Apple fans had been waiting for this for seven years. We compared the first foldable iPhone for 2 000 dollars with the Xiaomi 18 Fold.

Seven years after foldable phones brought the market to Samsung and Huawei, Apple finally arrived too. At the Cupertino keynote, it unveiled the iPhone Duo — its first foldable that closes into a passport-like format. And this is exactly the moment we were waiting for, because Xiaomi unveiled its 18 Fold just two days earlier and both phones have practically the same-size displays. The comparison practically asks for itself.

iPhone Duo: what Apple really showed

According to Apple’s official press release, after unfolding the iPhone Duo gets a 7.6-inch Super Retina XDR display with a resolution of 1878 × 2670 pixels, plus a 5.4-inch panel on the outside. Both run at 120 Hz, include Always On, and reach a peak brightness of 3,000 nits. The internal display gets a nano-textured anti-glare layer — a feature that no other foldable has yet.

Inside, there’s a 2nm A20 Pro chip with a six-core processor and the C2 modem. The frame and hinge cover are made of Grade 5 titanium, the glass is Ceramic Shield 2, and the durability rating reaches IP68 up to a depth of six meters. According to Apple, the hinge itself has more than one hundred components. The company’s CEO, John Ternus, called the phone “the most significant iPhone change since the original.”

Dimensions and weight: Xiaomi clearly takes the lead here

And this is where it gets interesting. The iPhone Duo measures 5.2 mm when unfolded and 11.3 mm when folded, weighing 254 grams. The Xiaomi 18 Fold is thinner in both states — 5.02 mm and 10.68 mm — and, most importantly, it weighs 219 grams. A 35-gram difference sounds minor on paper, but with a phone you hold unfolded in both hands, you can really feel it.

The diagonals are almost identical: 7.6″ versus 7.58″ inside and 5.4″ versus 5.38″ outside. Xiaomi also has much brighter panels — 4,000 nits versus Apple’s 3,000. The resolution of the internal display, on the other hand, is higher on the iPhone.

Cameras: Apple sacrificed the telephoto lens

This is the biggest surprise of the whole premiere. The iPhone Duo has just two 48 MP sensors — the main one with an f/1.6 aperture and an ultra-wide one with f/2.2. The advertised 2× zoom isn’t optical — it’s a crop from the sensor. So this two-thousand-dollar foldable doesn’t have a real telephoto lens.

The Xiaomi 18 Fold counters with a 200 MP main sensor, a 50 MP periscope with 3.5× optical zoom, and a 50 MP ultra-wide lens — all with Leica Summilux optics. Apple holds the advantage in video: 4K at 120 frames per second in Dolby Vision — and in the camera under the display, which Xiaomi doesn’t have.

Battery and charging

Apple traditionally doesn’t list battery capacity in mAh, but it promises 31 hours of video playback on the internal display and up to 44 hours on the external one. Charging can deliver 50% in about 20 minutes; wirelessly via MagSafe or Qi2 at 25 W.

Xiaomi 18 Fold has a 6 000 mAh battery, charges with 67 W via cable and 50 W wirelessly, meaning double the charging speed compared to iPhone wireless charging. How it will play out in real battery life—both phones will show in tests.

Price and availability: a gap

iPhone Duo in the US starts at $1,999 for 256 GB, and the 2 TB version climbs to the three-thousand mark. Pre-orders begin on October 16, with sales starting on October 23 in more than 70 countries including Europe. Pricing for Slovakia isn’t known yet. Xiaomi 18 Fold starts at 10,999 yuan, which is roughly half in converted terms, but officially it’s sold only in China.

Availability is Apple’s biggest advantage. However, if Chinese import isn’t an issue for you, you can order Xiaomi 18 Fold and with a coupon it comes out to under €1,700 — you can find the current offer on Dealplanet. Note: this is the Chinese version without the global system. We’ve summarized everything about this model in the article introducing it.

During the presentation, Apple took a jab at the competition, claiming that previous foldables have looked like they were "clumsily glued together." Looking at the table below, it’s questionable whether they could afford to say that.

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