One lens virtually covers functions of two lenses.”

So there you go. All this cutting edge shininess is yours for as little as RMB 10,000, which is around $1,500. Only Chinese pricing was offered, indicating that’s the only place you can get the Mi Mix Fold for now. Xiaomi launched the flagship Mi 11i yesterday at half the price of this bad boy and good reasons to pay such a premium for a foldy phone continue to elude us. Nonetheless here are the specs.

Mi MIX FOLD

Internal display

8.01” flexible OLED4:3 aspect ratioWQHD+  resolution, 1 billion colors, DCI-P360 Hz refresh rate; 120Hz touch sampling rate900nits peak brightness, 600nits overall brightness4,300,000:1 contrast ratioHDR10+, Dolby VisionJNCD≈0.29 and ΔE≈0.35Supports MEMC

External display

6.5” AMOLED display90Hz refresh rate, 180Hz touch sampling rate27:9 screen ratio, 2520 x 840 resolution900nit peak brightness, 650nit overall brightnessTrueColor display, JNCD≈0.55 ΔE≈0.52Super Resolution, both for video and imagesHDR10+

Connectivity

Dual 5G stand-by, Wi-Fi 6

Processor

Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 888

Storage

LPDDR5 3200MHz + UFS 3.1

Cooling system

Buttery cooling system – VC chamber + Bionic-structure graphene + thermal gel

+ multilayer graphite sheet

Rear camera

Self-developed Surge C1 image processing chip108MP HM2 primary sensor, 1/1.52”, 7P, 2.1μm (9-in-1)large pixelsThe world’s first liquid lens, 8MP, 80mm equivalent focal length, 3cm minimum focusing distance123° ultra-wide angle lens, 13MP, F2.4 aperture 1.12μm

Front camera

20MP front camera

Audio

Quad speakers 3D panoramic sound systemDual 1216 speakersSOUND BY Harman Kardon

Security

Side fingerprint unlock (2-in-1 power button)

Battery

5,020mAh double-cell design

Charging

67W wired turbo charging37 min to 100%1

OS

MIUI 12 based on Android 10

Colors

Black, Ceramic Special Edition

Dimensions&Weight

Extended: 173.27mm x 133.38mm x 7.62mmFolded: 173.27mm x 69.8mm x 17.2mmBlack:317gCeramic Special Edition:332g

1 Data from Xiaomi Labs.

About the Author

Scott Bicheno

As the Editorial Director of Telecoms.com, Scott oversees all editorial activity on the site and also manages the Telecoms.com Intelligence arm, which focuses on analysis and bespoke content.
Scott has been covering the mobile phone and broader technology industries for over ten years. Prior to Telecoms.com Scott was the primary smartphone specialist at industry analyst Strategy Analytics’. Before that Scott was a technology journalist, covering the PC and telecoms sectors from a business perspective.
Follow him @scottbicheno

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