Xiaomi Mix Flip review

HyperOS and Android 14

The Xiaomi Mix Flip runs on Xiaomi's HyperOS, an enhanced Android 14-based OS that is part of a bigger "Human x Car x Home" smart ecosystem. We already encountered HyperOS on numerous Xiaomi devices, and you can read our dedicated article or watch the video below to get a taste.

HyperOS sure looks and behaves a lot like the MIUI of old, and while we don't doubt there are under-the-hood improvements, long-time Xiaomi phone users will be right at home. There are subtle differences to be spotted, though, like the slightly flatter design and more rounded edges for a lot of the design elements.

HyperOS

Some things have gotten more intuitive, like the multi-window implementation, where the buttons are now more self-explanatory. That's not entirely the case with the quick settings, so it's nice that there's an option to enable text labels (off by default). You can no longer opt out of the Control center, though - that's still available on the phones that had it pre-HyperOS, but not on those that launched with the new software.

HyperOS

The Xiaomi Mix Flip also supports some AI tricks even if some are not pre-installed but available for download for free. You can get AI Image, which also incorporates AI Portraits. AI expansion can extend images with the help of AI. AI Magic Erase Pro is quite self-explanatory, it uses AI to remove objects or people from images.

Let's talk about the exclusive features of the Xiaomi Mix Flip.

First, the outer screen options. You can choose between various lockscreen styles with different cool wallpapers and clock styles. Same goes for its Always-on look.

There are, of course, plenty of homescreen wallpapers you can assign to your almost squarish outer screen.

Customizations and widgets

The available widgets are not that many, but useful, nevertheless. You can choose between weather, clock, calendar, health and music. Those widgets occupy the space below the cameras and thus you can make this extra screen estate extra useful.

And finally, you can enable/disable the outer screen apps. You cannot make any app mini, only the compatible ones. These include Phone, Messages, Camera, Calendar, Calculator, Weather, Music, Recorder, Clock, Chrome, Maps, Mi Fitness, YouTube. And a dozen of China-exclusive apps. More apps will become available though.

Working with the outer screen

Working with the outer screen

The screen is perfect as a camera viewfinder, some videos on the go, as well as making calculations or checking the calendar.

The internal foldable screen can fold in any angle, but the only two apps we found compatible with the "flip" mode to be Camera and YouTube.

Flip view

Performance and benchmarks

The Xiaomi Mix Flip is powered by the most recent Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip by Qualcomm, its standard version, not the made for Galaxy, obviously. The Gen 3 SoC has the most powerful octa-core processor on the market and an excellent Adreno 750 GPU, ready to make everything possible in the gaming department.

The Mix Flip is available in three configurations of UFS4.0 + LPDDR5X RAM - 12GB + 256GB, 12GB + 512GB (ours) and 16GB + 1TB. You can opt for a software RAM extension.

Let's see some benchmark scores now.

The Xiaomi Mix Flip phone is bested only by the Galaxy Z Flip6 in the CPU test in our flip phone forster and that one has an overclocked Prime core. But it remains the best-scoring flip phone when it comes to GPU and compound AnTuTu tests.

The most important part here should be the stability and thermals, so let's talk about this.

The Mix Flip scored 58% of CPU stability - it keeps around 80% of its maximum CPU performance for 5 mins and then we observe 50% drops every minute or so to prevent the CPU from overheating.

The GPU stability is worse, unfortunately. The 3D Mark stress test ran for about 5 min in full speed and then the software didn't even had time to throttle - the phone went straight to OVERHEATING and stopped everything.

While regular apps like social, or office, did not make the Mix Flip visibly throttle, some games do lead to performance dropping, which surely is not an ideal case for competitive gaming.

Serious CPU thermal throttling • Overheating GPU in 3D Mark

Overall, the Xiaomi Mix Flip is a powerful smartphone, but its heat dissipation seems incredibly poor, though that's understandable, given the small space - the SoC, the cameras and probably the display controller are all crammed up in the top part of the phone.