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Xiaomi has been revealing details about its first mid-fold phone for weeks, and now we finally have the full picture. At its autumn flagship event tonight, Lei Jun officially unveiled the Xiaomi 18 Fold, which takes on Apple’s foldable that’s launching this Wednesday.
Xiaomi 18 Fold brings a new mid-fold design
Technically a wide-fold, Xiaomi calls the design a “mid-fold,” as the form factor is something in between small clamshell foldables and larger book-style models. The phone has a 5.38-inch outer display and a 7.58-inch inner screen. Both use a roughly 2:1 aspect ratio inspired by the proportions of standard paper.
When unfolded, the Xiaomi 18 Fold is just 5.02mm thick. It measures 10.68mm when folded and weighs 219 grams. The phone has a flat frame that wraps around the edges, along with rounded corners and a racetrack-shaped camera module on the back.
Xiaomi will offer the phone in Nishino Red, warm gold-white, and black. The outer screen is also designed to be comfortable for one-handed use. Xiaomi says its keyboard is 8% wider than the one found on a typical 6.9-inch phone.
Xiaomi has also focused on making the foldable more durable. The Xiaomi 18 Fold is rated to survive drops from up to 1.2 meters. The durability comes from a new Dragon Bone Hinge, a 7-series aluminum alloy frame, and Dragon Crystal Glass 3.0. The phone has gone through 492 rounds of stress testing, while a double-layer UTG glass setup protects the foldable display.
Xring O3 chip and LPDDR6 memory
The Xiaomi 18 Fold is powered by Xiaomi’s own Xring O3 chip. The company says it is the first AI flagship chip to pass five million points in AnTuTu. Compared with its previous generation, CPU multi-core performance is up 60%, while power use at medium and low loads drops by 25%. GPU performance is also 85% higher, with power consumption reduced by 64%.
The NPU delivers 200 TOPS of Tensor compute and 3.13 TFLOPS of Vector performance. The phone also gets a major memory upgrade. Xiaomi has equipped it with Changxin Memory’s LPDDR6 RAM, which is being mass-produced for the first time. This makes the Xiaomi 18 Fold the first phone to use the new memory standard.
6,000mAh battery, Leica cameras and Special Edition
The phone packs a 6,000mAh Jinshajiang battery with a high-silicon design and 920Wh/L energy density. It supports 67W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
For photography, Xiaomi has teamed up with Leica for a triple-camera setup. It includes a 200-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel periscope telephoto camera with 3.5x optical zoom, and a 50-megapixel ultra-wide camera.
Lei Jun also introduced the Ceramic Special Edition. It uses a new silicon nitride ceramic back that Xiaomi says is both lighter and stronger than the standard version. The special edition is only available with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. Xiaomi will produce just 1,500 units.
Xiaomi 18 Fold Price and Availability
The Xiaomi 18 Fold starts at 10,999 yuan (around $1,639) for the 12GB+256GB model. The 12GB+512GB version costs 11,999 yuan (about $1,788), while the 16GB+512GB model is priced at 12,999 yuan (around $1,937).
The top-end 16GB+1TB model with LPDDR6 memory costs 14,999 yuan (about $2,235). The Ceramic Special Edition, also with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, costs 15,999 yuan (around $2,384).
Pre-orders are now open in China, with sales set to begin at 10 AM on September 10.
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