Xiaomi has just made a very pointed move in the foldable race: a wide-format book-style phone, a home-grown processor, and enough battery and camera muscle to make Samsung and Apple look a little nervous.
The company’s new 18 Fold arrives with the same broad, short silhouette that Apple is widely expected to chase in its own folding iPhone, but Xiaomi is clearly trying to get there first and make a stronger case while it’s at it. The phone is Xiaomi’s first book-style foldable since the Mix Fold 4, and the shift in proportions is the big story here. Instead of the tall, narrow shape that defined earlier foldables, the 18 Fold uses a squarer 7.58-inch inner display and a 5.38-inch cover screen, both with a 2:1 aspect ratio. That makes it feel less like a mini tablet when open and more like a deliberate, almost cinematic canvas.
It’s also a spec flex.
Xiaomi says the 18 Fold is powered by its self-developed Xring O3 chip, paired with up to 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage. That chip matters almost as much as the folding design, because it shows Xiaomi wants this phone to be more than a hardware mimic of what Apple and Samsung are doing. It wants a seat at the table on silicon too. For gaming and graphics-heavy tasks, that could be a meaningful advantage, especially as the broader Android world keeps inching toward more ambitious custom silicon, something we’ve seen echoed in other recent launches like Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra privacy display and Apple’s iPhone Fold rumors.
The cameras are similarly overbuilt in the best possible way. Xiaomi has gone with a 200-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel periscope telephoto camera with 3.5x optical zoom, a 50-megapixel ultrawide, and 16-megapixel selfie cameras on both screens. That’s an unusually serious camera package for a foldable, especially one that also carries a 6,000mAh battery with 67W wired charging and 50W wireless charging. In other words: this isn’t being sold as a fragile futuristic toy. It’s a full-fat flagship that just happens to bend.
The display numbers are eye-catching too. Both panels reportedly hit up to 4,000 nits of peak brightness and support 120Hz refresh rates. Xiaomi’s pitch is obvious: give the outer screen a shape that feels more natural in the hand, then make the inner display better for movies, books and everyday use without the awkward stretched feel some foldables still have. It’s the same design logic that has pushed other manufacturers toward wider foldables, including the likes of Samsung’s next-generation Fold strategy and Motorola’s increasingly confident foldable playbook.
There are still practical caveats. A short, wide cover screen may be lovely for messaging and media, but app compatibility can get messy when developers still expect taller phone displays. And while Xiaomi’s hardware is polished on paper, build quality remains one of the places where Samsung still tends to earn its keep. That matters in a category where hinge feel, crease visibility and long-term durability can make or break a premium device.
The 18 Fold is launching in black, red, Warm Gold and a ceramic special edition, with pricing in China starting at CNY 10,999 for the 12GB/256GB model and climbing to CNY 15,999 for the ceramic 16GB/1TB version. Xiaomi says there are no plans to sell it outside China, which is a familiar frustration in the foldable market. A lot of the most interesting hardware stays locked to the home market, while buyers elsewhere get to watch from the sidelines and wait for the global version that may never quite feel as adventurous.
Still, the timing is the real sting. With Apple’s foldable iPhone still looming and Samsung’s own wide-format approach already nudging the category forward, Xiaomi has landed a phone that looks suspiciously like the shape of the next big thing. The difference is that Xiaomi has already put one in stores — at least in China — with a custom chip, a giant battery and a camera setup that doesn’t feel like an afterthought.
