Xiaomi fans who lament why the company does not have a vertical folding phone can stop lamenting because it now has one. Revealed along with its fourth folding phone is the Xiaomi Mix Flip. Like Honor, which also recently introduced its first flip phone after turning out numerous folding phones, Xiaomi finally decided it should have a vertical folding device too.
Aesthetically, it is pretty generic, IMHO. Then again, how much different can a vertical phone look? It has a straight-edge design with very subtle curved edges and rounded corners. Like the Magic V Flip, it has a near bezel-less external display with cutouts for the cameras.
However, the Xiaomi Mix Flip [CH] has a tad less screen real estate because it has two large camera modules interrupting the otherwise expansive display. The external display, which you can do pretty much anything on including making and taking calls, is a 4.01-inch with subtle curves and protected by Xiaomi Dragon Crystal glass.
The display is an eye-popping 1.5K (1,392 x 1,208 pixels) AMOLED item with a peak refresh rate of 120 Hz and peak brightness of 3,000 nits. And it is preloaded with adorable wallpapers and widgets.
The device opens up to a 6.86-inch 1.5K AMOLED flexible display also with the highest refresh rate of 120 Hz and 3,000 nits peak brightness. It is a 12-bit display with support for wet touch, HDR10+, HDR Vivid, as well as Dolby Vision.
Xiaomi did not focus on the hinge design but it does claim that it is rated for a whopping 500,000 times of folding. Do not get your hopes high on the crease; it is still there and according to some first-look videos I have seen, it can be quite obvious on camera and so as such I suppose it should be quite obvious in person. I could be wrong.
The device is powered by none other than Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform. The 4 nm process chip features an octacore processor with a max clock speed of 3.3 GHz and Adreno GPU and Qualcomm AI engine. It is offered in 12 GB / 16 GB LPDDR5X high-speed memory (8533 Mbps) and 256 GB / 512 GB / 1 TB UFS 4.0 high-speed storage.
And oh, it has Leica imaging too. It has a 50 MP dual camera setup comprising a 50 MP Leica main snapper with OIS and PD focus and a 50 MP with 3P + 3P floating focus and 9 cm macro imaging. Neither camera appears to have a wide-angle lens. On the inside of the main display is a hole punch 32 MP selfie camera.
The rear-facing cameras support 8K video recording at 24 fps, 4K 24/30/60 fps, as well as the usuals (1080p30/60, 720p30). Both front and rear cameras can do timelapse at 4K30 too. The front camera supports up to 4K30/60.
Other notables include 5G dual SIM (nano, of course), USB 2.0 with Type-C interface, support Wi-Fi 7 and older standards, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.4, dual-Bluetooth, positioning (Beidou B11+B1C + B2a, GPS L1 + L5, Galileo E1 + E5a, GLONASS G1, QZSS L1 + L5, NavIC L5, AGNSS, and more), NFC, IR blaster and the usual suspect of sensors, and a 4,780- mAh battery with 67 W Hyper fast charging.
The device supports QC4, QC3+, QC3.0, QC2.0, PD3.0, and PD2.0 fast charging standards as well as MI FC 2.0 fast charge.
The Xiaomi Mix Flip is not cheap according to China’s standards. It has the same starting price as an iPhone 15 in China, at 5,999 yuan [CH] (which is around US$825 based on today’s going rate).
Images: Xiaomi [CH].
