The Chinese foldable market is booming with competition which in turn offers users a wider array of choice and the latest folding phone to launch is Xiaomi’s Mix Fold 3. We received a review unit and it’s time to take a quick look at the latest addition to the Mix Fold lineup before we bring you our detailed review.
Mix Fold 3 is a premium device through and through with a solid aluminum frame, Gorilla Glass Victus 2 cover screen, quad cameras with Leica optics and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset.
Mix Fold 3 is still one of the slimmest and lightest vertical folding devices out there measuring 5.3mm in its unfolded state while weighing 259 grams. Our review unit sports the black vegan leather back which offers good grip and should handle scuffs much better than glass. Xiaomi also offers a composite fiber version of the device which is said to offer superior rigidity and it’s also a few grams lighter.
Opening up the Mix Fold 3 reveals the main 8.03-inch LTPO panel which boasts the same 1,960 x 2,160px resolution and a 120Hz variable refresh rate as last year’s model. The one change here is that we now have a punch hole cutout in the top left corner for the 20MP front facing cam. The crease in the middle is noticeable in direct light but it does not feel as coarse as it does on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 for example.
The newly developed hinge mechanism on Mix Fold 3 feels sturdier than the one on the Mix Fold 2 and it now supports several flex mode positions. The software also takes advantage of the new hinge capabilities by allowing you to have control bars on different apps like the camera and browser for a laptop-like experience.
We also played around with the new 10MP periscope camera which offers up to 5x optical zoom – this is still a rarity on foldables. We’ll leave the verdict on the camera performance open for our full review.
Since Xiaomi is still hesitant to bring its Mix Fold lineup outside of China, this unit like all others comes bundled with the Chinese MIUI ROM which is not a seamless experience out of the box here in Europe. Mix Fold 3 also brings 67W wired and 50W wireless charging which we’ll make sure to test in our full review.
