Foldable smartphones have come a long way from niche products to mass appeal. Although Samsung is the market leader, Chinese manufacturers are leading the way in innovation. Honor recently unveiled the Magic V2, the thinnest book-style foldable phone ever. But Xiaomi is about to dethrone it with the new Mix Fold 3.

The company has confirmed that the Xiaomi Mix Fold 3 will launch in China on August 14 alongside the Redmi K60 Ultra. While we wait for the official release, we have gathered all the available details of the upcoming foldable device in this post. If you can’t suppress your excitement like us, keep reading!

Design and display

Smartphones that fold in the shape of a book are becoming more and more popular with consumers. However, one thing that may deter some people from buying is their thickness. Mainstream devices like the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Z Fold 4 are thick enough to be considered two phones.

Xiaomi has focused on making its sophisticated devices as thin as possible. Last year’s Mix Fold 2 was just 11mm thick and weighed 262 grams. Xiaomi is taking things to the next level this year with the Mix Fold 3. When unfolded, the thickness will reach 4.93 mm. And when folded, it will have an impressively smooth length of 9.8mm.

To put this in context, the thinnest horizontally foldable device, the Honor Magic V2, measures 4.7mm when open and 9.9mm when folded. The Xiaomi Mix Fold 3 also has four separate camera rings on the back and a redesigned design that is flat on all sides.

The slim-profile Xiaomi Mix Fold 3 Hinge is made of a combination of strong high-strength steel and durable carbon ceramic, thanks to a new innovative hinge design. It has a 3-stage crankset with 14 moving parts and 198 components. This is a significant improvement over the Mix Fold 2 hinge, which has a simpler 2-stage design consisting of 8 moving parts and 87 components.

The hinges on the Mix Fold 3 are also versatile. If you open the phone halfway, you can stop at any point between 45° and 135°. And incredibly powerful. Tested by TÜV Rheinland and passed a durability test of 500,000 folds.

As for the display, Xiaomi has announced that the Mix Fold 3 will feature an 8.02-inch foldable AMOLED panel with 2K resolution, 120Hz refresh rate and a maximum brightness of 2,600 nits. The cover screen will have a diagonal of 6.5 inches and a resolution of FHD +.

Performance and cameras

One of the notable improvements in the hardware section is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip on the device. For reference, Mix Fold 2 uses Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. The Mix Fold 3 chipset can be paired with up to 16GB of LPDDR5x RAM and up to 1TB of UFS 4.0 storage. Reports claim that the device will also have an IP rating.

Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun also revealed that the Mix Fold 3 has impressive battery life. With the built-in screen displaying a consistently white image at 500 nits, the Mix Fold 3 lasted 8 hours and 20 minutes before shutting down. That’s 52 percent longer than the battery life of the previous generation Mix Fold. It may offer a total battery life of 1.34 days, but the brand has not yet revealed the full capacity. The smartphone may have 67 W wired charging and 50 W wireless charging.

The camera is also equipped with stars this time. The Mix Fold 3 will be the company’s first foldable phone with four cameras optimized for Leica. The main camera will be a 50-megapixel sensor, but it is not yet clear whether it will be a Sony IMX989 or IMX800 sensor. The camera setup will also include a periscope telephoto camera.

expected price

Although almost all the details of the complex device have been leaked or officially published on the Internet, its price is still no one’s guess. To give you an idea, the Mix Fold 2 has a starting price of RMB 8,999 (~$1,335) for 256GB of base storage. The 512GB and 1TB storage variants are priced at RMB 9,999 (~$1,483) and RMB 11,999 (~$1,780).