India’s first foldable smartphone might be a Xiaomi device — and it’s half the price of the Samsung Galaxy Fold

• Xiaomi’s new foldable phone may be coming to India by the end of April at a price of ₹74,999, according to reports.
• This unnamed Xiaomi phone undercuts the price of the Samsung Galaxy Fold by half.
• There is reportedly one major difference between the Xiaomi and its competitors devices, Samsung’s Galaxy Fold and Huawei’s Mate X.

Xiaomi’s foldable phone, which folds thrice over, may be the first foldable phone to make it to the Indian market as early as end of April or early June this year.

The phone is said to be priced at ₹74,999. That is half the price of the Galaxy Fold which Samsung announced at $2000 (₹1.3 million), according to investors in Xiaomi’s supply chain who spoke to iGyaan. The difference in prices is even greater when compared to Huawei’s Mate X, which is priced at $2,600 (₹1.8 million).

A lot of foldable phones made their debut at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019 in February but the one thing they all seem be struggling with is the price point. Xiaomi, on the other hand, is undercutting all of its competitors by launching a foldable smartphone at half the price.

While the phone doesn’t have an official name yet — it will either the Mi Flex or the Mi Fold — Xiaomi has released a concept video of the device. The company has also spoken about the phone explaining how it is evolving Xiaomi’s patent user interface, MIUI, to suit the new phone.


But, what’s the catch?

According to the report, the main difference between the Samsung Galaxy Fold or the Huawei Mate X and Xiaomi’s foldable phone is their display technology.

While Samsung has developed its displays in-house, Huawei uses BOE displays — both known to use high quality OLED panels. Xiaomi, on the other hand, will be using Visionox Technology OLED display — untested display technology so far.

Since the technology hasn’t been tested, there’s no way to know if it compromises on quality.

The design of the Samsung Galaxy Fold and the Xiaomi’s foldable phones are also very different. The Samsung Galaxy Fold has two screens. One, for when the device is in tablet mode, and another one on the outside that activates when the phone folds in half — folding the tablet screen.

Xiaomi’s device, on the other hand, has two foldable hinges on the left the right. Rather than switch screens, the screen just folds backwards to becomes smaller in phone mode.

While a ₹74,999 price tag still doesn’t fall into the budget range, it’s definitely cheaper than the other options in the market for users who want to have to first crack at the new type of smartphone.

See also:
Samsung is reportedly working on 2 more foldable smartphones that are completely different from the Galaxy Fold

Here's a close-up look at Huawei's $2,600 folding phone, the Mate X

The hype around foldable phones has reached a fever pitch - here's every company working on one right now