After a teaser last week, Xiaomi has fully unveiled its first wide foldable phone, the Xiaomi 18 Fold. The new handheld features a wide 5.38-inch cover display and an expansive 7.58-inch 120Hz inner AMOLED display.
Many foldables skimp on cameras, but Xiaomi is taking a different tack with its new folding smartphone. The Xiaomi 18 Fold features a 200-megapixel Leica triple-camera system, headlined by a 200-megapixel main camera.
This main camera features a flagship-quality Samsung ISOCELL HP5 Type 1/1.56 image sensor that supports native HDR photography and “lossless” zoom.
Alongside the main camera is a 50-megapixel Leica periscope camera with an 80mm equivalent focal length (3.5x optical zoom). This also supports what Xiaomi calls “lossless zoom,” delivering a 7x, 160mm-equivalent option.
Xiaomi notes that this Leica periscope telephoto uses an inverted design to keep the module smaller while maintaining smooth, naturally rounded bokeh.
Finally, the device has a 50-megapixel ultrawide camera on the back.
There are front-facing 16-megapixel selfie cameras on each display, both the cover panel and the unfolded interior screen.
While it’s nice to see a foldable phone with a robust camera system, even if it isn’t quite as powerful as the Leica camera system in the Xiaomi 17 Ultra slab phone released earlier this year, the star of the show is certainly the folding design itself.
When folded, the Xiaomi 18 Fold measures 117.8 x 83.6 millimeters (4.64 x 3.3 inches) and is 10.68mm (0.42 inches) thick. When unfolded, the 219-gram phone opens up to a large 7.58-inch main screen and is 5.02mm (0.2 inches) thick. As Xiaomi notes, this screen adopts a 2:1 aspect ratio, which the massive Chinese tech company says delivers “a higher screen utilization rate for a range of content, from 16:9 video and 4:3 photos to documents and more.” Both the outer and inner screens embrace this same 2:1 aspect ratio, the same as standard A4 paper.
The Xiaomi 18 Fold is the first foldable smartphone to incorporate Xiaomi’s HyperRGB panels on its inner and outer displays. With this panel design, each pixel has its own red, green, and blue subpixels. Xiaomi also uses this on its 17 Ultra. Both inner and outer displays have 4,000-nit peak brightness and 1-120Hz variable refresh rates.
PetaPixel’s Take
The timing of the Xiaomi 18 Fold is especially interesting given that tomorrow, September 9, Apple is widely expected to unveil its first foldable phone during its annual iPhone launch event. Rumors of Apple’s folding iPhone have circulated for years, and many industry analysts believe Apple’s phone may adopt a form factor very similar to the Xiaomi 18 Fold.
There’s no question Xiaomi’s 18 Fold also incorporates traditional Apple aesthetics and design, for that matter. If not for the Xiaomi and Leica branding on the back, one could be forgiven for thinking they were looking at a folding iPhone. That’s a compliment to Xiaomi, as far as I’m concerned.
Another area where I truly hope Apple and Xiaomi intersect on foldable phones is the camera department. Xiaomi has cut relatively few corners with the cameras in its new flagship folding phone, and hopefully Apple will embrace a similar philosophy. Folding phones, by their very nature of chasing the thinnest possible design, often lack high-end camera systems and imaging performance. It’s a physics problem that is hard to overcome. Xiaomi seems to have done a good job with it, at least on paper.
Pricing and Availability
The Xiaomi 18 Fold starts at 10,999 yuan in China, about $1,640 at current exchange rates. It comes in black, white, red, and a stylish pink ceramic version. It’s not clear yet when the phone may receive a global launch.
Image creditsXiaomi