Review: Xiaomi Mix Fold 3

Folding phone fans have more options than ever right now, from Google’s Pixel Fold and Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold5 to the Motorola Razr+ and Galaxy Z Flip5, but it’s worth looking at smartphones like Xiaomi’s new Mix Fold 3. It’s only available in China, and even if you do import it, you’ll need to jump through hoops to get Google apps working. But it offers a peek at what might come to our shores in the not-too-distant future.

Xiaomi’s hardware is significantly slimmer than the competition, with a slick hinge mechanism. Fold in an excellent quad-lens camera, fast wireless and wired charging, top-notch displays, and long battery life, and it’s an excellent showcase for how quickly folding phones are improving.

The reassuringly silent folding operation on the Mix Fold 3 is satisfying. Xiaomi’s hinge feels durable and will happily sit at varying degrees if you want to prop it up. This is as close as any folding phone has come to banishing the feeling that I’m holding two phones sandwiched together.

The AMOLED outer display covers almost the entire front and is sharp and bright. Open the Mix Fold 3 and the 8-inch OLED unfurls into a small tablet. It doesn’t quite match the exterior screen on pixel density, but it’s crisp and smooth, with a 120-Hz screen refresh rate. There’s also support for Dolby Vision, and the peak brightness goes high enough for HDR highlights. Like the front screen, it gets bright enough to remain legible outdoors, even in sunshine. The crease is still visible in the middle but seems to melt away as soon as you load an app.

Photograph: Xiaomi

The Mix Fold 3 is super thin, at 5.3 mm when open. When it’s closed, it measures just 10.9 mm. To put that into perspective, the Pixel Fold is 5.8 mm open and 12.1 mm closed, while the Galaxy Z Fold5 is 6.1 mm and 13.4 mm, respectively. The Mix Fold 3 may sound small, but this thinness makes a tangible difference and helps it feel more like a regular phone when closed, though it’s noticeably taller than its rivals.

Xiaomi says the hinge is certified for 500,000 folds, but the lack of an IP rating is a concern. You’ll want to keep the Mix Fold 3 away from liquids. Some dust and lint have started to gather around the internal screen frame of my review unit, but a quick wipe mostly restores its classy looks. Dust entering the hinge mechanism seems to be the most common way to damage folding devices (outside of an accidental drop), so you have to be careful and keep it clean.

Photograph: Xiaomi

There’s a fingerprint sensor on the power button on the edge of the handset, and since you need both hands to open and close the Mix Fold 3, I often triggered it accidentally. At other times, it required a few tries to work. Let’s just say I’m not a fan. I do like that Xiaomi has gone with a conservative black leather-esque finish on the back (there are models with gold and carbon fiber stylings too). It bulges slightly at the top to accommodate the rectangular quad-lens camera module bearing the Leica name.

The Xiaomi 13 Ultra proved that Xiaomi has photography chops, so I was expecting something special from the camera, and although it didn’t hit the same highs, I was not disappointed. The Mix Fold 3 combines a 50-megapixel main lens with a pair of 10-megapixel telephoto lenses, plus a 12-megapixel ultrawide lens. There are also two 20-megapixel selfie cameras, one central on the front and one at the top left on the internal screen.

This versatile camera can capture lovely shots in just about any setting. The Leica Vibrant default color mode gets pleasing results and doesn’t go too wild on color saturation, but you can switch to Authentic mode if you want to get closer to reality. The telephoto lenses give you the option of 3.2X or 5X optical zoom. Whichever lens you choose, the results are generally sharp and detailed, with strong contrast, though noise inevitably creeps in at higher levels of zoom.

Low-light and nighttime performance is solid. If you use night mode, you will lose a bit of sharpness, or you can shoot without it and accept some noise in the shadows. You have multiple options for selfies, but the best is to open the Mix Fold 3 and use the outer display as a viewfinder to shoot a selfie with the main camera. I like that the camera app changes depending on how open the Mix Fold 3 is. Fold it halfway and you get a split screen with the viewfinder in one half and a strip of thumbnails showing recent captures in the other. There is also a Pro mode for folks who like to tweak camera settings.

The ultrawide is the weak spot here, as it is a fixed focus, so things get blurry if you get too close. Use it at arm’s length, however, and you can snag nice group selfies. It also works perfectly for wide landscape shots. The two selfie cameras are not great and seem to over-soften images, so confine them to video calls.

I did not shoot a ton of video, but the main camera in the Mix Fold 3 can go all the way up to 8K at 24 frames per second. Shooting in 4K at 60 fps seems more sensible, and the footage comes out sharp, with vibrant colors and impressive dynamic range. The stabilization works well to eliminate wobbles too.

No one needs a folding phone, but slow sales have not deterred manufacturers. It’s easy to see the benefits as soon as you start using one. I love reading books, playing games, watching movies, and multitasking on the Mix Fold 3. It opens like a book, and the extra screen space is welcome with games like Kingdom Rush. A game like Asphalt 9: Legends feels more cinematic as it stretches to fill the screen, but expect black bars on the top and bottom of most titles, as few are optimized for this (almost 1:1) aspect ratio.

Photograph: Xiaomi

Multitasking makes a folding phone like the Mix Fold 3 worthwhile. Having two apps side by side is very useful, whether you’re watching a tutorial and gaming or juggling photos in a messaging app. The two-pane view for apps like Gmail and the Settings app is super handy too. However, few apps make the most of the extra space, and many look the same, just blown up. That is slowly changing as more folding phones hit the market, but Xiaomi has not worked as hard on the software side as it did on the hardware. Don’t expect the productivity prowess of Samsung or the slick elegance of Google here.

As a Chinese phone, my Xiaomi Mix Fold 3 came packed with Chinese apps as defaults, and it took some work to get the Play Store installed so I could use my preferred Google services. Xiaomi’s Android skin, MIUI, takes some getting used to. If you don’t mind tinkering, you can certainly make it your own, but there are a few things I could not get working, most notably Android Auto.

Battery life is another potential concern with folding phones, but Xiaomi squeezes impressive stamina from the 4,800-mAh battery. I was surprised that, even using the large screen heavily, the Mix Fold 3 had something in the tank at the end of each day. The adaptive refresh rate and various optimizations have really paid off. You could conceivably go two days between charges.

When it is time to charge, the 67-watt charger in the box can fill the battery from near zero in under an hour. The Mix Fold 3 also supports wireless charging up to 50 watts, though you’ll need one of Xiaomi’s chargers to get those speeds. It took the Mix Fold 3 from 16 percent to 64 percent in just 25 minutes when I tried it, though the phone felt toasty afterward.

The Mix Fold 3 will likely get three years of Android updates and five years of security updates (Xiaomi has not confirmed this with us). But for most folks, the hassle of importing this phone from China and the lack of official Google support will not be worth the risk on a purchase this big. It is also important to note that the Mix Fold 3 lacks support for certain network bands commonly used in the US and Europe (I have not noticed any signal issues in the UK, despite the lack of LTE band 20, but your mileage may vary). Still, this is a slick and thin folding phone, with a good camera system and great battery life. and it’s exciting to see yet another positive entry in this burgeoning category.