On Friday, a new patent was published for
Xiaomi by the CNIPA for a smartphone design submitted in late-2019. We’ve seen
a bunch of patents for smartphones in various form factors including foldable
ones, and clamshell designs. Remember, just because an OEM patents a new
design, doesn’t necessarily mean it will arrive to the mass market. That said,
let’s look at the latest patent from Xiaomi.
At first glance, the foldable smartphone
design looks a lot like Huawei’s Mate X foldable smartphone. Patent drawings
slightly enhanced by LetsGoDigital show a device with a display that folds
outwards, and features a bar where the phone is meant to be held. Not only is
this the thickest component of the smartphone, but this bar also houses the
device’s four cameras. There is no dedicated selfie camera(s), so these cameras
will be used for closeups as well.
Much like the Mate X, there’s even a
charging port at the bottom end of the camera “handle” which acts as a grip for
the right hand while the phone is in the unfolded position. We wonder if the
hinge will use a mechanism like the Mate X’s “Falcon Wing”. When folded, the
screen wraps around the front and back of the phone with very small bezels.
When opened, the screen turns into a large tablet surface, leaving the camera
pointing to the back. Otherwise, when its closed, the side with the larger
screen area becomes the main display.
Huawei’s Mate Xs is very expensive at
around US$ 2700 with limited market availability. Aside from its exceedingly high
price point, Huawei’s Mate Xs doesn’t come with Google Services, which makes it
hard to consider in Western markets over the only real other competition in
this space: the Samsung Galaxy Fold.
If Xiaomi released a folding phone that
could compete with the Mate Xs and the Galaxy Fold, there’d be another
(possibly cheaper) alternative that will surely come with Google Play Services.
Xiaomi has yet to release any folding smartphone to this day but based on the
patent drawings we’ve seen, it is eager to do so.
It was over a year ago that Xiaomi teased
its double-folding smartphone being used by the company’s co-founder, Lin Bin.
Yet, Xiaomi has yet to release any folding smartphone. We wonder if 2020 will
be the year that Xiaomi finally markets a folding device like the ones we've
seen in leaks. Whatever Xiaomi is working on, it sure seems to be taking its
time to figure out the kinks – especially after seeing what Samsung went
through with the Galaxy Fold.
