Xiaomi 18 Fold Debuts With New XRING O3 Chip

Xiaomi has officially unveiled the Xiaomi 18 Fold in China, introducing its first mid-size foldable smartphone and the first Xiaomi flagship powered by the company’s latest XRING O3 chipset.

Why it matters: The Xiaomi 18 Fold combines a compact foldable design with a large 7.58-inch inner display, flagship cameras, a 6,000mAh battery, and Xiaomi’s newest in-house mobile chipset.

The details: When folded, the Xiaomi 18 Fold measures 117.8 × 83.6mm and is 10.68mm thick. It opens up to a 7.58-inch main display while measuring just 5.02mm thick and weighing 219g. The outer display measures 5.38 inches and is designed for one-handed use.

Both displays use Xiaomi HyperRGB panels with a full RGB subpixel structure, up to 4,000 nits peak brightness, and a 1-120Hz LTPO adaptive refresh rate. Xiaomi HyperOS also brings two-way and three-way split-screen layouts for multitasking.

Xiaomi uses a 7000-series aluminum alloy frame, Xiaomi Shield Glass 3.0, and a new three-link hinge design. The inner display features dual-layer Ultra Thin Glass with 50μm and 30μm layers, along with a more stretchable organic film in the touch layer.

Xiaomi claims the improvements deliver 258% higher inner display impact resistance, with support for drops from up to 1.2 meters. The inner display also has an average crease depth of no more than 30μm.

The Xiaomi 18 Fold is powered by the 3nm Xiaomi XRING O3, featuring 24 billion transistors, a 10-core all-big-core CPU, and a 16-core G2-Ultra NX GPU.

The CPU is claimed to deliver 60% higher performance while consuming 25% less power than the previous generation. Meanwhile, the GPU offers up to 85% higher graphics performance with 64% lower power consumption.

XRING O3 also supports LPDDR6 RAM with data rates of up to 10,667Mbps and memory bandwidth of 113.8GB/s. Its quad-core NPU delivers up to 200 TOPS of tensor performance and 3.13 TFLOPS of vector performance.

The Xiaomi 18 Fold features a 200MP Leica triple-camera system, led by a 200MP main camera with an HP5 1/1.56-inch sensor.

It is joined by a 50MP Leica periscope telephoto camera with an 80mm focal length. Its in-sensor zoom can reach 160mm with lossless zoom.

Battery and connectivity: The foldable packs a 6,000mAh silicon-carbon battery, which Xiaomi says is the largest battery capacity among foldables in the same form factor. It supports 67W wired HyperCharge and 50W wireless HyperCharge.

Other connectivity features include Wi-Fi 7, UWB, and Xiaomi Astral Communication with roaming coverage across more than 210 countries and regions through more than 52 carriers.

The bigger picture: Xiaomi is also introducing a Ceramic Edition of the 18 Fold, featuring a silicon nitride ceramic rear panel. Xiaomi says this is the first smartphone to use the material for its back panel, with the ceramic weighing approximately 50% less than traditional zirconia ceramic.

For Filipinos: The Xiaomi 18 Fold is currently priced for the Chinese market, with no Philippine pricing or availability announced yet.

China pricing starts at RMB 10,999 for the 12GB + 256GB model and goes up to RMB 14,999 for the 16GB + 1TB variant. The 16GB + 1TB Ceramic Edition is priced at RMB 15,999.

Xiaomi 18 Fold specifications:

• Display: 5.38-inch outer display; 7.58-inch inner display; 1-120Hz LTPO; up to 4,000 nits
• Processor: Xiaomi XRING O3
• RAM: 12GB / 16GB LPDDR6
• Storage: 256GB / 512GB / 1TB
• Rear Cameras: 200MP main + 50MP periscope telephoto + third camera
• Battery: 6,000mAh silicon-carbon
• Charging: 67W wired; 50W wireless HyperCharge
• Operating System: Xiaomi HyperOS
• Connectivity: 5G, Wi-Fi 7, UWB, Xiaomi Astral Communication
• Colors: Black, White, Red, Ceramic Edition

What’s next: Xiaomi has yet to announce Philippine pricing and availability for the Xiaomi 18 Fold.