Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 review – Incredible 265g lightweight 8-inch foldable smartphone

Rating： 5

I purchased the Xiaomi MIX Fold 2.

Unparalleled lightweight & thinness as a foldable smartphone

The Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 is a foldable smartphone powered by Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1.

It weighs 262g, which is quite light for a non-flip type foldable smartphone, and it is also incredibly thin at 5.4mm thick and 11.2mm when folded.

The screen, both outside and inside, has 120Hz refresh rate support and 1000 nits of brightness, and the outer display has a 21:9 aspect ratio for ease of use.

This review is done with version 13.1.9.0.SLRCNXM, 12GB+256GB.

• AMOLED with 120Hz refresh rate for both screens
• 1000 nits brightness on both screens
• 8.02″ screen capable of displaying comic book spreads
• Folded screen with very low noticeable crease
• One of the lightest foldable phone at 262g & 5.4mm thin
• High performance & power-saving Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
• 4500mAh battery with 67W fast charging support
• 50MP camera with Leica collaboration
• Harman Kardon stereo speakers

• Protective film is vulnerable to scratches
• Easily gets hot when playing games, etc.
• No face recognition without inner in-camera
• Cannot fix the angle in the middle of folding

	Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 22061218C
OS	Android 12
RAM	12GB LPDDR5
Storage	256GB / 512GB / 1TB UFS 3.1
SoC	Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
Display	Inner: 8.02inch 2160 ×1914 Aspect ratio 4:3.54 120Hz LTPO 2.0 AMOLED Outer: 6.56inch 2520 × 1080 Aspect ratio 21:9 120Hz AMOLED
Size	Unfolded: 161.6 x 144.7 x 5.4mm Folded: 161.6 x 73.9 x 11.2mm
Weight	262g (Actual measurements: 265.7g)
SIM	nano SIM + nano SIM
Rear Camera	50MP OIS (SONY IMX766) + 13MP (Ultra-wide OmniVision ov13b10) + 8MP (Telephoto SONY IMX663)
Front Camera	20MP (Sony IMX596)
Battery	4500mAh
USB Port	USB Type-C (USB 2.0)
Bands	5G：n1 / n3 / n5 / n8 / n20/n28/ n38 / n40 / n41 / n77 / n78 / n79 4G：FDD-LTE：B1 / B2 / B3 / B4 / B5 / B7 / B8 / B12 / B17 / B18 / B19 / B20/ B26/B28 TDD-LTE：B34 / B38 / B39 / B40 / B41 / B42 3G：WCDMA：B1 / B2 / B4 / B5 / B6 / B8 / B19 2G：GSM：B2 / B3 / B5 / B8；CDMA 1X：BC0

The box is a gorgeous, double-opened box.

Included is a protective case, 67W charger, charging cable, USB Type-C to 3.5mm earphone jack adapter, and instructions.

When purchased on JD.com, an in-car holder and other accessories are also included.

The Xiaomi 12S Ultra only came with a cheap transparent case that did not match the body, but the Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 is a proper leather-like case.

The case only protects the back of the case, so if you want an flip cover, you will have to look for another one.

8-inch display with inconspicuous crease

The Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 has an 8.02″ inner display with an aspect ratio of approximately 4:3.54.

It uses the same Eco² OLED as the Galaxy Z Fold3.

It supports MEMC frame interpolation and upscaling.

The creases were much less noticeable, and the denting when touched was smaller than on the vivo X Fold.

The protective film seems to have a slight anti-glare finish, but fingerprints stick to it easily and the material is as vulnerable to scratches as the OPPO Reno7 A. After three days of use, I could already see a few scratches.

I think it would be safer to purchase a protective film separately and attach it.

It folds smoothly and attaches snugly with magnets.

It is comfortable to close quietly with a slam.

Since there are only a few hinge parts to achieve a thin and lightweight design, the angle cannot be fixed in the middle like the vivo X Fold.

Manga apps can be displayed in landscape orientation for a spread view.

There is no in-camera on the inside, so there are no punch holes and it is a clean full-screen.

However, since there is an illumination sensor, a circle may be faintly visible on a white screen due to light reflection. Unlike the camera, it is quite inconspicuous though…

Of course, it is also compatible with spread display on Kindle and other apps.

The lack of a punch hole makes it easy to avoid having to set up hiding notch options like the OPPO Find N.

It has Widevine L1 and can stream in HD quality on Amazon Prime Video (beta) and other services.

