Patent reveals possible tri-fold phone from Xiaomi

2024-09-18

Way back in 2019, Xiaomi patented a tri-fold design, but knowing what we know now, that kind of funky design will never work in the real world. There was another patent that showed a more sensible design, but it needed segments to bend both ways, which may be tricky. A month ago, we heard rumors that Xiaomi will show off a tri-folding phone (or at least a prototype of one) at MWC in February 2025. And now a patent published by the China National Intellectual Property Administration has been revealed that shows what this device might look like.

The patent was issued back in December of 2022 and has been kept under wraps since then. Unlike that earlier design, this one is much more sensible and follows the same basic plan as the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate – there is only one screen that can unfold to be fully accessible or fold so that you only see one third of it.

The camera island is much smaller than what the Mate XT has, but that just might be wishful thinking in the patent. The individual segments on a tri-foldable have to be pretty thin to keep the folded thickness reasonable, which pushes the camera modules out into a chunky island.

Anyway, based on the rumor from August, this tri-foldable will be part of the Xiaomi Mix series. It’s not clear whether this will be the new Mix Fold or a separate series, however.

Huawei got there first, but multiple companies are working on tri-fold designs. Xiaomi, of course, but also Samsung. Back in 2022, Samsung demoed the Flex G concept, which folds twice inwards (kind of forming a G shape). Going back even further to 2020, Samsung Display’s blog shared some thoughts on tri-folding (and rollable) designs. Remember, this was only a year after the original Galaxy Fold launched.

Also in 2020 we went hands-on with a TCL tri-fold display concept. The year after, a Microsoft patent showed a tri-fold Surface phone (though we’re pretty sure the Surface line is dead at this point). There are more contenders – this year we’ve seen tri-fold concepts from Oppo and Tecno. Let’s just say that 2025 might see a Cambrian explosion of tri-foldables.

Source (in Chinese)