In fact, it’s quite difficult to make folding screen smartphones. That’s why, among all top Chinese smartphones makers, only Huawei has managed to launch a foldable handset. Globally, only Samsung and Moto make it competition.
It is worth noting that most of the current flagship folding screen models have a starting price of more than $2500. So not all customers can afford themselves to buy such handsets.
And while the mentioned manufacturers had been thinking on how to make the prices lower and to allow more buyers to get their hands on them, Xiaomi launched the Xiaomi MIX Fold – the company’s first folding screen smartphone.
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Its hardware specifications are top-notch and it can calmly compete with Samsung’s and Huawei’s similar products.
Moreover, as expected, this phone costs only 9,999 yuan ($1539). This means that more ordinary people can afford to buy it.
What’s More
Not only that, the MIX FOLD also introduced Xiaomi’s self-developed chip Surge C1. Although the latter is only an imaging chip that provides hardware support for the MIX FOLD imaging system, it shows that Xiaomi’s “technological establishment” has not stopped.
At the same time, the former concept-level solution of the liquid lens has really landed on the Xiaomi MIX FOLD, which can achieve 30x telephoto/3cm macro shooting, combined with a 100MP high-definition main camera and a 130MP ultra-wide angle combination. The image system of the foldable screen is in the first echelon of the flagship folding screen.
Xiaomi MIX Fold Display
The Xiaomi MIX FOLD sports an 8.01-inch (0.11-inch larger than iPad mini) flexible OLED inner screen with a 2K resolution (2480 x 1860). The screen ratio is 4:3, which makes the MIX FOLD the largest foldable inner screen so far. Thus, it can even compete with the tablets.
Moreover, the internal screen of the Xiaomi MIX FOLD supports 1 billion color display, primary color screen, HDR10+, DCI-P3 color gamut, 360° front and rear dual light perception, and peak brightness can reach 900nit. The only shortcoming is that it can only support 60Hz refresh rate.
The external screen of the Xiaomi MIX FOLD is a 6.52-inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 2520×840. But it supports 90Hz screen refresh rate + 180Hz touch sampling rate. The peak brightness reaches 900nit, it supports full-link HDR10+, 360° front and rear dual light perception.
What’s more interesting is that the Xiaomi MIX FOLD is a four-speaker system model. The symmetrically designed dual 1216 speakers are located on the side of the screen. 15V Smart PA blesses the 0.65mm large amplitude and 1.34CC equivalent sound cavity. In comparison to the Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro, it has a 40% improvement, and it also has a Harman Kardon tuning.
The Xiaomi MIX Fold uses a screen supplied by China Star Optoelectronics. However, this is not the first time that Xiaomi has adopted a non-Samsung screen. Previously, the Xiaomi Mi 10 and the Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite have adopted it.
Why Did Xiaomi Choose The Internal Folding Solution?
Even models with large curvature flexible screens will not affect the normal display effect after scratches, because the scratches are actually on the external glass cover and will not affect continued use. The screen of the folding screen smartphone is very thin. So if there are scratches and then bend several times, the marks may become larger.
For this reason, A cover plate comes with the inner screen of the folding screen smartphone is usually like a protective film. This cover plate is very immature and likely will fall off if you bend it too many times. So later there were covers made of PI material or even CPI material. Say, Samsung even developed UTG (ultra-thin glass). But they couldn’t stop the old problems of easy aging, low hardness, and easy scratching.
Xiaomi MIX FOLD vs. 6.81-inch smartphone
More About The Hinge
The existing outer fold approach means more scratches and creases, and the inner fold solution means relatively fewer scratches and creases. In comparison, the inner fold option has more advantages. This may be the reason why the Xiaomi MIX FOLD has chosen the inner fold.
Regardless of the past or the present, no matter whether it is inside or outside-fold, the mass-produced folding screen models on the market all have creases. This is related to the number of folds, and the longer the machine is used, the more obvious the crease will be.
From the actual experience, the Xiaomi MIX FOLD also cannot completely eliminate the crease, but it basically does not affect the daily use experience, and its hinge part does not support hovering.
By the way, according to the latest online test, the Xiaomi MIX Fold can be folded and unfolded for 400,000 times and it still will continue operating.
Huge Screen Gameplay
Compared with “flip phones” such as the Galaxy Z Flip and the Moto Razr, the MIX FOLD is more like a foldable tablet. So the gameplay based on this giant screen is also a highlight of the Xiaomi MIX FOLD.
The first is the excellent video and audio game experience brought by the giant screen. This is undoubtedly the most distinctive and prominent feature of the MIX FOLD.
The gameplay of the office scene is another battlefield for the folding screen besides the audio-visual entertainment. After all, it’s more difficult to read text on the traditional smartphone.
In addition to better reading files, if you want to use phones to achieve light office play, in fact, you also need to do a lot of adaptation at the software layer. In this regard, the Xiaomi MIX FOLD has done quite well: split screen, parallel windows, dual-screen drag and drop, and multi-image transmission have all been added to make the best use of the large screen of the MIX FOLD.
Xiaomi MIX Fold Performance
As Xiaomi’s most expensive phone at the moment, it is logical to see the Snapdragon 888 5G mobile platform + 12GB/16GB LPDDR5 high-speed memory + 256GB/512GB UFS 3.1 high-speed storage.
