Huawei recently launched its latest foldable smartphone under its Honor brand called the Magic V3 which also turned out to be the slimmest production foldable smartphone in existence. Soon after, Huawei followed this with the launch of its (rather expensive) Mate XT Ultimate, which as things would have it, turned out to be the world’s first production-ready tri-fold smartphone. Xiaomi too launched its latest foldable smartphone back in July called the Mix Fold 4, and now it seems it also has a tri-fold smartphone in development.
According to a report by 91 Mobiles, Xiaomi recently filed for a patent application for its first tri-fold device at the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA). The application which was seen by the source, also suggested its design (which we believe are the schematics) of the device in question. This patent was filed on September 3, which is very recent.
The source in its report has come up with renders based on information shown in the patent and the device (at least in these initial renders) does appear quite chunky in comparison to Huawei’s Mate XT Ultimate. The device appears to have two hinges one of which lets the first (and outermost) part of the foldable device flip outwards, turning it into a regular bar-shaped smartphone when completely closed. When fully opened, it is seen to take on a tablet-like form factor with a properly rectangular main display. Xiaomi’s take on the camera module appears to be a horizontal layout with three cameras and a flash module placed next to each other in a line.
Despite having two hinges and three body panels at the back, the phone for some reason does not seem as wide as Huawei’s Mate XT Ultimate but a lot taller and narrower visually. It appears this way both when open and folded, with a closer resemblance to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 6, which has a narrow cover screen compared to most foldables currently available globally.
What also remains unclear about Xiaomi’s tri-fold smartphone (as pointed out by the source) is whether it will be a production-ready device, like Huawei’s Mate XT Ultimate.
News about Xiaomi’s first tri-fold foldable first showed up in an earlier report, which came from Chinese social media platform Weibo. The tipster did not give out any details about the phone’s hardware configuration, but only randomly stated that such a device was in development. It also stated that this tri-fold smartphone would be thicker than usual and that it could be announced at next year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025.