Xiaomi‘s co-founder and president Lin Bin took on the Chinese website Weibo to confirm the credibility of the company’s version of the foldable smartphone. Bin posted a video on Weibo featuring a prototype smartphone, which he calls as the “world’s first double folding mobile phone.”
The video is 51 seconds in length and shows the prototype of a foldable device has a tablet-like screen that can be folded to form a smartphone.
Bin discussed the technical difficulties the company faced in the making of a foldable device such as the production of a flexible folding screen, four-wheel drive folding shaft technology, flexible cover technology, and MIUI adaptation.
The device shown in nearly a minute long video details a double folding phone. Both the sides of the device can be folded backward to transform a tablet-like device into a smartphone form factor.
The post does not reveal much about the device, but Bin reveals the device in the video is simply an engineering model.
Check out this special video from #Xiaomi President and Co-founder Bin Lin, showing off a very special phone prototype… 😎
What does everyone think we should name this phone? 🤔#InnovationForEveryone pic.twitter.com/1lFj3nM7tD
— Donovan Sung (@donovansung) January 23, 2019
Xiaomi is looking forward to competing with the foldable phone from manufacturers such as Samsung and Huawei, both of which brands have announced an advent of their respective foldable phones later this year.
Samsung has already teased its foldable smartphone and the company is expected to officially launch the device on February 20. Samsung has said in a statement that it plans to produce around 1 million units of its foldable phones. According to a report from ETNews, an industry source has tipped off the upcoming foldable smartphone from Samsung, dubbed as Galaxy F, will have a triple camera unit and will be fueled by 6000mAh battery.
Motorola, too, has been reported to work on a foldable device in the form of Moto Razr, the leaked renders of which surfaced online recently.
Xiaomi hasn’t revealed when we’ll learn more details about its foldable phone, but given Mobile World Congress starts in a month we’re likely to hear a lot more about foldable devices very soon.
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