Unlike the Galaxy, horizontal screen splitting is not possible, which may be a downside for those who want to split the screen in two and watch while watching.

The inner display is a diamond pixel array, but unlike the usual display, it is circular.

Outer display is 21:9

The foldable smartphones released in the early days had a strange aspect ratio for the outer display to match the inner display, making them excessively long and narrow and difficult to use daily.

The Xiaomi MIX Fold 2’s outer display has a 21:9 aspect ratio, the same as the Xperia 1 series, making it easy to use for apps that require a lot of scrolling, such as Twitter.

The resolution is also FHD+ at 2520 x 1080.

Both the inner and outer displays support 120 Hz refresh rates, so both screen can provide a smooth display.

It has diamond pixel array.

Touch latency is surprisingly smaller on the inside

The touch latency of the inner display as measured by the WALT Latency Timer was 6.9 ms from touch to kernel, 2.2 ms from kernel to Java, and 28.5 ms for screen rendering, for a total of 37.6 ms.

The inner displays of foldable smartphones often have lower performance than typical high-end smartphones, but the Xiaomi MIX Fold 2’s inner display has a smaller touch latency than the Xiaomi 12S Ultra and REDMAGIC 7S.

The outer display’s touch latency is on par at 41.8 ms.

Matte back but prone to fingerprints

The back has a matte finish with a light touch that is hardly reflective.

However, although it is better than no finish at all, it is still prone to leaving fingerprints.

Sufficient image quality with Leica camera

Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 has

• 50MP OIS (SONY IMX766)
• 13MP (Ultra-wide OmniVision ov13b10)
• 8MP (Telephoto SONY IMX663)

triple camera and is Leica collaborated.

All photos taken in auto and handheld are saved here.

You can choose to shoot either Leica Vibrant, which is more vibrant, or Leica Authentic, which is closer to realistic tints.

The tendency toward high saturation remains the same, and it is difficult to distinguish between red and magenta.

While the SONY IMX766 is not the highest level in the main camera, it is adequate for everyday use.

Night scenes cannot be taken much brighter than with a typical high-end smartphone, but the camera is able to suppress white pops.

It can zoom up to 10x.

I tried shooting at 1x, 2x, and 10x zoom.

The 2x zoom is beautiful, but at 10x the outlines are jagged.

Surprisingly thin and light

The Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 weighs 265.7g including the protective film that is pre-attached.

Considering that the vivo X Fold with 8.03″ display weighs 316.2g and the OPPO Find N with 7.1″ display weighs 278.5g, it is by far the lightest foldable smartphone.

It is also quite thin at 5.4mm in thickness, just about the size of the USB Type-C port.

Perhaps because it is so thin, it even feels lighter than the Xiaomi 12S Ultra, which weighs 225g.

Even when folded, it is 11.2 mm thick, making it as thin as a regular smartphone.

Other foldable smartphones are usually 14-15 mm thick, and the difference of 3-4 mm feels much bigger than a number when you hold it.

There is no gap at all.

Fingerprint recognition is fast

It has a power button with a built-in fingerprint sensor.

Authentication speed is fast.

You can choose whether authentication is done by touching or pressing the sensor.

There is no in-camera on the inner display, so face unlock cannot be used when using inner display.

Also, the function to keep the screen on while looking at the screen could not be used.

Harman Kardon stereo speaker

The Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 is equipped with Harman Kardon stereo speakers.

Dolby Atmos compatible and can be turned off during speaker time.

The highs sound a little weak, but they are clear.

The bass is strong and I could clearly hear drums and other heavy bass sounds.

The audio output delay was 33 ms when measured with the WALT Latency Timer.

VoLTE supported, wide range of supported bands

Xiaomi MIX Fold 2’s supported bands are wide and can be used globally.

• 5G：n1 / n3 / n5 / n8 / n20/n28/ n38 / n40 / n41 / n77 / n78 / n79
• 4G：FDD-LTE：B1 / B2 / B3 / B4 / B5 / B7 / B8 / B12 / B17 / B18 / B19 / B20/ B26/B28
  TDD-LTE：B34 / B38 / B39 / B40 / B41 / B42
• 3G：WCDMA：B1 / B2 / B4 / B5 / B6 / B8 / B19
• 2G：GSM：B2 / B3 / B5 / B8
• CDMA 1X：BC0

It also supports VoLTE in various countries.

