In a week where Apple is expected to finally crash the foldable party, Xiaomi has decided to show up with a slightly more interesting plus-one. The company’s new 18 Fold, which I got to handle behind closed doors at IFA last week, is a short, wide book-style foldable that looks suspiciously like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 - until you check the spec sheet, at which point it becomes the phone you wish Samsung had actually built.

Xiaomi’s first book-style foldable since 2024’s Mix Fold 4 follows the industry’s sudden love affair with squat proportions, but it goes further than Samsung or Huawei. The 18 Fold is both shorter and wider than the Z Fold 8, with a 1.4:1 aspect ratio on both its 7.58-inch inner display and 5.38-inch cover screen. That’s an almost exact match for international paper sizes and IMAX screens, meaning this might be the only phone that can play The Odyssey without those pesky black bars. Because nothing says 'cinematic experience' like matching the aspect ratio of a letter-sized sheet of paper.

In practice, the 18 Fold feels remarkably similar to the Z Fold 8. It’s compact and pocketable when closed, and the cover screen is perfectly fine for one-handed use - though, as with Samsung’s, some apps will inevitably look awkward on the short, wide canvas. Open it up, and it’s great for movies or ebooks, perhaps less so for multitasking, but Xiaomi still throws in split-screen and floating windows to keep the productivity crowd happy.

Where Samsung might still win is build quality. The 18 Fold looks lovely, available in black, white, a striking red, and a pink ceramic special edition limited to 1,500 units. But it’s slightly heavier and thicker than the Z Fold 8, and Xiaomi hasn’t mentioned any IP rating - which, for a device that costs over a thousand bucks, is a bit like selling a waterproof watch without saying it’s waterproof. The crease is also more noticeable than on this year’s Samsung foldables, though Oppo remains the only company to have almost eliminated it with its Find N6. We’ll see if Apple can match that this week.

But specs are where the 18 Fold really struts its stuff. It’s the first Xiaomi phone powered by its own Xring O3 chipset, which promises Snapdragon 8 Elite-level performance, and it debuts Arm’s Mali G2-Ultra NX GPU, bringing DLSS-style graphics acceleration to Android. The 6,000mAh silicon-carbon battery is a chunky upgrade over the Z Fold 8’s 4,800mAh, with 67W wired and 50W wireless charging. The OLED displays hit 4,000 nits of peak brightness - because why not blind yourself slightly while checking email? - and the triple rear camera, bolstered by Xiaomi’s Leica partnership, includes a 200-megapixel main sensor, a 50-megapixel 3.5x periscope telephoto, and a 50-megapixel ultrawide.

I loved the Galaxy Z Fold 8 when I reviewed it, surprised by how quickly I adapted to its new design, but my biggest gripe was the lack of a triple camera on a phone approaching $2,000. Xiaomi fixes that, boosts the battery and displays, and has made a foldable that could easily become my pick of the moment - if not for the missing IP rating, which gives me pause. Of course, the foldable market is about to get shaken up if Apple announces its foldable iPhone tomorrow. Until then, Xiaomi has thrown down the gauntlet - at least in China, where the 18 Fold is available for preorder at ¥10,999 (about $1,600), with sales starting September 10th. International launch? Still unconfirmed, because why make things easy?

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge