Xiaomi 18 Fold: Compact foldable smartphone to be released two days before the iPhone Fold
The timing cannot be a coincidence. Two days before the rumored unveiling of the iPhone Fold, Xiaomi is launching its 18 Fold. The smartphone can even be seen in advance at the IFA in Berlin.
The passport is the new trend size for foldable smartphones. Although Xiaomi is only showing its 18 Fold under a glass case at IFA, sales are set to begin (in China) as early as September 7th. That is two days before the suspected unveiling of the iPhone Fold in a similar format. Another special feature: It is the first smartphone with the Xring 03 chipset developed by Xiaomi.
The next smartphone in passport format
At its press conference at IFA, Xiaomi only mentioned the 18 Fold in passing. For the European market, the washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and cars at the booth seem to be more important. Nevertheless, the foldable smartphone is on display in a glass case in Berlin.
On the short-messaging service Weibo, the head of Xiaomi's mobile division, Lu Weibing, introduced the smartphone on September 2nd with initial images. With a 5.38-inch display on the outside and a 7.58-inch touchscreen when unfolded, it is very similar in size to the Fold 8 (5.5 and 7.6 inches).
From the outside, it can be seen that the Xiaomi 18 Fold has three cameras on the back. Leica is once again involved in these. Samsung's Fold 8 only has two cameras. Not visible, but already announced by Xiaomi, is the 18 Fold's chipset: the Xring 03, which Xiaomi developed itself.
The Xring 03 is intended to keep up with the best chipsets from Qualcomm, Mediatek, and Apple in terms of performance and efficiency. It features ten computing cores and a Mali-G2 GPU. However, previous known test results come from a developer board and not from a smartphone, where cooling can be different.
Even though Xiaomi is beating Apple to the punch with the 18 Fold, there is no indication that the foldable smartphone will be available outside of China anytime soon.
As a primary school pupil, I used to sit in a friend's living room with many of my classmates to play the Super NES. Now I get my hands on the latest technology and test it for you. In recent years at Curved, Computer Bild and Netzwelt, now at Digitec and Galaxus.
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