Samsung on August 10, 2022 launched its 4th generation Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4 foldables.  The new foldable display smartphones from Samsung are its most refined yet.  Samsung is the current market leader in foldables and is the only vendor offering this iconic new class of devices in all global markets. Now Motorola and Xiaomi introduced their foldable smartphones too.

Motorola announced its next generation foldable the same day, the RAZR 2022, while Xiaomi launched its own updated foldable, the Mix Fold 2 on August 11, 2022.  Motorola’ RAZR is a flip-style folder, while Xiaomi’s is a booklet style one.  The timing of the two announcements from the Chinese vendors appears to be intended as a challenge to Samsung, but since neither company has announced plans to bring their offerings to markets outside of China, that challenge is a little underwhelming.

Samsung launched its first foldable in 2019, the original Fold, a booklet-style device.  Motorola quickly followed the same year with its RAZR flip-folder.  Both devices underwhelmed reviewers due to build quality and other issues.  Samsung continued to iterate, including bringing a flip-style foldable, but Motorola did little more than bring a 5G version of its RAZR to market in 2020 and essentially took 2021 off.

About Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 xiaomi foldable smartphone

Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 is a giant technological leap in the ultra-slim foldable smartphone space. Measuring just 5.4mm unfolded, Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 offers a consistent viewing experience on both its inner and outer displays. Additionally, it delivers an authentic Leica imagery experience and outstanding power efficiency with the latest Snapdragon® 8+ Gen 1 mobile platform.

Self-developed Micro Waterdrop Hinge xiaomi foldable smartphone

Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 boasts a revolutionary design. It is one of the thinnest foldable smartphones on the market with a folded body just 11.2mm thin—significantly slimmer than many other foldable devices. Both edges measure just only 5.4mm unfolded, offering a pleasant in-hand feel experience.

To achieve these breakthroughs in form factor, Xiaomi focused on refining the hinge – the core component of the foldable smartphone. Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 is equipped with a self-developed Micro Waterdrop Hinge which features a smaller bending radius, thinner screen modules, customized mini rotating hinge, and utilized an integrated solder-free precision process to create a carbon fiber double-wing floating panel. Together, these highly integrated components reduced the number of parts to only 87, enabling a lighter and thinner hinge design than ever before.

In addition, both sides of the hinge use space stacking technology, and use large hidden spaces on both sides of the hinge for soft boards, achieving a 20% increase in space utilization and thereby offering the 5.4mm flat design with balanced weight distribution.

Two displays, one exceptional viewing experience

Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 sports an inner folding design, with two AMOLED flagship screens of two different sizes on two respective sides. The outer display adopts a 21:9 classic ratio design, allowing for excellent compatibility with most applications and taking into account user experience when handling. The 6.56″ display features Samsung E5 material, a resolution of 2520×1080, and supports 120Hz high refresh rate and P3 color gamut, with a brightness of up to 1000nit–giving it an edge over other common displays thanks to its outstanding user experience.

On the inside Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 flaunts an 8.02″ Samsung Eco OLED display. It adopts POL-LESS technology, replaces the traditional polarizer with an ultra-thin color filter, and uses a black matrix material to reduce reflection on the screen. Compared to traditional displays, light transmittance has been increased by 33%, with power consumption reduced by 25%. This screen has a resolution of 2160×1914, supports P3 color gamut and LTPO 2.0 1-120Hz AdaptiveSync Pro. The ultra-low anti-AR film allows the display to reduce reflectivity to less than 2%, resulting in more detailed viewing experience and pleasing aesthetics.

The two displays offer an exceptionally consistent user experience, both supporting 120Hz refresh rate, professional screen calibration on primary colors, 1,000nit brightness and Dolby Vision. Regardless of which screen is used, the device supports dual ambient light sensing on the front and back, providing for natural and smooth automatic brightness adjustment.

MIUI Fold 13, the new standard for foldable displays xiaomi foldable smartphone

Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 runs on the latest MIUI Fold 13 operating system. Developed as a permutation of the classic MIUI interface, it is perfectly adapted to foldable form factor, with screen interaction optimizations offering advancements in user experience.

