Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 teardown shows the magnets of its unique sliding mechanism

The Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 uses a unique sliding mechanism that relies on two pairs of strong neodymium magnets to hold the phone in the up and down positions and also provide the “springy” feeling in between.
If you’re curious about how that works, you can watch Zack from JerryRigEverything take the phone apart. You can see two magnets at 2:35, but that’s only half of them.
The other half are behind the screen – they line up perfectly when the Mi Mix 3 is closed and push each other away when it is open. There’s a ribbon cable that hooks through a hole in the motherboard to connect the two halves.
Compare that to the Honor Magic 2, which uses what Huawei is calling a “butterfly five-track sliding mechanism”. You can see it in action in this teardown.
It looks like Xiaomi took special care to protect the ribbon cable and other internal components that may be affected by the sliding. Officially, it claims the Mi Mix 3 can withstand 300,000 slides, but independent testing showed it can easily do 600,000 slides.
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Reader comments
- Marco M
- 31 Jan 2019
- Mu3
A cable can be extended, if it's not long enough and if replacing it is not an option.
- leledumbo
- 31 Jan 2019
- DEP
Perhaps they're struggling to find the flaw so they blow up the smallest one they can finally find.
- Whackcar
- 31 Jan 2019
- y@W
I'm no fan of Xiaomi, but i appreciate good concepts & products, so i will admit i like what they've done here. It's brilliant and will ensure long-term use without problems that usually happened to most slider phones of old.