Game Heat Dissipation
It is worth mentioning that the folding screen mobile phone itself has an advantage in heat dissipation due to the large heat dissipation area brought by the larger body space. And the Xiaomi MIX FOLD has also made further heat dissipation materials on this basis.
Xiaomi used a parallel dual three-dimensional heat dissipation system and a “micro airbag” heat dissipation mechanism for MIX FOLD. To put it simply, a heat dissipation system is designed on both the left and right parts of the smartphone. And the two are also opened to form a complete heat dissipation system.
Specifically, the MIX Fold has almost all the passive cooling solutions that can be seen at present, including VC liquid cooling + thermal gel + multilayer graphite sheet + material-grade bending resistant graphite sheet, and there is a whole piece of copper foil under the screen. The total heat dissipation area has reached 22583.7mm², which is almost twice that of the Mi 11.
Because the stack of components on the left and right sides of the MIX FOLD of the folding screen is not completely balanced, the side where the motherboard and the SoC are located faces greater heat dissipation pressure.
In order to solve the problem of unbalanced heat dissipation, when the stacking space is limited, they add a heat transfer tunnel to the Xiaomi MIX FOLD to connect the parallel heat dissipation systems on both sides of the shaft. In this way, the heat on one side of the SoC can be transferred to the other side with a lower heat dissipation pressure through this channel, thereby achieving a more balanced and stronger heat dissipation capacity.
The specific plan is to create a heat dissipation structure with “micro airbag” bionic knuckle skin through the improvement of graphite sintering process and coating technology. The resulting bend-resistant graphite sheet can withstand 200,000 cycles of 180-degree bending. After folding, the thermal performance will only decrease by 3%-5%.
Due to such a system, under a heavy game test, it showcases amazing heat dissipation results. From the actual measurement of the game, the average frame rate of Xiaomi MIX FOLD can reach about 59.6 frames in a 10-minute game, which is basically close to 60 full frames. The CPU core temperature reaches 52℃, and the highest temperature on the surface of the fuselage is near the SoC, which is 40.8. ℃,. Thus, we are dealing with the best Snapdragon 888 handset so far.
Benchmark Results
The Snapdragon 865 model can reach the single-core 918 and the multi-core 3386 in GeekBench. The Snapdragon 888 of the Mi MIX FOLD is improved by approximately 22% and 1.6%, respectively.
In the GFXbench test, the Snapdragon 888 reached 158FPS in Manhattan 3.0 1080p off-screen score; the Aztec ruins Vulkan 1080p/regular off-screen score was 78FPS.
Xiaomi MIX Fold Camera
The Xiaomi MIX FOLD comes with a combination of 100MP Samsung HM2 main camera + liquid lens + 13MP ultra-wide-angle lens. Among them, the liquid lens assumes the function of telephoto + macro, and it is worth noting that the MIX FOLD is currently the first and only smartphone equipped with the Surge C1 self-developed imaging chip.
It may be the reason for the relatively long development cycle. Moreover, it’s difficult to call it a top-notch camera. Especially, the HM2 main camera appeared on the Redmi Note 9 Pro.
Liquid Lens
The liquid lens is a magical innovation. Like a lens for your eyes, it fits into your smartphone’s lens. Can the flow of liquid film wrapping, replacing the traditional optical lens. In addition it realizes the change of focal length and focus. In this way, a lens can be microscopic at close distance and can be telephoto far away.
Comparison of main camera and liquid lens imaging
Xiaomi’s self-developed liquid lens makes it possible for macro and telephoto to coexist. The liquid structure of the crystalline lens can precisely control the shape of the liquid spherical surface. At the same time, it has the characteristics of high light transmittance, ultra-low dispersion and resistance to extreme environments.
Surge C1 Chip
The Surge C1 is only an ISP chip, which is also an independent smartphone imaging chip. It uses self-developed ISP + self-developed algorithms to help phones perform more refined and advanced 3A processing (AF focus, AWB white Balance and AE automatic exposure). Due to the dual filters, it can achieve parallel processing of high and low frequency signals.
To put it bluntly, the Surge C1 is a chip that allows the image sensor to collect the digital image information processed by the algorithm to make it clearer, more accurate in color, and more ideal in exposure.
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Macro shooting
Xiaomi MIX Fold Battery
The Mi MIX FOLD comes with a 5020mAh battery and supports 67W wired fast charging.
So we conducted a test to understand how it performs. We played an online video at a 30% volume and a 75% brightness. The use of the external screen can reach about 10.6 hours. And the use of the internal screen can reach about 7.5 hours.
It takes 40 minutes to charge the battery of Xiaomi MIX FOLD from 2% to 99%. Also, the blood returns to 83% in half an hour.
Wrapping Up
Is the Xiaomi MIX FOLD not heavyweight enough? Actually, it is not.
Look, it comes with a top-notch hardware, a number of innovations, and an attractive appearance. No one doubts its quality. But the Xiaomi MIX Fold is not imperior in any aspect. Its display comes from a local supplier. The phone uses a self-developed chip. The price is lower but it’s not cheap. And finally, the performance is good but it’s not the only model with a similar hardware.
So our verdict is – the Xiaomi MIX Fold has many advantages compared with its rivals but it’s not ideal, alas.