Xiaomi Mix Flip 2 - Review

The unboxing has been done and it is now time, after I've used the phone for a while to get into the nitty-gritty of the Xiiaom Mix Flip 2 clamshell style folding phone. This will be the first time I have used a clamshell foldable and it is also the first time I've used a modern Chinese ROM device.

So, without further ado, let's jump in. And see what this flipping phone is all about.

Design

As is always the case, the first area I want to dissect is the design. If you haven't already done so I would strongly advise watching the unboxing video linked here on Average Dad TOO as this will give you some grounding about the design of the phone. What I'm going to do here is I'm going to pick out the key areas of design for me and highlight them.

 

The first thing I want to talk about is the dimensions of the phone. I have been using book style folding phones for quite some time. As technology progresses I have noted that they are getting thinner and thinner, to the point where when I was using the Honor Magic V5 previously, I think we had hit the limit of how thin we could go. The Xiaomi Mix Flip 2 is a step in the opposite direction I feel. Thankfully they have not focused on making this phone as thin as possible. Due to that the phone has a little bit of chunk to it, which is by no means a bad thing. When closed the phone measures in at 15.87mm in terms of overall thickness. When it is unfolded it is halved, down to 7.5mm thick.

The majority of your use will be with the phone unfolded. So this 7.57mm thickness is by no means thick especially when compared with other candy bar style phones. It was a little surprising to feel how thick it was folded though. However, It is not a problem as the overall footprint of the phone in its folded state, Is sufficiently small enough that it will fit, even the tightest of trouser pockets.

The second area I want to discuss in terms of design is the key to a folding phone. That, of course, is the hinge. The hinge on the Xiaomi Mix Flip 2 is up there with one of the stronger hinges I have ever observed. What I mean by that is that you have multiple steps of fold where the phone will stay open all the way down to between 10 and 20 degrees from closedAdmittedly. this was not as useful as it would have been on a phone like the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Which incidentally also has a very good hinge in this regard. But nevertheless, I was still very impressed by the stability of the hinge at various angles.

The hinge also feels very solid when you are closing the phone fully, from open it makes a solid snap noise. It is also possible, although perhaps not recommended, to “flick” the phone open. with a significant movement of your wrist.

I have tried to show this in the unboxing video. But it is not something I found myself doing very often as I was very conscious that the phone may very easily slip from my grip and become a projectile!

The next area I need to cover is the materials that have been used particularly, for the back panel. So, the back panel is made of glass I am not sure if this is Gorilla Glass (it is called Dragon Crystal 2.0) but one thing I do know for certain Is, it is very, very slippery. This makes the Xiaomi Mix Flip 2 very prone to sliding off things. As I discovered one evening, it was on the side of my couch, and it then decided to make a bid for freedom onto the floor. Due to this, I now have a slightly scuffed up front screen protector. Which is the one that was fitted from the factory. However, thankfully I have had no other damage to the phone.

Xiaomi is good enough to include a free case. If you buy this phone, I would recommend that you use or invest in some sort of a rear skin to help alleviate the inherent slipperiness. It is a shame that you would need to in my opinion to put a case on the rear. As the colour of that rear panel is very, very nice to look at particularly in the Nebula Violet colorway that I have.

The edges of the phone are made of aluminium and feel good in the hand but don't aid the grippyness in any way, shape, or form.

On the top half of the phone. Is where we find the fingerprint button. Which doubles as your power key and then, above that. Is where the volume rocker is located. The volume keys are very good and clicky. And the fingerprint sensor is fast to pick up on my fingerprint.

It may however, sometimes be a little bit too sensitive. As I have found that the simple act of me taking the phone out of my pocket will activate the fingerprint sensor. Only it is not reading the fingerprint correctly. This results in me having to enter my PIN to unlock the phone. This can get slightly annoying. However, you can change the fingerprint sensor sensitivity from just having your finger resting on it to having to press and hold. Which would alleviate this concern.

The front display is a 4.1 inch AMOLED panel. Which has a 1.5k resolution and a PPI of 460 It also has a refresh rate of 120HZ. It  is pleasing to the eye in a variety of lighting conditions.

Off to the side of the display is where we have the two camera lenses. And these are built into the display. I like that the display actually extends around these cameras. Instead of the camera being a large cutout.

It does mean that the usable screen real estate, Is not however that full four inch panel as you do lose some of the screen due to the location of the camera’s. However, Xiaomi has done a good job at making what you can use, usable. I found that I was able to add the vast majority of apps that I want to be quickly available to me on the front screen. I wasn't able to add every app. But the ones I would want for quick use are catered for. I was even able to use the Chrome web browser and YouTube on that front display. This is not something I would do regularly, but it was nice to see that it was possible. From what I understand this is different to what you can do with the Samsung Flip series devices. However, I have not used them so I cannot be 100% certain.

Opening the phone up reveals the internal 6.86 inch AMOLED display. This again has a high resolution of 1.5k, a PPI of 460 and a refresh rate of 120hz. It also has a high brightness level and is rated for 3200 nits at peak brightness.

