The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 already looks old, thanks to Xiaomi's first flip phone

During the recent Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 launch our most frequently-used word was 'iterative'. And now Xiaomi's first flip phone is promising to make its Samsung rival look pretty conservative and dull, with a mix of bold design and promising specs.

Ahead of the Xiaomi Mix Flip's official launch on July 19, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun has released a succession of teasers on X (formerly Twitter) and Weibo to give us a taste of what the phone can do. And on paper, it certainly looks like a contender for our guide to the best foldable phones , if it gets a global release.

The Mix Flip's most obvious calling card is its 4.01-inch cover display, which stretches across the whole of the rear cover and makes the Z Flip 6's 3.4-inch equivalent look a bit last-generation. That screen is similar to the one we've seen on the Motorola Razr Plus , which we found to be pretty useful, and also has a built-in earpiece speaker so you can privately take calls without opening up the phone.

Xiaomi's new flip phone also has a couple of other big spec highlights. Like the Z Flip 6, the Mix Flip has a top-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset with a vapor chamber for cooling. And it also has an impressively large 4,780mAh battery – we don't yet know how that'll translate to real-world battery life, but it's a lot bigger than its Samsung rival's 4,000mAh cell.

Camera-wise, it looks like the Mix Flip could again have the edge, with a 50MP main camera, 60MP telephoto camera and a 32MP selfie snapper – although we don't yet know anything about sensor sizes, and megapixels aren't necessarily a signifier of quality.

The Mix Flip's 6.9-inch AMOLED internal display, meanwhile, is slightly larger than the Z Flip 6's 6.7-inch equivalent and has a 120Hz refresh rate. In theory, then, Xiaomi's flip phone looks like a hardware successor to its Samsung rival, even though the Z Flip 6 was only launched a week ago. We're certainly keen to see more on July 19 and also hear when it might, as is rumored, be launched outside China.

Mixing it with Samsung

There's a lot more to a great foldable phone experience than just specs, so it's hard to make any firm conclusions about the Xiaomi Mix Flip – particularly as HyperOS, which runs on top of Android 14, can be an acquired taste.

On previous phones like the Xiaomi 14 , we found HyperOS to be a little convoluted with some confusing quirks, even for experienced Xiaomi users. It can also be a little bloated out of the box, with various unwanted third-party apps clogging up the menus.

Still, Xiaomi's software experience is otherwise pretty smooth and versatile. And there's no doubt that the Xiaomi Mix Flip, like the Mix Fold 4 that'll be announced alongside it, has a lot going for it hardware-wise – particularly that cover display, which looks at least as good as the one on the Motorola Razr Plus .

We liked the latter so much that it made our list of the best tech of 2024 so far , so that's another promising sign for its similar Xiaomi rival. At the very least, the Mix Flip looks likely to be one of the best Xiaomi phones – and we'll be interested to hear about pricing and more on July 19, particularly as Samsung's recent foldables were given slight price hikes .

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