8.6 Score
The only foldable I have ever driven daily longer than a month has been Samsung’s very own Galaxy Flip. Credit where it’s due, they did a lot of things right, but playing it too safe has allowed brands like Motorola and Xiaomi to carry the baton and make more functionally approachable Flips. Though Motorola isn’t available officially in Malaysia, the Xiaomi Mix Flip is the next best option you could go for. After using it for weeks as my daily, Xiaomi did get a lot of things right, except for one – let’s talk about it in our Xiaomi Mix Flip Review.
Xiaomi Mix Flip Review
Nice Design and OOH, Shiny!
Xiaomi is not a stranger to making devices that could turn your head, and the MIX Series has always been that device. They have made bezel-less displays, ceramic panels, and displays that even wrap around the body, and the list goes on. However, the Xiaomi Mix Flip takes a page from a different book – a more established one, and you can see how the brand has taken the best of what every other contender offers and made it better.
For starters, this phone unfolds, is thin and has the heft I am looking for. 7.6mm unfolded to 7.8mm folded thickness and weighing at 192 grams, the Xiaomi Mix Flip feels like the premium phone that it is. The more square-ish approach is something I like over the slightly rectangular devices we have seen from other makers.
You can get the phone in two different colours – the safe Black and the flamboyant purple and I went for the latter – honestly, it is beyond beautiful. The shimmery finish on the back with this soft and smooth touch gives this phone a nice feel in the hands without a case, but if you worry about it slipping from your hand, they have included a not-so-cute case in Purple in the box.
The Build of this Phone is Solid
Just because it’s their first generation in the Flip space – don’t underestimate this phone. The entire phone is make out of high-strength aluminium frame, uses Xiaomi’s proprietary Shield Glass for the display and the back, which claims to offer 10x improved resistance from scratches and breaks. So far I have noticed no scratches or any scuffs on the display, so, I take that as a good sign.
The hinge of this phone uses a compact dual-link hinge mechanism – which Xiaomi claims to offer a whopping 500,000 folds without any deformation. Bold claims. For comparison, Samsung has not disclosed the hinge maximum fold ratings for the Z Flip 6 – but the approximate number out there is about 200,000 – which is far less. Trust me when I say this, I have not heard a single creek or plasticky sound coming from the Xiaomi Mix Flip whereas the Z Flip 6 made this plastic sound a month later.
So far, it does live up to my expectations as I have folded and unfolded a lot of times and it has not shown any odd issues. What does get under my nerve is the crease on the inner display. You cannot run away from it but it’s also pretty obvious. Xiaomi has not shared any durability statistics on the display but you can see it is an UTG and has a protective screen protector on top of it, which must not be peeled off at any cost.
The Stunning Cover Display
One big win with the Xiaomi Mix Flip is the execution of their outer display – and this sets the benchmark for what a truly fantastic cover display should be. 4.01” display with 1.5K resolution, hits 3000 nits peak brightness and even gets a 120Hz display with a pixel per inch of 460.
Having a huge cover display has it’s advantages – and you’d want to use it rather than it offering a barebones experience. And to overcome that, the app support is decent where you can use the outer display to use applications and the keyboard doesn’t take too much space like when you are texting for instance. The widget support is neat too – though limited and I wish it offered more control.
But what’s the best part about using it closed is: the outer display has a dedicated receiver and microphone for calls – which means, you don’t have to flip to talk through the receiver. You can do that while it’s closed. The Galaxy Z Flip 6 goes into loudspeaker because it doesn’t have a receiver.
Apart from that, you do get customization options for you to make the phone truly yours. But there is a big caveat with this cover/outer display which I will get into in a bit.
It’s the Camera Setup for Telephoto Fans
Almost every flip smartphone we know, houses an Ultrawide and Normal Camera. Xiaomi however, thought of going the other direction: You get a normal main camera and a telephoto camera instead. This got me all excited because telephoto cameras has its advantages. But to add a cherry on top of this phone: you are getting the Leica experience their other Xiaomi series phones are known for.
- 50MP Leica Floating Telephoto Camera with 47mm focal length, at f/2.0 with support for 9cm Macro Photography
- 50MP Leica Main Camera, Light Fusion 800 Sensor with OIS and f/1.7 aperture.
I appreciate this camera so much and just like their other Leica camera smartphones – you do get the Leica Authentic and Vibrant filter, controls and the Master Portrait feature as well.
If you want to use the outer display as a viewfinder, that’s possible and in an update, the camera app now adjusts the viewfinder when the device is folded and it’s a good improvement. What is weird is how it took almost a year to make it happen. This brings me to the biggest achilles heel of the Xiaomi Mix Flip series and this needs to change.
The Biggest Achilles Heel – The Software
What makes a capable Flip Smartphone truly live up to its capacity is the software. Make no mistake, with how Samsung has made their Z Flip all these while, and while it is inferior on a hardware standpoint, Samsung has always gotten the software aspect right. In fact, letting users experiment some new upcoming inclusions to see if it works and if it does, then gets the feature made available on a more wider level.
While I can take pictures, text on WhatsApp, control on Spotify, take Calls and Google Native apps adapting to the Flip’s versatility, which is already better than the competitor, the experience with the Mix Flip is still somewhat limiting. Here’s what Xiaomi should do:
- Allow users to use whatever apps they want with Xiaomi developing an algorithm to automatically scale it to the cover/outer display.
- More native app support for the multi-angle experience such as a trackpad mode
- The ability to truly customize the cover display where you can have more different types of widget, multiple screens, app shortcuts.
- More importantly, a separate font and screen size scaling for the cover display, which is independent of the main display.
Things like this would solidify the experience of the Xiaomi Mix Flip. These are things that can be included with the current Mix Flip with an update and not just to the upcoming Mix Flip 2, which is due for release.
So, Xiaomi, if you are reading this, do make it happen because in countries where there are extremely limited options for a flip phone, the Xiaomi Mix Flip is almost there, and I do hope it gets better because without good software, there’s nothing much to rave about.
Apart from that, to Buy or Not to?
With the Xiaomi Mix Flip 2 around the corner, I’d say hold your horses – while the Xiaomi Mix Flip we have here is an amazing phone which I am using as my personal daily driver and eventually compare it with the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7, I do hope to see a nice discount slapped on to this phone real soon when the second generation of Mix Flip comes to Malaysia.
But for RM 4,999, which is really a steep asking price for the Xiaomi Mix Flip, and there’s no denying it – go to a shop, hold the phone, and you’ll realise how well done this phone is compared to the brand that made six generations of Flip. I am all in for it and am convinced.
For that, we will give this phone the Vesper Choice Awards.
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