Exclusive REVIEW of the Xiaomi MIX Flip: A debut “flip” phone that surprised in every way

Xiaomi MIX Flip was a pleasant surprise for us right after its launch. Since this is the first-generation foldable smartphone of the “flip” type from this manufacturer, we really like the device. As soon as it became available at the seller TradingShenzhen, we didn’t hesitate and ordered the Chinese version, as the global edition doesn’t exist at the moment. Xiaomi MIX Flip will likely also reach our market in a few months. We’re therefore bringing you, as the only ones in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, a review of this foldable novelty.

Where to buy the Xiaomi MIX Flip?

As we already mentioned, our partner store TradingShenzhen became the first international e-shop offering this smartphone. Since the Xiaomi MIX Flip features full support for our local networks, including the LTE bands B20 and the most modern 5G networks, you won’t have a single problem with coverage or connection reliability with our carriers.

The device comes with a Chinese ROM installed. That means the software is localized in Chinese or English. When we turned the phone on for the first time, we were taken straight into the system instead of the usual screen used for initial setup.

That’s because the seller turned on and installed Google Play Services—including the actual Play Store—before shipping the smartphone, on which we rely in Europe on Android devices.

You can choose the black, white, or purple variant. We ordered the smartphone in black and with 256 GB of internal storage. Delivery took already within 10 days. Shipping with Global Priority costs just a few euros, and you’ll be happy that you won’t need to pay any additional customs fees or VAT.

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Xiaomi MIX Flip Chinese Version (with B20 LTE)

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Updated 21. 10. 2024 on 08:09

TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any extra fees.

We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT are handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart only, after you enter the delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.

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Technical specifications of Xiaomi MIX Flip

In the box

Inside the black box, you’ll find not only the Xiaomi MIX Flip, but also a 67 W charging adapter with a USB-A to USB-C cable. This is a charger type with a Chinese plug, so the seller will include an adapter for the European wall outlet.

The package includes user manuals, of course without Slovak localization, technical documentation, a tool for removing the slot for two nanoSIM cards, and also a case made of two parts.

The top part protects the phone’s frame and leaves a large opening for the external display. The bottom part protects the entire second half of the device. Inside the box you’ll find adhesive to ensure the case is attached properly to the smartphone—before your first installation, you need to peel off the protective strips.

Design and build

Xiaomi MIX Flip is one of the best-made foldable “flip” phones on the market. Considering it’s the first generation of a similar smartphone, Xiaomi really did an admirable job. The device is built to a very high standard, nothing creaks, the flexible hinge works reliably and doesn’t bend in the wrong direction, as it should.

The sides of the phone are made of glossy metal, which luckily isn’t very prone to picking up fingerprints. The back is glass — the bottom is frosted glass, the top is glossy. The glass is curved toward the edges. The main point of attention will be the outer display, which takes up a large part of the top half.

The screen is also very close to the two camera lenses. Instead of the fold itself, you can only see it from certain angles of light hitting the screen; in a darker room we barely noticed it. It doesn’t get in the way either during touch—we got used to it completely, and you can easily forget about it.

You can leave the smartphone open halfway and behind it. Keeping it open at an angle of less than 90° isn’t possible—the mechanism will close it. When it’s closed, the magnet keeps the entire construction together, so you don’t get unwanted opening. Pay attention to the fact that the inner screen is made of plastic. You could realistically scratch it even with a fingernail, which is why we recommend keeping the Xiaomi MIX Flip closed when it’s not in use.

On the top of the phone, you’ll find an infraport for controlling home electronics. The bottom edge houses a USB-C port, a microphone, a slot for two nanoSIM cards, and a speaker. The secondary speaker is located in the top part of the inner display and also helps create a stereo output. It’s quite good and loud enough. We also had no issues watching videos without using headphones.

On the right side, there are buttons for volume control and a power button that also houses a fast and reliable fingerprint reader. It works flawlessly and you can always count on it. It also allows you to unlock the outer screen when the Xiaomi MIX Flip is closed.

Dimensions:

• Open: 167.5 x 74.02 x 7.8 mm
• Closed: 74.02 x 74.02 x 16.19 mm

Weight:

• 192 g

Overall, we rate the build quality and design very positively. When it’s open, the smartphone is fairly tall, which is also supported by the diagonal size of the inner display. However, its width is on par with other smartphones, so handling shouldn’t be a problem even for users with smaller hands. The smartphone’s construction is water-resistant according to the IPX8 certification, which is a nice safeguard in case of an unfortunate situation.

