Xiaomi’s first clamshell phone follows the Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Razr Plus 2024. And like its rivals, it has a large cover display. Xiaomi announced the Mix Flip at its annual event in Beijing, alongside the slim, book-style Mix Fold 4. Both phones have been reserved for release in Xiaomi’s home country of China for now, with Xiaomi having not shared pricing information at the time of writing.
Like Samsung and Motorola’s flip phones, the Mix Flip has a large 4-inch outer display. Xiaomi says that should allow you to meet most daily needs without having to open the device. The Mix Flip’s outer screen partition design, along with dynamic widgets, gives you quick access to the cameras. You can also check the time, weather and other notifications. Xiaomi says the outer display also offers an AI experience, which adapts to your habits and offers a personalized experience.
Flip phones have undergone a design transformation over the past two years, with much of the change taking place on the front screen. This may have been kicked off by Chinese phone maker Oppo, which shook up the cover design of flip phones in late 2022 by introducing a vertically-oriented cover display on its first-ever flip phone, the Find N2 Flip. 2023’s Motorola Razr Plus then came equipped with a larger 3.6-inch cover display. Samsung later followed suit, expanding the outer display on the Galaxy Z Flip 5 — a design it retained with 2024’s Galaxy Z Flip 6.
The reasoning behind the increased size of these outer displays was to create a more useful and interactive cover screen compared to those of years past. Previous outer displays on flip phones like the Galaxy Z Flip 4 were fine for cursory controls, but not much else.
The Mix Flip may also have one of the brightest outer displays on the market, hitting a peak brightness of 3,000 nits. That’s the same level as the Razr Plus 2024. For comparison, the Z Flip 6 has 2,600 nits.
Xiaomi’s first flip phone: the Mix Flip.
On the cover display, you can see a pair of Leica cameras in a vertical array. They consist of a 50-megapixel main camera and a 50-megapixel “floating” telephoto lens, which is supposed to dynamically adjust its internals to optimize image quality across different shooting distances. (A normal telephoto lens maintains a fixed focal length.) Xiaomi says the cameras offer several photography modes, including floating mode, to help capture steady shots without a tripod.
Inside its housing, the Mix Flip is powered by Qualcomm’s top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and packs a 4,780mAh battery with support for 67W wired charging. Unlike the Z Flip 6 and Razr Plus 2024, the Mix Flip lacks an official IP rating for water and dust resistance.
Mix Fold 4
Xiaomi also debuted its next-gen Mix Fold 4, which measures 9.47mm when folded, making it one of the thinnest book-style foldable phones commercially sold — trailing only the Honor Magic V3. The Mix Fold 4 has a 6.56-inch outer display that folds open like a book to reveal a 7.98-inch inner display. Both displays have a refresh rate of up to 120Hz.
Xiaomi credits the Mix Fold 4’s “all-carbon architecture” with reducing weight and thickness. It has also reduced the overall volume of the hinge. According to the company, the hinge’s floating plate, display back plate, and battery compartment’s middle plate are all precision-molded from carbon fiber materials. Carbon fiber is a strong and lightweight material, but it comes at a price and is said to suffer from brittleness.
Despite the thinner design, Xiaomi says it has bumped the Mix Fold 4’s battery capacity by 260mAh, taking the total capacity to 5,100mAh. It has a silicon-carbon battery in place of the now-traditional lithium-ion batteries, following in the footsteps of Honor’s Magic V2.
The use of silicon-carbon batteries in mobile phones is an emerging trend that is attracting attention due to its potential advantages over lithium-ion batteries. These advantages include lower environmental impact and reduced risk of overheating. The long-term reliability of silicon-carbon batteries is still being investigated and their adoption in the smartphone industry is still in its infancy.
The Mix Fold 4 has four cameras: a 50-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel floating telephoto lens, a 12-megapixel wide-angle camera and a second periscope-style telephoto lens.
The announcements wouldn’t be complete, especially in 2024, without mention of AI features. Xiaomi said the Mix Flip will be able to offer AI-powered language translations in real time, even when you’re not connected to the internet. Those translations will be displayed on both the indoor and outdoor screens. Xiaomi also introduced a so-called Travel Assistant feature, which Xiaomi said will offer travel information reminders during flights and train rides, as well as a function that helps generate text.
Xiaomi says the Mix Fold 4 has been tested to withstand 500,000 folds. It has an IPX8 water resistance rating, meaning it can survive being submerged in water, but it can’t protect against dust ingress.
Look at this: Honor Magic V2 gets global launch at IFA 2023
