Xiaomi’s first foldable features liquid camera lens, Samsung-style design

Xiaomi resurrects the Mi Mix model line with the Mi Mix Fold. The first Mi Mix was a futuristic looking smartphone that started the race for slim bezel smartphones. This new Mi Mix Fold is Xiaomi’s first commercial foldable and, like Huawei’s efforts, represents the company that does its best to simply copy the design of the Samsung Galaxy Fold.

Much like the Huawei clone, the Xiaomi Fold is a bit larger than Samsung’s 7.6-inch device and sports a flexible 60Hz, 2480×1860, 8.01-inch internal OLED display. The outer screen of Xiaomi’s Fold is a 90Hz, 2520×840, 6.5-inch OLED display, larger than Samsung’s 6.2-inch display and Huawei’s 6.45-inch external display. Interestingly, Xiaomi takes the opposite approach to screen refresh rates that Samsung takes. On the Z Fold 2, a fast 120Hz display is the device’s interior tablet screen, while the phone-style screen is 60Hz. Xiaomi made the large interior display slow and the screen fast outside.

Xiaomi opted for an iPad-like 4: 3 aspect ratio for the interior display, while Samsung went from almost 4: 3 in the first generation (4.2: 3) to a larger in appearance 5: 4 in its second generation foldable. Huawei has also landed around this 5: 4 aspect ratio for its foldable. It’s hard to know what the right screen dimensions are for a foldable Android, as Android tablets have been dead for so long that there really isn’t any app support anymore. Most Android apps today are phone apps and they really have a hard time adapting to bigger screens. Samsung’s and Huawei’s ~ 5: 4 screens are almost two regular 21: 9 Android phones placed next to each other, so they can get around this problem by simply operating as split screen most of the time. The Galaxy Fold 1’s 4: 3 aspect ratio was a bit too narrow for a split screen.

Samsung’s foldable glass display is one of the things Xiaomi and all other vendors can’t match. Devices like the Galaxy Z Flip and Z Fold 2 actually have an “ultra-thin” glass layer on the screen. It is not the High layer (which is still easily scratched plastic) but this gives much-needed rigidity to a flexible screen, which otherwise can be a wavy, spongy, light-distorting mess. Xiaomi doesn’t have any actual images of the device, just renderings, all of which present the interior screen as perfectly flat. In real life, expect ripples on the screen and a large screen crease where it folds in half.

The high-end smartphone parts make up the rest of the internal components. The phone has a Snapdragon 888 SoC, 12GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, 67W wired charging, and a 5020mAh battery. Xiaomi notes that there is four speakers and a side fingerprint scanner. Unfortunately, Xiaomi ships the phone with Android 10 instead of the latest version, Android 11.

The camera presents the beginnings of “Liquid Lens technology” in a smartphone. One of the camera lenses is literally a drop of oil instead of a glass lens, and by applying tension to it you can change the shape and focal length of the lens. Liquid lenses aren’t a new idea – they’re showing up in things like industrial barcode scanners – but they’re new to a phone. Xiaomi says the lens allows a camera to cover two functions: the 8 MP sensor is both 3x optical zoom and has a minimum focus distance of 3cm for macro photos.

Your liquid lens should not Freeze at low temperatures, but Xiaomi says you’ll be good at temperatures ranging from -40 ° C (-40 ° F) to 60 ° C (140 ° F). The rest of your smartphone will likely stop working before the lens does in temperatures like this. There’s also a 108 MP main sensor and an ultra-wide 13 MP on the rear.

The Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold ships to China (only for now) on April 16 and starts at CNY 9,999, or ~ $ 1,526.