Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi has revealed its take on the clamshell-style foldable in the form of the Xiaomi Mix Flip. But, how does it compare to one of the most popular foldables around, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6?
With both foldables launching within weeks of one another, you might assume that they follow a similar trend – but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Xiaomi has seemingly gone all-in on hardware while Samsung has used the Z Flip 6 to hugely boost its software offering.
With that in mind, which foldable should you go for? While we’ve not yet reviewed the Xiaomi Mix Flip, we have spent a lot of time with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6. That said, here’s how the two compare on paper.
The Xiaomi Mix Flip has a larger cover screen
When it comes to cover screen tech, it looks like Xiaomi may have this one in the bag; the Mix Flip sports a 4.01-inch cover screen, 0.1 inches larger than the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra, that takes up the entire display. And, just like the Razr, it has two cameras embedded within the screen in the bottom-right corner.
The 120Hz OLED panel looks to provide access to a range of Xiaomi-developed widgets, but it also looks like you’ll be able to interact with apps on the cover screen, as with the Razr 50 Ultra.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6, on the other hand, has a smaller, slower 3.6-inch 60Hz cover screen that doesn’t seem quite as capable on paper. Not only that, but Samsung still doesn’t allow you to access any Android app on the cover screen, instead only allowing a handful of apps that privilege.
That already makes the Mix Flip the more capable of the two when it comes to cover screen tech, but Xiaomi really knocked it out of the park by also including a microphone and speaker on the cover of the foldable, allowing you to answer calls without even unfolding the device. There isn’t any other foldable on the market like that right now.
The Xiaomi Mix Flip has higher-res cameras
Xiaomi has, rather oddly, taken the same route as Motorola when it comes to its foldable camera selection; rather than the standard combination of wide and ultrawide lenses, the Mix Flip boasts a high-res 50MP main alongside a 50MP 2x telephoto lens, allowing you to get a little closer to the action without moving or degrading the overall image quality with a digital zoom.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6, on the other hand, sports an upgraded 50MP main that brings it in-line with the Z Fold 6, alongside a tweaked 12MP ultrawide. While comparing a 12MP ultrawide to a 50MP 2x telephoto is a bit like comparing apples and oranges, the high-res zoom lens does at least look a little more tempting on paper.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 has more AI features
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip comes with Samsung’s all-singing, all-dancing Galaxy AI which made its debut on the Galaxy S24 series earlier this year. And, just like the flagship candybar phone collection, the Z Flip 6 can do all the same cool GenAI-powered tricks.
That includes elements like transcribing and summarising long voice recordings, translating phone calls in real-time, rewriting chunks of text in different styles and even removing subjects from your photos.
However, the Z Flip 6 takes it even further with new GenAI elements like Magic Doodle and AI Portrait Studio, features not available on any other Samsung phone just yet.
The former can use AI to upscale doodles on photos and in notes to make them look more realistic, while the latter can generate portraits of a photo in different styles, from hand-drawn sketches to brightly coloured anime-style portraits.
The Xiaomi Mix Flip does have AI capabilities, with Xiaomi claiming that it can handle on-device translations and other basic tasks, but it’s not quite as all-encompassing as what you’ll find on the competing Samsung foldable.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 has a longer software promise
If there’s one area that Xiaomi simply cannot compete with Samsung, it’s in the software department – and more specifically, long-term software support.
When Xiaomi announced the Mix Flip in China, it didn’t mention what the plan was for long-term support, though looking at recent premium Xiaomi phones like the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, we can assume that it’ll get the same four OS upgrades and five years of security patches – Xiaomi would’ve made a big song and dance if it had been improved for the Mix Flip, after all.
Samsung, on the other hand, matches Google’s impressive long-term promise of seven OS upgrades, meaning the Galaxy Z Flip that’s running Android 14 today will one day get the update to Android 21. That means that the phone will not only get new features with new OS upgrades, but it should also remain up-to-date for years past the usual 2-3-year upgrade cycle.
The Xiaomi Mix Flip isn’t available outside of China
With Xiaomi’s clamshell foldable certainly standing out from the foldable crowd in 2024, it’s a shame that it won’t be available outside of China – for now, anyway.
The Mix Flip was revealed in China for the Chinese market, and while that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll never see it in the West, previous Xiaomi foldables – like the Mix Fold 3 – never materialised outside of China, so we’re not holding out too much hope here.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6, on the other hand, is now available to buy for £1,049/$999 from Samsung itself and a variety of third-party retailers around the world.
