Xiaomi Mix Flip review: Flip phones taken to the next level

While foldable-style phones like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold are my preference, it seems that flip-style phones are likely to be the bigger sellers, largely thanks to the fact that they’re quite a bit cheaper. Companies like Samsung and Motorola have been pioneering flip phones in the US, but there are plenty of companies outside the U.S. working on flip phones that could be better than what we have here. Xiaomi, for example, has been working on foldable phones, including flip-style phones, for quite some time, and its latest model is the new Xiaomi Mix Flip.

There are a few things that set the Mix Flip apart from some of the competition; however, the most interesting is its design. The device is relatively tall and has a beautiful edge-to-edge display on the front, which even illuminates in between the camera sensors. Is that design enough to take on the competition? If it’s available to you, should you buy the Mix Flip, or should you stick to something from a company like Samsung?

Xiaomi Mix Flip specs

Tall, premium build

The Xiaomi Mix Flip is a flip-style phone with a large interior display and a smaller edge-to-edge cover display. When unfolded, it’s a very tall device, measuring in at 167.5 mm tall. For reference, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is 163mm tall. I don’t mind the tallness, though — that’s kind of the big advantage of a flip-style phone — the ability to fold it in half when you want to put it in your pocket. I will say that the size does mean it’s pretty hard to reach the top of the screen when you’re using the phone with one hand, though.

The size of the device also helps ensure that the cover display is more helpful than on other flip-style phones. At 4 inches, the cover display is bigger than that on a device like the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6. It’s interrupted by two camera lenses in the bottom right-hand corner when you’re using the cover screen, but it’s a nice size that lets you quickly check things like notifications.

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

The rest of the design of the phone is more or less what you would expect. The bottom half of the back of the device is a nice matte material that feels comfortable to hold. There’s a USB-C port on the bottom for charging, along with a volume rocker and power button on the right side. That power button houses a fingerprint sensor, which I found to be responsive and accurate.

Unfortunately, there’s no water resistance on offer here, which is a little disappointing. You’ll need to be careful with this phone if you don’t want it to get damaged.

Generally, I really like the design of the Xiaomi Mix Flip. It feels premium and strong, and the tall form factor means that you’ll see more content when it’s opened up.

Stunning screens, in and out

The quality of the screens is very high too. The interior screen is obviously a little higher quality than the cover display, but both look stunning. On the inside of the phone, you’ll get an LTPO AMOLED display that can range up to a refresh rate of 120Hz and has a peak brightness of 3000 nits. That’s very impressive, and I found that it looked excellent, and easily got bright enough to be viewable outdoors in direct sunlight. It has a high resolution too, at 1224 by 2912 pixels, with a pixel density of 460ppi. Essentially, text is crisp and the image is very detailed.

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

The cover display isn’t quite as high-tech, but it still looks great. As mentioned, it’s 4 inches and also has a peak brightness of 3000 nits. It is not an LTPO display, but it can range up to a 120Hz refresh rate, so it still feels smooth and responsive. It also has a 460ppi pixel density, so things look just as crisp on the cover screen as they do on the interior display. Sure, you may not be looking at as many photos or reading as many articles on the outside screen, but it’s nice that you have to sacrifice resolution when using the smaller screen on the front.

Solid performance, but heats up

Unlike some other foldable phones available right now, the Xiaomi Mix Flip is built to be a flagship-level device, and as such, it comes with the latest and greatest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, coupled with either 12GB or 16GB of RAM depending on the model you get. That should mean that it can easily handle anything you can throw at it in day-to-day use right now.

Indeed, I found that the phone was fast and responsive, loaded games quickly, and handled multitasking with ease. That’s certainly no surprise, but it’s nice to see, especially considering the fact that, as mentioned, some other foldable phones sacrificed performance to hit a lower price point.

The phone can heat up, though, and it’s perhaps not the best when it comes to thermals. Under heavy workloads, it starts to get hotter than many other devices. This can result in throttled performance over longer periods of time. It’s not really an issue that you’re likely to experience in basic day-to-day use, but you might when doing something like gaming, for example.

