Whether you like it or not, folding phones are coming. Samsung showed off its folding design late last year, but now Chinese company Xiaomi is teasing its folding phone, and it’s, well, it’s interesting as hell.
When most of us think about “folding phones,” we simply imagine a tablet that folds in half and becomes a phone. That’s cool and all, but what Xiaomi is proposing is…cooler. Maybe more functional? Perhaps even more innovative. Whatever it is, I think I like it. Here’s a look at it in action:
Check out this special video from #Xiaomi President and Co-founder Bin Lin, showing off a very special phone prototype… 😎
What does everyone think we should name this phone? 🤔#InnovationForEveryone pic.twitter.com/1lFj3nM7tD
— Donovan Sung (@donovansung) January 23, 2019
So, instead of folding in half, it folds in two places, which somehow seems a lot cleaner. Of course, more folds means more moving parts, which means more potential points of failure. No design is perfect, I guess.
But still, this is more of a proof of concept—something to show off what’s possible. We’re just now getting into the world of folding phones, so there’s still a lot of ground to cover. This is just one idea. Who knows if this exact model will ever even make it into production (I’d wager likely not).
What we do know, however, is that likely every manufacturer is working on some version of a foldable. Samsung showed one off already, and rumors suggest that Motorola is going to re-release the RAZR as a $1500 foldable. Xiaomi clearly has foldables on its radar too. Hard to say what else is going on behind the scenes at all the major phone builders, but I bet we’ll see some pretty rad designs show up in the coming months. Maybe even next month at Mobile World Congress!
Donovan Sung via XDA
