Xiaomi's 18 Fold Foldable Phone Targets Samsung With Superior Specs and Wider Form Factor
Xiaomi's new short, wide foldable matches Samsung's design philosophy but outpaces it on battery capacity, camera setup, and processing power.
What happened
Xiaomi released the 18 Fold, a book-style foldable phone with a 7.58-inch inner screen and 5.38-inch outer screen in a short, wide 1.4:1 aspect ratio. The phone features Xiaomi's own Xring O3 chipset (promising Snapdragon 8 Elite-level performance), a 6,000mAh silicon-carbon battery with 67W wired and 50W wireless charging, dual OLED displays rated to 4,000 nits peak brightness, and a triple rear camera system (200MP main, 50MP 3.5x periscope telephoto, 50MP ultrawide) developed with Leica. It is available for preorder in China at ¥10,999 (approximately $1,600) with official sales beginning September 10th, with no confirmed international launch yet.
Context
The 18 Fold arrives as the foldable market undergoes consolidation around a short, wide design—Samsung and Huawei have already adopted this form factor—and as Apple is expected to announce a foldable iPhone this week. One reviewer noted that Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8 lacked a triple camera despite approaching $2,000 in price, a gap the 18 Fold addresses. The phone's larger battery and higher-capacity charging also represent material improvements over Samsung's 4,800mAh unit. However, the 18 Fold is heavier and thicker than its Samsung counterpart, lacks an announced IP durability rating, and exhibits a more visible crease—factors that offset its advantages in raw specifications and position design and build quality as differentiators in this category.