I had no problem reading content or viewing media on the display. In sunshine, I also found that I was able to adjust the display scaling effectively. Xiaomi gives you the option of a variety of grid sizes and you can really make the font quite small.

This has often been a bug bear of mine with other Chinese manufactured devices such as Honor for example so well done to Xiaomi..

That about closes off. The design portion. Of this review. In the next section, we need to discuss what makes the phone tick? And we will do that. The hardware.

Hardware

The first area I want to tick off in hardware is the cameras. You have got 3 separate lenses on the Xiaomi Mix Flip 2 and they are spread between the front and rear of the phone. The two cameras on the rear comprise of a 50MP main sensor with an Omnivision Lytia 800 sensor which is one of the best sensors on the market at the moment at this size it also features a 2x Optical Zoom within the sensor.

The second camera is an Upgrade which is also rated for 50MP. Both cameras feature tuning from Leica and this is evidenced in the camera software which we will discuss further when. I go into the camera section of the review. 

The Third camera is a 32 MP front facing camera that is under the main display panel and has a small cutout. It is serviceable but most people will give the rear cameras more use especially given the flip form factor.

The next hardware element I need to go into is the battery. As is normally the case with flexible phones the batteries are actually 2 separate split cells which give a combined size of 5165mAh in terms of capacity. The separate batteries allow for the weight to be dispersed better across the body of the phone meaning that it doesn't feel top heavy which can be a common feature with phones that are as long as the Xiaomi Mix Flip 2. The batteries also use the more up to date silicon carbon chemistry which allow for a larger capacity in a more compact sizer.

This technology is now becoming more standardised with Chinese devices and it is only the bigger players who are still using the older technology. I was able to get a long battery life out of the phone and it got me through a day with ease and had plenty left in the tank for the second day. I found that I would need to pop it onto charge mid afternoon of the second day when I was using the phone for predominantly light use. This is what I have now come to expect with most phones from the last few years. It definitely gave me better battery stamina than that of my Pixel Fold 9 Pro.

Another aspect that will contribute to the prolonged battery life and the phone's stamina is of course the chipset that is the brains of this folding phone. We have the very latest that was available at the time of production (July). The phone features the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor which is supported by the Adreno 830. This is a fantastic chip and is truly great to see it in a flip style phone. This chipset means that there are very few tasks that will cause the phone to have any lag and stutters. It also means that you get the very latest support for AI tools and the like. Another aspect of the Snapdragon 8 Elite is the efficiency as it is built on the 3nm platform which means that you will get a more efficient use of the resources extending your battery life.

Next up is the charging capability. So like most other phones that feature silicone carbon batteries the Xiaomi Mix Flip 2 is capable of extremely fast charging when plugged into a wire that is connected to the appropriate charger (A two prong charger brick is included in the box). I have been able to get a full charge into the phone in less than an hour when plugged into my Gan changer that uses the PD standard. However cabled charging is not the only way to get the phone charged quickly as it also features fast wireless charging at up to 50W, if you use wired then you can expect up to 67W. This is all done through a USB Type C  2.0 port which does not support display output.

The rest of the phones' internals compose of a variety of storage options as you can get thai phone in the following sizes. 12GB/256GB (which is what I have here), 12GB /512GB or 16GB /1TB. The RAM being used in each case is as you would expect DDR5X and the storage uses UFS4.1. Again it is great to see that we are getting these highspec components in a Flip style folding phone as previously with the Samsung Flip series they are always slightly lower in spec than the Z Fold series.

Obviously this phone has to do the other things that make a phone be a phone and one of those things is to get a good signal when on mobile networks. I am happy to say that in my time with the phone I was able to use it reliably with my Tesco Sim card here in the UK and the coverage was about the same as I get with most devices I use. The phone also features all the connectivity options that would expect including BT 5.4 with support for A2DP, LE, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, LHDC,  Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6/7 which is dual band and also supports Wifi Direct. In terms of cellular band support the most commonly used worldwide bands are fully supported despite this being a non global release. I would however always advise to check what bands your network uses to be certain of compatibility.

That about covers the hardware lets take a better look at those cameras now

Camera’s

The cameras on the Xiaomi Mix Flip 2 are good cameras as i mentioned earlier that are both 50MP sensors for the rear and a 32MP unit for the front internal camera. I was very pleased with the quality of the photos I was able to get using the cameras when I was out and about on my travels in Portugal recently.

However it has to be said that if you are wanting the best camera phone on the market then you need to keep away from folding phones. This is most certainly the case with the Xiaomi Mix Flip 2. I found that in good lighting conditions the cameras were able to match, if not sometimes better my P9PF that is my regular go to device. However things took a turn for the blurry when the lighting levels reduced or you tried to zoom into a subject.

I did try a zoom comparison and the results can be seen below.

As for selfies using the internal selfie camera they are okay without the bokeh elements ramped up to max but adding a bokeh effect does create some strange fringing around the edges of my face which look a bit strange. You also have the defacto beauty mode which I turned off as I have no need for that.

