Xiaomi Mix Flip review: Brilliant but limited

Even though it's made four generations of book-style foldables, Xiaomi has steered clear of making a foldable flip phone. But now we have the Xiaomi Mix Flip, and it’s here to subvert your flip fold expectations for both good and bad.

The benefit of entering a smartphone niche late is you can crib from your rivals' previous models. The Mix Flip has certainly done that. It has elements you can spot as originating with the Galaxy Z Flip line or the reborn Moto Razrs, along with Xiaomi staples like a stylishly restrained design, strong performance and high-quality photography hardware.

But decisions like the weirdly chunky hinge and worst-of-all-worlds cover screen layout design just don't make sense, even if there is some underlying logic to Xiaomi doing things this way with the Mix Flip. Plus you can’t ignore the fact you won't find the Xiaomi if you shop for phones at many wireless carriers. It's also unlikely to be available to U.S. shoppers..

Although I think most flip phone buyers are better off looking elsewhere, I promise this Xiaomi Mix Flip review is still positive about the phone overall. If phones like the Z Flip and Razr haven't appealed to you before, I hope to show you how you might finally get your flip fix with the Mix Flip.

Xiaomi Mix Flip: Specs

Xiaomi Mix Flip review: Price and availability

Xiaomi's selling the Mix Flip for £1,099, now that the phone officially launched in the U.K. on September 26.. That just so happens to be the same price as the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 in the U.K. (That phone costs $1,099 in the U.S. to give you some idea of what a Mix Flip might cost should Xiaomi ever expand its markets.) The Moto Razr 50 Ultra — or Moto Razr Plus 2024 as it's known in the U.S. — costs £100 less than the Mix Flip

Xiaomi phones aren't sold in the U.S. through your typical stores and carriers, but determined users can import one via various online retailers. Always check the compatible cell bands though, as phones not intended for certain markets may not work with the frequencies available there.

Xiaomi Mix Flip review: Design and display

With a 4.01-inch outer screen and a 6.86-inch inner display, the Mix Flip has a lot of display even for a flip foldable. Bezels are on par with its Samsung and Moto rivals, while the outer screen's curved edges on all four sides give the Mix Flip some extra personality while also making it feel better when trying to use it closed up.

The rounded square shape of both halves of the Mix Flip mean it feels nice when unfolded too, but it also leaves a big gap between the halves when open. That's a contrast to other foldables, which keep that gap as small as possible. Also, the Mix Flip's rounded hinge protectors that sit at either end of the mechanism seem prominent, and I caught my fingers on them a fair amount.

Otherwise, what you're getting with the Mix Flip is a well-built, classically understated Xiaomi design, save for some Leica branding on the hinge. You also get your pick of black, white and purple colorways, which are rather tame for a flip foldable, but probably enough variety for most users.

Compared to the Motorola Razr, the Xiaomi's screen is brighter and cooler-colored, while offering slightly higher resolutions. Even though the Razr has the larger displays inside and out, I prefer using apps and watching video on the Xiaomi.

However that might change if I had to take a flip foldable outside into the elements. The Razr and Galaxy Z Flip 6 are both IP-rated for water resistance, but the Xiaomi is not, meaning you could be in trouble if it starts raining heavily outside.

Xiaomi Mix Flip review: Cameras

The Mix Flip offers Leica-tuned lenses just like Xiaomi's regular flagship phones. You only get two rear cameras — a 50MP main camera and 50MP 2x zoom telephoto — plus the 32MP selfie camera within, but this is in line with other flip foldables.

We can see how well these cameras perform in the below comparisons against the Razr 50 Ultra/Razr Plus. Starting with a main camera shot of Sheffield's Castlegate bridge, the Xiaomi's shot is far brighter, helping bring out the colors of the bridge and making the grey sky a little more appealing.

As for this 2x shot of a fish sculpture near the city's train station, things are reversed. The Moto's image is much livelier and full of detail, although it also has a redder color cast that looks a little too artificial. While it can't reproduce the intricacy of the sculpture's scales so well, the Xiaomi offers more honest coloring this time.

Finally, we have a pair of portrait selfies. I look brighter but flatter in the Razr shot, while the Xiaomi captures the dynamic range in more detail. The Mix Flip has done a much better job with the portrait effect too, cutting out my glasses cleanly.

Xiaomi Mix Flip review: Performance

A top-flight Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip powers the Mix Flip's activities, along with a single memory spec of 16GB RAM and 512GB storage. That's generous even for a standard phone, let alone a flip foldable.