Displays

Let's start with the external display. It has a 4-inch diagonal, a resolution of 1392 x 1208 px, and a 120 Hz refresh rate. It reaches a brightness of 1600 nits (HBM) and in certain situations up to 3000 nits (peak), for example when using it in direct sunlight. It is the pride of this smartphone. It offers extensive personalization options and lets you handle many actions just like the main inner display. It shows notifications, date, time, and the battery percentage level.

You can change the look of the locked outer screen in settings, or simply swipe your finger on the bottom area of the display to switch the basic display styles—there are plenty, by the way. You’ll definitely find one you’ll like.

You’ll also find animated screens—for example with animals, which really caught our attention. You can use mini-apps that show up on the right side of the screen. On the left, you see the app you’re currently using. There are really many supported options. Through the external display, you can also reply to messages from various popular chat apps. If you have bigger fingers, typing on the software keyboard on the external display won’t be the most comfortable.

The inner LTPO OLED display has a 6.86-inch diagonal, a resolution of 1224 x 2912 px, with a resulting pixel density of about 460 ppi. It also naturally features a high refresh rate of 120 Hz. It supports displaying HDR10+ content, uses Dolby Vision technology, and supports peak brightness of up to 3000 nits.

Power

When you look at the specs sheet, it’s probably clear that you can expect great performance. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip ensures smooth operation of the user interface and has plenty of power for practically anything. The problem, however, is heat dissipation. Not during everyday use, but in demanding tasks, the device can get quite hot due to its special design.

In the 3DMark benchmark, the device couldn’t handle the stress test and overheated. The system shut down all processes and the smartphone needed to cool down. It was really very hot, and holding it was uncomfortable. However, we should note that during our everyday use, we didn’t run into any performance issues or excessive overheating. Still, this is something you should pay attention to, especially if you plan to play graphically demanding games on the Xiaomi MIX Flip.

Longer, demanding operation can still lead to heat-dissipation issues. The user interface is excellently tuned, and we didn’t encounter any animation stutters. The version we tested has 12 GB of RAM, which is more than enough even for demanding multitasking. There’s also a variant with 16 GB of RAM.

Operating system

The foundation of the Xiaomi MIX Flip on the software side is Android 14 with the HyperOS overlay. During the test period it was in version 1.0.8.0, and by the end of the test an update arrived to 1.0.11.0. It addresses some bugs we didn’t experience in daily use, and it updates the security patch to August 2024. Features for apps used in China were also added, so for us it wasn’t really anything essential.

Chinese software is usable for us. If you don’t mind using the system in English and you won’t miss Android Auto, the Chinese HyperOS will probably suit you. There’s, however, one issue—delayed notifications. Sometimes an alert from popular chat apps simply doesn’t come at all, or it arrives only after you open the app. That said, it happened rarely. The delay was mostly around 10 – 20 minutes. If the smartphone had been idle for a long time, though, the notification could come in after a few hours.

Because of this issue, we didn’t receive an important message a few times—for example on WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. The problem is especially Slack on Chinese ROMs, which is used across different teams and in companies. Over time the situation improved; notifications often came already after the screen was turned on, but they were still delayed in sleep mode. We obviously turned off background app optimizations, and Google Play Services are also installed, which likely take care of the arrival of these notifications in the background. It’s something you should consider before buying.

The HyperOS itself is a system full of several useful features that, as a fan of the brand, you probably already know well. The Chinese ROM can also bring special features, but they’re primarily intended for local users in China. It’s nice that software updates arrive sooner on these Chinese ROMs.

You’ll be very pleased with the small number of preinstalled apps. The global or European ROM is usually packed with preinstalled, sponsored apps—almost overflowing. Some special built-in apps, such as the music player, are completely in Chinese. We recommend uninstalling these apps and replacing them with more familiar alternatives from the Play Store.

Mobile payments work as well. Download the Google Wallet app from Google Play, set it as the default app for contactless payments, add your card, and you’re done. Of course, the NFC switch has to be turned on.

