Xiaomi 18 Fold is official as of September 7, arriving two days before Apple unveils the iPhone Ultra and weeks after the Galaxy Z Fold 8 arrived. It is Xiaomi's first mid-size foldable and the first Xiaomi flagship running the company's own XRING O3 chip, which makes it one of the more interesting foldable phones of the year.
XRING O3 makes its flagship debut in a passport-size body
Xiaomi announced the 18 Fold in Beijing on September 7, alongside the Xiaomi Pad 9 Pro Max. Folded, it measures 117.8 by 83.6mm at 10.68mm thick and weighs 219g, which is lighter than any Xiaomi foldable before it.
Open it and you get a 7.58-inch main display in a 5.02mm body, with a 5.38-inch cover screen up front. Both panels share the same 2:1 ratio as A4 paper, so content carries between them without reframing.
The Xiaomi 18 Fold folds to roughly passport size and opens to a 7.58-inch display. | Images by Xiaomi
XRING O3 is Xiaomi's second in-house chip and its first in a flagship phone. Built on 3nm with 24 billion transistors, it pairs a 10-core all-big-core CPU with a 16-core GPU, and Xiaomi claims 60% higher performance at 25% lower power than the chip we saw benchmarked last month.
Which Xiaomi 18 Fold spec impresses you most?
6 Votes
Where the Xiaomi 18 Fold sits next to the Galaxy Z Fold 8
For those in the US, the practical answer for now is that unless you import it, you cannot buy one directly.
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It is a useful benchmark, though. In our Galaxy Z Fold 8 review we weighed that phone at 200 grams against a 4,800mAh battery, and the Xiaomi comes in at 219g with 6,000mAh, so it trades 19 grams for a quarter more capacity. Our reviewer also found the Fold 8's wide cover screen a bit of a stretch to hold when closed, and Xiaomi's cover panel is smaller at 5.38 inches. The iPhone Ultra is rumored to carry a smaller battery than either, going by the specs we have lined up for it against the Fold 8, so Xiaomi has the endurance advantage on paper.
If you own a Fold 8, or plan on pre-ordering the iPhone Ultra, none of this changes your choices. What it does is set a battery number that Samsung and Apple have to answer next year.
Leica cameras, a pink ceramic back, and Xiaomi 18 Fold pricing
The camera is a 200MP Leica triple setup, led by a 200MP main on a 1/1.56-inch HP5 sensor and a 50MP periscope telephoto at 80mm that stretches to 160mm through in-sensor zoom.
Both screens are HyperRGB panels hitting 4,000 nits with 1-120Hz LTPO, and the 6,000mAh silicon-carbon battery takes 67W wired or 50W wireless. A dual-layer UTG stack raises inner display impact resistance by 258% according to Xiaomi, with crease depth held under 30μm.
The Ceramic Edition uses silicon nitride on the back, a first for a phone, and weighs roughly 50% less than the zirconia ceramic normally used. Xiaomi's Lu Weibing also showed a soft pink version hours before launch, saying each unit comes out slightly different in color, though that one did not appear in the official press materials.
The soft pink Ceramic Special Edition surfaced hours before the launch. | Image by Xiaomi
Pricing starts at RMB 10,999 (roughly $1,545 at direct conversion) for 12GB/256GB and tops out at RMB 15,999 for the Ceramic Edition.
What I'd want to see next from Xiaomi
Xiaomi has never released a book-style foldable outside China, and nothing here suggests that changes. That is the part that bothers me, because the 18 Fold reads like a genuine answer to the Galaxy Z Fold 8 rather than a regional alternative to it.
I'd personally love to see Xiaomi commit to a global release for once. Until then, the most useful thing this phone does for the rest of us is prove a 6,000mAh cell fits in a 5.02mm body, and hopefully Samsung and Apple were paying attention.
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Johanna Romero is a Senior News Writer at PhoneArena, covering mobile technology news across Android, iOS, wearables, and the Google ecosystem she knows best. Drawing on 15 years in IT and tech support from 2007 to 2022, she brings a user-friendly eye for the practical features and lesser-known tricks readers care about. Google named her an official #TeamPixel member in 2022, and she also reviews the latest devices on her YouTube channel, JoJo the Techie.
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