Xiaomi Launches Mi Mix Fold with the World’s First Liquid Lens
Mar. 30, 2021Xiaomi unveiled theMi 11 Ultra, Mi 11 Pro,Mi 11 Lite 5G, andMi Band 6on the first day of its product launch event. Today, the Chinese giant has taken the wraps off the new Mi Mix Fold smartphone. It’s a successor to theMi Mix 3(orMi Mix Alpha) and thefirst foldable smartphone from Xiaomi.
Mi Mix Fold: Specifications
The Mi Mix Fold has the same design and form factor as the SamsungGalaxy Z Fold 2and therecently launchedHuawei Mate X2. It means Xiaomi also offers aninward-folding designwith the Mi Mix fold. You have a tall outer display and a huge tablet-like display on the inside.
The device includes a 6.52-inch AMOLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate and 180Hz touch sampling rate on the outside. The panel has a 27:9 aspect ratio, 2520 x 840-pixel resolution, up to 900 nits of peak brightness, and HDR10+ certification. You also have a tiny punch-hole20MP selfie cameraat the top right corner.
Under the hood, Mi Mix Fold is powered by the flagshipQualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset. You will also find up to 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. There’s dual-mode 5G network support, Bluetooth 5.2, and Wi-Fi 6 to round up the connectivity options.
The foldable also has a newButterfly cooling system. It includes a“large-area VC liquid cooling, thermal gel, multilayer graphite sheets, and other heat dissipation methods”for efficient heat dissipation. Mi Mix Fold runs Android 11-based MIUI 12 out-of-the-box. The device also supports adesktop-like PC modethat you can activate with a three-finger swipe on the internal display.
The Mi Mix Fold features a triple camera system that looks similar to the camera setup on the Mi 10 Ultra. It includes a 108MP primary camera, a 13MP ultra-wide lens with a 123-degree FOV, and an 8MP liquid lens. Yeah, as you may already know, the device is equipped with aliquid lens that acts as both the telephoto and macro lens. So essentially, you have a quad-camera setup on the Mi Mix Fold.
How is a liquid lens different from an optical lens? The liquid lens“uses the principle of human eye bionics, forming a lens-like structure with a transparent fluid wrapped in film.”The lens includes a high-precision motor that changes the radius of curvature of the spherical liquid surface. It allows you to switch between3x optical zoom, 30x digital zoom, and click macro shotswith a minimum focus distance of 3cm.
Mi Mix Fold is the world’s first smartphone with Liquid Lens technology, opening the era of bionic photography.
The Mi Mix Fold includes anin-house Surge C1 Image Signal Processoronboard as well. It is soldered on the motherboard and helps improve the 3A algorithm (AF, AWB, and AE) and low-light focus capabilities. You get a“more accurate auto-focus, auto exposure, and auto white balance, significantly improving image quality,”as per theofficial blog post.
The Mi Mix Fold ispriced at CNY 9,999(~Rs. 1,11,745) for the 12GB+256GB base variant and CNY 10,999 (~Rs. 1,22,900) for the higher-end 12GB+512GB variant. It has been priced aggressively and will give tough competition to Huawei and Samsung in China.
Xiaomi has also launched a Mi Mix Special Edition with a ceramic back panel, where the company has tried to simulate a kevlar design. It ispriced at CNY 12,999(~Rs. 1,45,275) with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of built-in storage. This isthe first Xiaomi smartphone with 16GB of RAM. It goes up for pre-order starting today and will be available to buy from 16th April in China.
