Xiaomi’s Mi Mix makes comeback as an out-and-out foldable smartphone with liquid lens camera

Xiaomi on Tuesday launched the Mi Mix Fold, its first foldable smartphone. Even though it borrows a page or two from Samsung’s textbook – something that Huawei has also done recently – the Mi Mix Fold packs many industry firsts to make it stand out and raise the bar for foldables.

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Like the Samsung Galaxy Fold, the Mi Mix Fold also has a screen that unfolds from the inside. Xiaomi claims its U-shaped hinge ensures a 27 percent lowering of weight compared to other foldables. As for durability, Xiaomi says it can withstand 200,000 bends.

Also Read | Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 5G first impressions: Surprisingly solid, shockingly addictive

That latter bit will be crucial to cementing Xiaomi’s position as a foldable-maker because if history is anything to go by, foldables are hard to pull off. Xiaomi itself showed off its first folding phone prototype over two years ago and the product that it is finally ready to ship is far less ambitious, as far as design is concerned.

Mi Mix Fold also has a screen that unfolds from the inside.

Mi Mix Fold hardware

Moving on to the hardware, the Mi Mix Fold has an 8.01-inch “flexible” OLED display on the inside. This screen has symmetrical bezels on all sides and there is no unsightly camera cutout. It has a WQHD+ resolution and standard 60Hz refresh rate. Brightness peaks at 900nits though Xiaomi says it supports both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision playback. The 4:3 aspect ratio also seems ideal for productivity. The outer screen is 6.5-inch AMOLED with a 2520×840 pixels resolution, 27:9 aspect ratio and 90Hz refresh rate. Peak brightness is again set to 900nits but it only supports HDR10+.

The Mi Mix Fold is the first phone in the world to use liquid lens technology in its camera. This allows Xiaomi to let “one lens virtually cover functions of two lenses” for 3x optical zoom, up to 30x telephoto, and a minimum focus distance of 3cm. The Mi Mix Fold also marks the debut of Xiaomi’s in-house Surge C1 image processing chip that the brand has been working on for the last two years. The rest of the camera package includes a primary 108MP camera (HM2 sensor) and another 13MP ultra-wide-angle camera. Telephoto/macro is handled by an 8MP camera. There is also a 20MP – technically a selfie – camera on the outer screen.

Pre-orders will start March 30.

Elsewhere, the Mi Mix Fold has Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 processor with up to 16GB LPDDR5 RAM and up to 512GB UFS3.1 storage, 5020mAh double-cell battery with 67W fast wired charging, dual 5G, Wi-Fi 6, MIUI 12 based on Android 10, and four Harman Kardon-tuned speakers.

The foldable comes in Standard with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 and Ceramic Special Edition.

Mi Mix Fold price, availability

The Mi Mix Fold starts at CNY 9,999 (roughly Rs 1,11,777) for the base variant with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage while the 12GB/512GB and 16GB/512GB models will sell for CNY 10,999 (roughly Rs 1,22,977) and CNY 12,999 (roughly Rs 1,45,339) respectively.

Also Read | Huawei’s Mate X2 foldable borrows a page from Samsung’s book

Like most Mi Mix phones in the past – by the way, this also marks the return of the series – the Mi Mix Fold is also a China-only affair for now, but at least it is ready to ship to more buyers so unlike the Mi Mix Alpha that saw limited availability. Pre-orders will start March 30 while shipping will begin from April 16.