Supports 67W fast charging

The Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 is powered by Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, which is high performance but power efficient.

Compared to the vivo X Fold, which was equipped with Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and a 4600mAh battery, the battery lasts much longer and can be used for more than a day.

Unlike the 25W Galaxy Z Fold4, which calls itself “super fast charging,” the Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 supports 67W fast charging so it charges so quickly.

I was able to charge from 10% to 100% in 42 minutes.

High performance but a little easy to get hot

In Geekbench 5, the Genshin disguised version has single-core 1279 and multi-core 4134, while the normal version has single-core 1330 and multi-core 4348.

Even though the difference is small, it seems to be throttling by package name determination.

It is easy to understand when you add it to game mode, but when you open the benchmark app the system will change to performance mode without notice.

Normally, when you select performance mode by yourself, a notification will appear and the battery icon will change, but when it’s the benchmark app, no notification will appear.

This can lead an uninformed person to mistakenly believe that the score is calculated in the normal state.

This is a violation of the prohibitions set forth by UL Solutions, the provider of 3DMark and PCMark.

Since the thermal throttling is greatly loosened, the 3DMark Wild Life Stress Test overheats to more than 47.9°C and stops during the execution.

This is the result of a real disaster, as the intention was to pad the score, but nothing could be measured.

Wild Life Extreme’s one-shot result was 2779, but while not a blatant cheat, such as fixed clock frequency, the data is unusable for comparison because of unusual behavior.

PCMark Work 3.0, which measures performance in everyday use such as document manipulation, scored 13037.

Storage is fast there.

Playing Genshin on the inner display in performance mode, highest quality, 60FPS setting, and measured with WeTest PerfDog, the average was 59.9 FPS with a low power consumption 80.81 mW per FPS.

The FPS drops considerably in the middle of the game because of the timing of opening menus and going dark, so in reality, the game is almost always running at 60FPS.

Even after 30 minutes of play, the battery temperature was a maximum of about 44°C and did not drop as it did during 3DMark.

The foldable design tends to reduce heat dissipation, so an external cooler will make it more stable when playing for long periods of time.

In World of Tanks Blitz, I played at 120 FPS settings and all graphics settings at their highest values and it averaged 120 FPS and consumed 47.27 mW per FPS.

It is perfect with no junk.

In balanced mode, the average FPS was 110.3 FPS with some timing limited to 60 FPS.

Equipped with multi-window functionality

The Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 is powered by MIUI Fold for foldable phones.

Swiping up on either side of the gesture bar at the bottom of the screen brings up recently used apps to choose from, like a dock on the home screen.

It is also possible to open the application from the sidebar.

Each app can change the display aspect ratio to full screen, 4:3 and 16:9.

Some Chinese apps support parallel window, where one app can split the screen in two to increase the area that can be displayed.

Unfortunately, screen splitting can only split the screen vertically, not horizontally to display a video in its full width.

In game mode, the display position can be changed in addition to changing the aspect ratio.

For example, if set to Bottom, the game screen will be displayed only at the bottom, as shown here.

This style is recommended for games that require a wide horizontal field of view.

Gesture controls include rear tap and fingerprint sensor double-tap settings.

Conclusion

• AMOLED with 120Hz refresh rate for both screens
• 1000 nits brightness on both screens
• 8.02″ screen capable of displaying comic book spreads
• Folded screen with very low noticeable crease
• One of the lightest foldable phone at 262g & 5.4mm thin
• High performance & power-saving Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
• 4500mAh battery with 67W fast charging support
• 50MP camera with Leica collaboration
• Harman Kardon stereo speakers

• Protective film is vulnerable to scratches
• Easily gets hot when playing games, etc.
• No face recognition without inner in-camera
• Cannot fix the angle in the middle of folding

 

I have used the foldable smartphones like OPPO Find N and vivo X Fold, and the Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 is by far the lightest, thinnest, brightest screen and quite easy to use.

Thanks to the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, the battery life is good, and while it is a 4500mAh battery in a thin body, you can use it for a full day with plenty of time to spare.

Compared to the competition, there are some negative points, such as the lack of horizontal screen split and the wireless charging support, but I personally don’t use it and wireless charging is inefficient and causes weight gain, so I am glad that it is not equipped with wireless charging.

Overall, the Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 is the best foldable phone ever!

Buy at JD

Buy at GIZTOP

Buy at AliExpress