Xiaomi put the 18 Fold on display at IFA 2026 in Berlin this week. Behind glass, so nobody got to touch it, but the phone was there in the flesh and the company confirmed the important part on the same day.
The launch date is 7 September in China, two days before Apple’s iPhone event
Xiaomi president Lu Weibing announced it directly. The 18 Fold goes official on Monday 7 September, alongside the Mi Pad 9 Pro Max tablet and Xiaomi’s SkyNomad SUVs at the company’s autumn event. Beating Apple to the stage by 48 hours looks deliberate, given the iPhone foldable rumours.
It uses the short and wide passport shape, in a red that photos have been underselling
The 18 Fold pairs a 5.38-inch cover screen with a 7.58-inch inner display, which puts it in the same squat category as the Galaxy Z Fold8. The corners are noticeably rounder than Samsung’s, which should sit better in your palm over a long session. That rounding does leave the cover screen looking a bit lopsided, squared on one side, curved on the other.
The Dark Cherry red is the standout. Much brighter in person than the earlier Weibo images suggested.
Xiaomi’s XRING O3 is the first mobile chip to support LPDDR6 memory
This is the headline. The 18 Fold is the first phone with Xiaomi’s in-house XRING O3, built on TSMC’s 3nm process with 24 billion transistors and a 10-core CPU that tops out at 4.35GHz. Graphics come from a 16-core G2-Ultra NX GPU, which Xiaomi claims runs 85 percent faster than the O1 while drawing 64 percent less power. Company figures, so treat them as such until independent benchmarks land.
Three Leica cameras on the back, two selfie cameras, and a 6,000mAh battery
The rear visor holds a main, telephoto and ultrawide arrangement, Leica-tuned. There’s a punch-hole selfie camera in the top right of the inner screen and a second one on the cover display. Battery is 6,000mAh with 67W wired and 50W wireless charging, and the hinge is Xiaomi’s new dragon bone design with dual-layer ultra-thin glass over the folding panel.
What no one can judge yet is the crease and the hinge feel
The main screen looked flat from most angles through the case, but that means nothing until someone runs a thumb across it. Prices for anywhere outside China are also still missing. Both gaps close on Monday.