Cameras

On the back, there are two camera lenses. This is a primary 50 MPx sensor with an aperture number of f/1.7 and optical image stabilization. The secondary telephoto lens also comes with the same 50 MPx resolution and a brightness of f/2.0. It supports 2x optical zoom. Honestly, we’d rather see an ultra-wide lens here instead of a telephoto setup with such limited zoom. Its high resolution, however, enables a fairly good hybrid zoom.

On the other hand, you can’t just easily find a telephoto lens in a foldable “flip” smartphone. One example worth mentioning is the Oppo Find N3 Flip. The front camera has a 32 MP sensor (f/2.0). With the rear cameras, you can record 4K video at 60 fps, or up to 8K video at 24 fps. With the front lens, you can record up to 4K / 60 fps video.

For color correction of the resulting photos with Xiaomi, Leica also collaborated. The result is that you can choose from two color modes – “Authentic” and “Vibrant”. As their names suggest, the first one produces contrasty photos that are more faithful to reality in terms of color, while “Vibrant” boosts colorfulness and increases the brightness of the final image. In both cases, the results can look really great, and it’s up to you which mode you like more. We’d switch between them depending on the specific situation. The photos have the look typical for Xiaomi, which we’re able to recognize.

The shots keep the shadows dark; they’re a bit softer, but still nicely contrasty. The phone handles scenes with a high dynamic range well. It can even surprise you at night. We also tried the “Pro” mode for shooting the Milky Way. With a 30-second shutter, it’s really workable for astrophotography as well.

A RAW file is also generated, which you can then work with in editing apps. We’re attaching an example image in JPEG format without any additional edits. By the way, if we don’t write under the sample photo which Leica mode it is, the photo was taken in the “Vibrant” style. The differences are sometimes so minimal that we don’t even think it’s worth adding a second photo.

Video recording

Battery and charging

A big surprise is battery life. Foldable smartphones usually don’t excel in this respect because of their unique construction. Inside, they don’t sacrifice space for the largest batteries, because space is largely limited by the bending mechanisms. That’s why we’re happy to tell you that the battery life of Xiaomi MIX Flip can compare even with competitors that use a traditional design.

It’s not a champion, but what matters is that the new model doesn’t disappoint in this area either. On a single charge, we got about 8 hours with the screen turned on, even despite longer periods in standby (inactivity) while we were working on the computer. For a foldable smartphone, especially a foldable “clamshell”, that’s really excellent. We’ll go as far as to say it’s one of the best smartphones in this category not only for battery life, but also for charging speed.

In the settings, you’ll see battery health and options for intelligent optimized charging. There’s also an option to automatically stop charging as soon as the phone reaches 80 %. That will definitely please those who care about long-term battery lifespan.

In our case, that sometimes meant up to two days of use. For more demanding users, of course, it lasts for a shorter time. What matters is that for a full day, the smartphone will practically always be enough, and if it does happen to drain faster and unexpectedly, fast charging is still available. The included 67 W adapter for Xiaomi MIX Flip fully charges it in just 62 minutes.

Connectivity

The connectivity of the Xiaomi MIX Flip smartphone is very comprehensive. Thanks to the modern chipset, you won’t miss out on multiple today’s standards, such as Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, globally used GNSS services (localization is a bit slower, but outdoors it will work reliably), and there’s also an infrared port, NFC, and USB-C in version 2.0.

With connection to operators Orange, Joy (O2), and 4ka, we had no issues. As mentioned already, the phone fully supports all European frequencies, including the LTE B20 band and the latest 5G networks. The connection to mobile internet was very fast, and we didn’t notice any problems with calls either.

Xiaomi MIX Flip: Final evaluation

Xiaomi MIX Flip is, in our opinion, one of the best foldable smartphones in the “flip” style. It’s likely that in more than a few aspects it’s even the best. It offers solid cameras, a well-thought-out design with quality displays, with the external one being quite practical as well. It doesn’t lack modern specs and, above all, good battery life — which makes the novelty extremely competitive. What’s more, it charges fairly quickly.

If we ignore the imperfections that the Chinese ROM brings, it’s an excellent choice for those looking for a smartphone with this kind of construction. Xiaomi MIX Flip gets our recommendation, and we give the manufacturer a well-deserved thumbs up. For being the first generation of a product like this, the result is more than satisfactory. Next up will be a review of the Xiaomi MIX Fold 4, which we ordered at the same time as the MIX Flip, so don’t forget to keep following us.