The smart screen desktop design adapts to the foldable display and doubles the viewing area of the smartphone. As well as maintaining visual consistency, it allows for the hundreds of available MIUI widgets to be used without deformation, increasing both aesthetics and usability.

Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 system applications are customized for its large screen, and a large number of app interfaces have been redesigned for a better on-screen experience. Calendar, file management, voice recorder, notes, and other applications apply a new column design to take full advantage of the large screen. Third-party application adaptation will be conducted according to solutions available in Android 12L, providing more native support capability for third-party apps.

Additional Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 innovations include updates in smart screen interaction. Users can now three finger swipe to split screen. Floating windows can be quickly accessed through the sidebar, which can also be used to exit split screen mode. The design of floating windows and notifications has also been adjusted, and multitasking on a smartphone has never been quite this efficient.

Authentic Leica Imagery, dual-quality approach

Xiaomi has set a new imaging standard for smartphone photography, combining Leica’s imagery expertise with Xiaomi’s rich experience in the field of computational photography.

To ensure optical excellence, Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 is equipped with a 50-megapixel IMX766 main camera, with 7P lenses all using ALD low-reflection coating. Also featured are a 13MP ultra-wide angle camera and a 8MP telephoto camera with 2x optical zoom and portrait capabilities.

In addition to the Leica-certified Summicron lens, Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 offers access to two photographic styles: The “Leica Authentic Look” and “Leica Vibrant Look”, both offering enhanced creative freedom to the photographer.

With the Xiaomi ProFocus support, Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 offers fast camera startup, quick captures, and continuous shooting support up to 30 frames per second.

Dolby Vision HDR recording

In regards to video, Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 supports Dolby Vision HDR recording, as well as both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos for video viewing. Videos shot on Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 will look amazing, particularly when utilizing UGC platforms which support Dolby Vision, allowing users to share exceptional visuals online.

Snapdragon® 8+ Gen 1 and flagship performance packed in an ultra-slim body

In addition to its revolutionary thin and light foldable screen design, Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 takes advantage of the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon® 8+ Gen 1 mobile platform for snappy performance. TSMC’s 4nm manufacturing process enables a significant increase in energy efficiency while integrating tens of billions of transistors, into an area the size of a fingernail. The advanced process allows both CPU and GPU to receive a 10% boost in performance, while simultaneously improving CPU and GPU energy consumption by 30%. This upgraded design allows the ultra-slim smartphone to maintain higher speeds and efficiency at the same time.

Excellent power efficiency allows for a long lasting battery, with a full day of use being possible even when the inner screen is frequently used, with extended use when using primarily the outer display.

Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 also packs a cooling system equipped with a large-area VC, rarely seen on foldable smartphones. The high-quality VC offers a surface area of up to 2,520mm, enabling 50% improvement in thermal conductivity compared to typical VCs. The inner layer of the battery is covered with second-generation boron nitride heat dissipation film, with an area of up to 3715mm. Finally, multi-layer high-density graphite sheet creates a solid foundation for Xiaomi MIX Fold 2’s excellent sustained performance.

Pricing for Xiaomi’s Mix Fold 2 starts at CNY8,999 (~US$1,340), which is a lot less than Samsung’s Fold 4.  But like the Motorola RAZR 2022, it will go on sale in China and there’s no word as to when or if it will come to international markets.  If it doesn’t, this is a huge, wasted opportunity as it has the makings of a real challenger to Samsung’s booklet.

Samsung created the foldable category. No other vendor has invested the time and resources in R&D, marketing and supporting the introduction of these new style of device.  Samsung is betting that foldables are the future of smartphones and by mid-decade will account for half of its smartphone sales.  Chinese vendors could offer Samsung serious competition in foldables, Strategy Analytics emphasizes. But as long as they keep their foldables hidden in China, the rest of the world will never know. xiaomi foldable smartphone

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