Xiaomi's Galaxy Z Fold 8 rival leaks – is closer to the iPhone Ultra in design
Folding phones are like buses, you wait all year and then three arrive at once
Quick summary
Xiaomi is preparing to launch a folding phone that will be called the Xiaomi 18 Fold. The device will be announced in September.
Images of the device appear to show a triple camera and a wider-format book-type folding phone.
While Samsung's new Galaxy Z Fold 8 is making waves, it appears that it's going to have two rivals very soon. The first, from Apple, has been long rumoured and seen plenty of speculation, but it appears that Xiaomi is also keen to get in on the wider folding phone act.
Xiaomi has traditionally used the Mix name for its folding phones, giving us the likes of the Mix Flip and the Mix Fold in the past. But the next phone is thought to be called the Xiaomi 18 Fold, making the name clearer and more comparable with the competition.
Images said to be of the Xiaomi 18 Fold have been shared on Weibo, giving us a good look at what's said to be an engineering prototype, but looking a lot like the Samsung and Apple alternatives.
The handset - described by the source as "ugly" - appears in a red colour that looks similar to the dark red iPhone 18 Pro colour that previously leaked. There are two views, one showing the rear of the phone with a triple camera and the other showing the top of the phone - including a case on the rear section.
There's little else that we can really draw from these images, but that's not the end of the story for this device. Firstly, the leak has the backing of a major online source UniverseIce, who shared the image on X, confirming that it's Xiaomi's device.
Xiaomi has confirmed that the Xiaomi 18 Fold will be launched in September and that it will be powered by the new Xring O3 chip, which is so far showing impressive performance specs.
That chip was introduced at an event in China recently and while the benchmark scores look higher than any previous smartphone chip, we know that inflated benchmark results are easy to come by and that real-world performance is often very different.
That's especially true in a folding phone where there's less space for cooling - which is true of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy in the Z Fold 8, which quickly gets warm and throttles under load.
The Xiaomi 18 Fold is expected to have a 6000mAh battery, a 200-megapixel main camera and a 7.6-inch internal display.
It's not known exactly when it will launch, but with Xiaomi appearing at IFA 2026 for the first time, there's a chance that it could use the event to give us more details on this new folding phone.
