The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 already looks old, thanks to Xiaomi’s first flip phone
Xiaomi’s incoming flip phone looks like a next-gen Z Flip 6
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During the recentSamsung Galaxy Z Flip 6launch our most frequently-used word was ‘iterative’. And now Xiaomi’s first flip phone is promising to make itsSamsungrival look pretty conservative and dull, with a mix of bold design and promising specs.
Ahead of the Xiaomi Mix Flip’s official launch on July 19,Xiaomi CEO Lei Junhas released a succession of teasers on X (formerly Twitter) and Weibo to give us a taste of what the phone can do. And on paper, it certainly looks like a contender for our guide to thebest foldable phones, if it gets a global release.
The Mix Flip’s most obvious calling card is its 4.01-inch cover display, which stretches across the whole of the rear cover and makes the Z Flip 6’s 3.4-inch equivalent look a bit last-generation. That screen is similar to the one we’ve seen on theMotorola Razr Plus, which we found to be pretty useful, and also has a built-in earpiece speaker so you can privately take calls without opening up the phone.
Xiaomi’s new flip phone also has a couple of other big spec highlights. Like the Z Flip 6, the Mix Flip has a top-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset with a vapor chamber for cooling. And it also has an impressively large 4,780mAh battery – we don’t yet know how that’ll translate to real-world battery life, but it’s a lot bigger than its Samsung rival’s 4,000mAh cell.
Does anyone know what it’s called? Asking for a friend.#XiaomiMIXFlip pic.twitter.com/dyriQc0rRtJuly 17, 2024
Camera-wise, it looks like the Mix Flip could again have the edge, with a 50MP main camera, 60MP telephoto camera and a 32MP selfie snapper – although we don’t yet know anything about sensor sizes, and megapixels aren’t necessarily a signifier of quality.
The Mix Flip’s 6.9-inch AMOLED internal display, meanwhile, is slightly larger than the Z Flip 6’s 6.7-inch equivalent and has a 120Hz refresh rate. In theory, then, Xiaomi’s flip phone looks like a hardware successor to its Samsung rival, even though the Z Flip 6 was only launched a week ago. We’re certainly keen to see more on July 19 and also hear when it might, as is rumored, be launched outside China.
Mixing it with Samsung
There’s a lot more to a great foldable phone experience than just specs, so it’s hard to make any firm conclusions about the Xiaomi Mix Flip – particularly as HyperOS, which runs on top of Android 14, can be an acquired taste.
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On previous phones like theXiaomi 14, we found HyperOS to be a little convoluted with some confusing quirks, even for experienced Xiaomi users. It can also be a little bloated out of the box, with various unwanted third-party apps clogging up the menus.
Still, Xiaomi’s software experience is otherwise pretty smooth and versatile. And there’s no doubt that the Xiaomi Mix Flip, like theMix Fold 4that’ll be announced alongside it, has a lot going for it hardware-wise – particularly that cover display, which looks at least as good as the one on theMotorola Razr Plus.
We liked the latter so much that it made our list ofthe best tech of 2024 so far, so that’s another promising sign for its similar Xiaomi rival. At the very least, the Mix Flip looks likely to be one of thebest Xiaomi phones– and we’ll be interested to hear about pricing and more on July 19, particularly as Samsung’s recent foldables weregiven slight price hikes.
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Mark is TechRadar’s Senior news editor. Having worked in tech journalism for a ludicrous 17 years, Mark is now attempting to break the world record for the number of camera bags hoarded by one person. He was previously Cameras Editor at both TechRadar and Trusted Reviews, Acting editor on Stuff.tv, as well as Features editor and Reviews editor on Stuff magazine. As a freelancer, he’s contributed to titles including The Sunday Times, FourFourTwo and Arena. And in a former life, he also won The Daily Telegraph’s Young Sportswriter of the Year. But that was before he discovered the strange joys of getting up at 4am for a photo shoot in London’s Square Mile.
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