Solid battery and fast (wired) charging

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

One of the benefits of a phone this size is that it can have a large battery, and indeed, the Xiaomi Mix Flip has a huge battery that sits at 4780mAh. I found that the battery life on the device wasn’t bad, but perhaps not quite as impressive as you might have expected given the battery’s large size. It certainly makes a difference that it has to power such a high-performing chip, of course. But, again, I found that it was easily able to last through a full day of use and partially into a second day. If you’re good at charging your phone overnight, you won’t really have to worry too much about the battery life offered by this device.

Speaking of charging, your options are a little limited. Unfortunately, the device doesn’t support wireless charging at all, which makes charging a little less convenient. If you use wireless charging, you’ll have to do without it for the Xiaomi Mix Flip. That said, it can charge relatively quickly through the USB-C port, at an impressive 67W. That should allow it to fully charge in under an hour, assuming you’re using the charging adapter that came with the device.

Bright, vibrant photos

The Xiaomi Mix Flip comes with a dual camera system made up of a 50-megapixel main camera and a 50-megapixel telephoto camera. Unfortunately, that telephoto camera only offers 2x optical zoom, which makes it far less versatile than most other telephoto cameras that, these days, are reaching 5x. It’s a little unfortunate that there’s no ultra-wide camera here, though adding a third camera would, of course, interrupt the cover screen even more than the camera system already does.

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

That said, I still found the camera performance to be very good. In well-lit conditions, the phone captured vibrant and detailed shots, especially through the main camera.

Images captured with the telephoto camera looked great too, but again you’ll be limited to 2x optical zoom or 4x hybrid zoom if you’re willing to combine optical and digital zoom. Hybrid zoom shots looked fine, but they certainly weren’t as detailed as those captured solely with optical zoom. Still, the colors on these photos were vibrant too.

Like other foldable phones, you can use the main cameras for video calls. However, the phone is also equipped with a 32-megapixel camera that peeks through a hole-punch cutout in the interior display. Photos captured with this camera were quite good. They certainly weren’t as vibrant as those captured with the main camera, but they easily made for great-looking selfies. Again though, if you really want the highest quality selfies, you’ll want to stick with using the main camera system built into the cover display.

Fine software with helpful cover screen features

As you would expect, the Xiaomi Mix Flip comes with Android 14, with Xiaomi’s HyperOS running over the top of it. HyperOS isn’t quite my favorite implementation of Android, though. Its design feels a little dated at times. Like some other Android implementations, it also offers an iOS-style control center. As a mostly iOS user, I quite like that, but Android aficionados may not love it.

Perhaps much more interesting about the software is how it handles the cover screen. You’ll be able to choose from a few different settings for this display, and there’s a range of designs for those different settings. You’ll also be able to select which apps appear on the outer screen, though you won’t be able to choose any app that you want — there’s a preset selection from which you can choose. Thankfully, that selection is more versatile than some other flip-style cover screens, and you can even access Google Chrome to browse the web. By default, these apps will include things like the camera, phone, and clock.

The phone essentially handles different areas of the cover screen differently too. The space above the camera is its own little widget spot, while everything else is kind of like a mini phone with the aforementioned app selection. The widget area can have multiple different widgets too, which you can scroll through kind of like a smart stack on iOS. I ended up simply using one clock widget, though. You can also swipe down to access notifications or the control center with a more limited selection of controls.

It’s certainly interesting to watch manufacturers figure out how to approach the much smaller cover screen. Some stick entirely to a widget-based system, while others offer more features, and still others simply treat it like a second display of the phone, with all of the same features as the inside screen. I think Xiaomi strikes a good balance here.

Conclusions

The Xiaomi Mix Flip is one of the most premium flip-style phones out there, offering top-tier performance, a solid camera, and stunning displays. That puts it ahead of flip-style phones from companies like Motorola, which offer great devices to be sure, but sacrifice some things like performance. Of course, you’ll have to find the Xiaomi Mix Flip if you want one, which will be tricky if you live in North America.

The competition

The biggest competition to the Xiaomi MIX Flip comes in the form of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6, which is also a top-performing flip-style phone. The MIX Flip’s cover display is nicer, and it can capture better photos while offering similar performance. That said, the trade-off is the higher price and the lack of water resistance.

Should I buy the Xiaomi Mix Flip?

Yes. It’s among the best flip phones available right now.