Overall for a stills camera system I would rate this as a mediocre system unless you are purely focused on using it for close up photography in well lit conditions. If you like to get more landscape style photography and you want to be able to use a decent optical zoom then a flip phone is maybe not for you.

In terms of Video I captured some test footage but ill be honest I havn't really used it for video as I normally would record any video content that I need on my iPhone as that is the GOAT over any Android device.

You do have the capability of recording all the way up to 8k at 24FPS on the main camera if you want to. For the video work that I do though it would be okay but the issues with video on most Android devices still present itself here as well. If it is just video for social media then it will be fine but if you are trying to record video for Pro use then this will not give the results you want.

Moving onto the final section it is time to talk software!

Software

This was the one section I was the most concerned about as I haven't used a Chinese only released device for some time and I had heard some stories about issues. I am pleased to say that for the most part these stories have been inconsequential and that I had a generally okay experience with the software on the Xiaomi Mix Flip 2.

From the very first steps of doing the setup things went fairly well. I was able to get Google Mobile Services on the device very easily after going through the initial set up steps and I was able to get all my apps onto the phone with no notable exceptions. 

I did find a few issues and one of these is sadly a deal breaker for me. I found that I was unable to get the Google Feed when I was initiating a swipe left from the home screen. While this is annoying I can live with this not being there. I did sometimes find that muscle memory would cause me to do that gesture  but then nothing would happen so I just carried on regardless!

The other thing I was unable to do was use the Google Wallet correctly as I was unable to add my Lloyds bank card to that but again not a major issue as I can just use an alternate app like Curve which will allow you to add your cards with no issue. I was at least able to access my Google wallet which has been an issue on some other phones, even ones that were meant to be Global, (In fairness those others phones were review units whereas this is a retail unit on final software).

No the big one and the one that would stop me from using this phone as my daily and also from buying it is the lack of Android Auto.

I use Android Auto all day most days as when i am not coercing the keys on my laptop to produce this fine text you are reading. I am a field engineer and I do a lot of driving for my job. As such, for a lot of my day I am using Android Auto. The fact that the phone does not support it is a big RED X against this phone for me and I cannot understand why this is the case. 

Okay, so here's my thinking: Xiaomi, who's also getting into the car game in China, probably wants people to buy their cars and connect their phones using their own HyperConnect platform, not Android Auto. I totally get their strategy, but it feels a bit short-sighted to me. Android Auto is a huge part of the Android world, and honestly, it seems weirder to take it out than to just leave it in. But hey, that's just my opinion.

Moving back to things that they have done right though, I do like the fact that a lot of the front display functionality has been left to work as it should do and they have not adopted the widgets style that seems to be the case with Samsung’s ZFlip lineup. I was able to set up my front screen with all my essential apps and they all worked to a degree. Here are some examples of them below. 

Not all apps can be used on the outer display and the options of what can be added is clearly shown when you press the Edit button at the bottom of the display area, this can be seen below

There is one other minor annoyance which I cannot blame fully on Xiaomi, as they are just following an industry trend that I strongly dislike. This is the breaking of the combined notification centre and Control panel. Basically making the phone look and feel like an iPhone in that respect. I will say one sentence on the matter. 

Stop doing it, I don't like it!

The Xiaomi Interconnectivity software worked better than I expected as i was successfully able to use it to transfer files to and from  my Macbook and also to control the phone via my Macbook. I'll be honest it is not as smooth as the O-Connect+ from Oppo but it is still very nice to see it here and working.

I have included a few images of thai working below for your reference as I believe this will now be available on a lot more Xiaomi devices going forward.

In summary, if you can live without the two issues I have covered above and dont need Android Auto then this could be a very good option for you in terms of software and function. There will also be updates on the device for at least 2 Software updates and potentially 4 years of security updates however this varies from device to device I received a security patch during my time with the phone.

Conclusion

So I am going to start this with my own opinion of if this is the phone for me and quite simply it is not. I am not a fan of the Flip form factor and as i dont see anything that it brings for me over what a standard candybar could do. I also have a love for the book style folding phone as that offers me benefits. 

However, that is me and I am sure that this would be the perfect phone for some people. If you are the type of person who favour's form over function then this might be the phone for you as when the phone is folded it is extremely compact and will fit in all but the tightest of pockets or bags. When unfolded you get the full use of a phone but folding it down will make it more “tote able”. The other person who will like this is the fan of older flip phones as it brings all those memories back into the fold (pun very much intended). However if like me you favour utility over function then there are a wealth of more expensive book style folding phones out there. Another factor to consider is what type of photographer you are. Are you a casual shooter or a wannabe Steve McCurry then this will have an impact on whether the Xiaomi Mix Fold 2 is the one for you or you need something that is better equipped.

Which ever side of the coin you land on i hope that this review has helped you become more informed about the Xiaomi Mix Flip 2 and if you do decide you want to try it then check it out right here on the Average Dad Tech Store.

if on the other hand you prefer your phone to be of the non bendy variety then there is off course a wide range of candybar phones available on the  Average Dad Tech Store as well!