Xiaomi 18 Fold launch in China: Xiaomi has officially launched the Xiaomi 18 Fold in China, giving the company its first phone with a new “mid-fold” design. The phone sits between smaller flip-style foldables and larger book-style devices. The new foldable was unveiled by Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun at the company’s autumn flagship event on September 7. The launch comes just before Apple’s expected entry into the foldable phone market.
The Xiaomi 18 Fold has a 5.38-inch outer screen and a larger 7.58-inch display on the inside. Xiaomi has used a wide shape for both screens, with proportions based on the √2:1 shape of normal paper.
When the phone is opened, it’s only 5.02mm thick. Once folded, the thickness goes up to 10.68mm. It weighs 219 grams, which is fairly light for a large foldable phone.
The outside has a flat frame with rounded corners. At the back, there’s a wide racetrack-shaped camera module. Xiaomi will sell the phone in Nishino Red, warm gold-white and black. The outer display is also made for easier one-handed use. Xiaomi says its keyboard is 8% wider than the keyboard on a normal 6.9-inch phone.
Durability is another focus. The phone has a new Dragon Bone Hinge, a 7-series aluminium alloy frame and Dragon Crystal Glass 3.0. Xiaomi says it can handle drops from up to 1.2 metres. The folding screen uses double-layer UTG glass and the phone has gone through 492 rounds of stress testing.
Powering the Xiaomi 18 Fold is Xiaomi’s own Xring O3 processor. The company says the chip has crossed 5 million points on AnTuTu. Compared with the previous generation, Xiaomi claims CPU multi-core performance is 60% higher. Power use at medium and low loads is down 25%. GPU performance is 85% higher while GPU power consumption is 64% lower.
The chip also includes an NPU with 200 TOPS of Tensor compute and 3.13 TFLOPS of Vector performance. The phone is also among the first to use Changxin Memory’s new LPDDR6 RAM, with bandwidth reaching up to 113.8 GB/s.
The Xiaomi 18 Fold packs a 6,000mAh Jinshajiang battery. It uses a high-silicon design with 20% silicon content and an energy density of up to 920Wh/L. Charging support includes 67W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
For cameras, Xiaomi has worked with Leica. The phone gets a 200MP main camera, a 50MP periscope telephoto camera with 3.5x optical zoom and a 50MP ultra-wide camera. Xiaomi has also announced a Ceramic Special Edition. It uses a silicon nitride ceramic back and comes only with 16GB RAM and 1TB storage. Just 1,500 units will be made.
The Xiaomi 18 Fold starts at 10,999 yuan for the 12GB+256GB version. The 12GB+512GB model costs 11,999 yuan, while the 16GB+512GB version is 12,999 yuan. The 16GB+1TB model costs 14,999 yuan. The Ceramic Special Edition with 16GB RAM and 1TB storage is priced at 15,999 yuan.
Pre-orders are now open in China, and sales will begin at 10 AM on September 10. Global availability has not been announced in the launch details.
This website uses cookies.