OPINION: Following a China-exclusive release back in July, Xiaomi’s first clamshell-style foldable is headed to the UK, Europe and other regions around the world – but after spending some time with the foldable, I must admit, I’m a little disappointed.
Smartphone manufacturing is a difficult process, no doubt complicated by the intricate hardware within foldable tech.
However, this isn’t a first-gen foldable from a company with no prior experience in foldables; in fact, Xiaomi has been producing foldables since the release of the Mi Mix Fold in early 2021.
That means that, while it’s technically the first generation of clamshell foldable, it’s actually Xiaomi’s fourth-gen foldable tech – and I expected more from a multi-year refinement process.
Case and point; the crease, the most divisive element of foldables, is very much present and accounted for here. That may not be a big deal on the surface. All foldables have creases, right? Well yes, but it’s more nuanced than that.
While companies like Samsung, Google and, apparently, Xiaomi, are struggling to reduce the crease on the inner screen to a point where it’s barely noticeable, other companies – namely Honor, OnePlus/Oppo and Motorola – have made great strides in that department.
They’re still there, as there’s no way to break the laws of physics unfortunately, but the crease is shallower with a less noticeable dip as you run your finger across it.
The Xiaomi Mix Flip’s screen has a very noticeable crease in it, considering Xiaomi’s prior experience in the foldable market. And, unlike with book-style foldables like the Honor Magic V3 where your finger rarely comes into contact with the centrally-placed crease, you constantly feel it on clamshell foldables like this, further compounding the issue.
It’s not just the crease, either. I could potentially get used to that over an extended period of use.
Instead, it’s a lot of little things that Xiaomi really should’ve nailed with the Mix Flip. For one, it offers no kind of water resistance. That was the norm a few years ago, but in 2024, multiple foldables offer full IPX8 water resistance for added peace of mind – especially with famously fragile tech.
I’m not overly enamoured by the hinge either, with an oddly inconsistent feel as you lift the lid and expand that inner screen. It starts off with a fair bit of resistance, before dropping to such a low level of resistance that the screen can flop and move with a shake, only again becoming rigid as it nears its fully open state.
It just feels a bit cheap for what’s marketed as an expensive bit of tech, and isn’t an issue on cheaper foldables like the £799 Razr 50.
The phone also suffers from massive thermal throttling when you run demanding tasks like gaming – something you should be free to do considering the inclusion of the top-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
Granted, the thin dimensions of foldables mean that no foldable delivers the perfect gaming experience, but the throttling is so noticeable here that it actually refused to run a few of our graphics benchmarks – again, not something we’ve seen from the competition.
Even the 4-inch cover screen, which I was initially enamoured with, has left somewhat of a bitter taste in the mouth after actually using it. Unlike the Razr 50 Ultra’s 4-inch cover screen, which natively adapts apps to run in the boxy, square aspect ratio, the Mix Flip renders full 16:9 apps on the cover screen.
That sounds like a great idea on the surface, and it can be, but I’ve found that it also makes icons and other app elements smaller and harder to tap as the app is essentially tricked into thinking it’s running on a standard large 16:9 smartphone screen.
At least with the Razr’s alternative, it’s still easy to read and use most apps – even if that camera housing can get in the way from time to time.
It’s at this point, after quite a bit of battering, that I should say that I don’t completely hate the Mix Flip.
On the contrary, I think it offers a few key features that I’d love to see on other foldables, from the built-in speaker in the cover screen to take calls without unfolding the phone to the inclusion of 67W fast charging. They’re both features long-awaited on the clamshell foldable front.
It’s just that these positives don’t outweigh the negatives of Xiaomi’s foldable design – not by a long shot, and especially not at the £1,099 asking price.
Xiaomi once had a reputation for undercutting the competition with premium tech at affordable prices, and I can’t help but wonder whether that approach would’ve made the Xiaomi Mix Flip, even with its flaws, more tolerable.
As it stands, it’s not a phone that I’d recommend to foldable fans – but hey, hopefully things will be much better with the Mix Flip 2, whenever that materialises.