Armed with the same chip as the Galaxy Z Flip 6 (and the bigger sibling of the one in the Razr Plus), we see some big scores in the CPU and GPU tests from the Xiaomi Mix Flip. The only areas it falls down compared to the Z Flip 6 are in the multi-core section of the Geekbench benchmark and in its time to transcode a 4K video into a 1080p one.

One other boast the Mix Flip can make is that it's WiFi 7 ready. This is the latest Wi-Fi standard, and one you're unlikely to find on a router you regularly use for several years, so it's a nice bit of futureproofing from Xiaomi.

Xiaomi Mix Flip review: Battery and charging

Xiaomi's way ahead of the competition when it comes to the Mix Flip's battery specs. The 4,780 mAh battery is larger than several regular-sized non-foldable devices, and 67W wired charging is far speedier than all but a select few phones on the market today.

In our own testing, the Xiaomi Mix filled up to 33% from empty in 15 minutes, to 64% in 30 minutes and to full in 59 minutes. The Galaxy Z Flip gets to 55% in half an hour, which is not only a smaller percentage but is fewer mAh filled overall too. Motorola offers up to 45W charging with the Razr Plus, but it doesn't bundle the phone with a charger like Xiaomi does.

The Mix Flip's capacious battery dropped 18% over 3 hours of Wi-Fi YouTube playback at 50% brightness. The Moto Razr lost 21% in the same time, which does show the extra milliamp-hours are making a difference for the Xiaomi. I had hoped for a wider margin considering the almost 20% size difference in these phones' batteries though.

Xiaomi Mix Flip review: Software and special features

Android 14, combined with Xiaomi HyperOS, runs operations on the Mix Flip.The basics are recognizably Android, but Xiaomi continues to heavily modify the look of the interface, including adding elements like split notifications/quick settings and custom app icons.

Xiaomi currently offers four years of Android updates for its phones, and five years of security updates, which beats the 3 years full /4 years security updates offered by Motorola for its Razrs. Samsung promises 7 years of full updates for the Z Flip 6, besting Xiaomi.

Xiaomi's paid attention to how other folding phones have used their flexibility and their cover displays, but its attempt to synthesize what's come before hasn't had the best result. The Mix Flip's outer screen is huge, even accounting for the cameras taking up space within it, which is a great start. It offers a widget stack in the top right corner to quickly swipe between a few pre-determined widgets and the option to use a few pre-selected apps on the main grid that you can then use somewhat as normal in a narrow window to the side of the screen, with the widget stack and cameras taking up the rest of the space.

This system's kinda clever, but it's splitting the difference between the Moto Razr's ability to place or use anything on its cover screen or the Galaxy Z Flip 6's more tailored widget experience with its home screen option. The result on the Mix Flip feels like an unsatisfying compromise.

The Mix Flip includes a hover mode, which holds the hinge open at 90 degrees or sharper angles for special app modes. That's not so unique, but it proves just as useful as the other foldables' version of the same feature. However, Xiaomi's version bugs out in apps like YouTube, stopping you seeing half the video you're watching until you restart the app. This could of course be fixed down the road, but it's an issue I experienced multiple times during my testing.

Xiaomi's benefitted from some of Google's exclusive AI features becoming openly available. The Gemini assistant and Circle to Search are yours to use on the Mix Flip, and so are Xiaomi's takes on AI live and text translation, notes summarizing and organizing, recording and generative image editing. You'll find more, and more polished, features on the Galaxy Z Flip 6, but the Mix Flip's version is plenty serviceable for the typical user.

Xiaomi Mix Flip review: Verdict

I like the Xiaomi Mix Flip a lot, even if it doesn't take as much advantage of its foldable status as rival handsets do. If you consider the Mix Flip as a well-specced regular smartphone that happens to fold in half, you'll better appreciate its strengths. But there are strong foldable options out there.

Even with the big outer screen, the way Xiaomi wants you to use the Mix Flip isn't well-optimized, and since flip foldables have a regular-sized inner display, you can't take advantage of tablet-style multitasking in the same way you could on a largeable foldable. But having access to a few key apps even with the phone shut and being able to use them with that excellent inner display, quick chipset and frugal battery life, means you can easily get the best out of the Mix Flip in more mundane ways.

Users wanting the best flip foldable experience are going to be better served by the Moto Razr 50 Ultra/Plus 2024 or the Galaxy Z Flip 6. And if you want the best possible value for the Mix Flips £1,099 asking price, going with a Galaxy S24 Plus, Pixel 9 Pro or OnePlus 12 will give you the best overall experience. But despite listing a handful of other great phones you could get for the money, I'm still going to miss the Mix Flip once I'm done with testing. What the Mix Flip does, it does well, even if I wish it could do more.