Huawei, Xiaomi launch flagship foldables ahead of Apple’s expected iPhone Ultra debut

Foldables are moving away from tall, narrow designs and toward shorter, wider shapes that feel more like small tablets when open. Xiaomi has now put a real product behind that trend with the 18 Fold, a China-first flagship that arrives just before Apple is expected to enter the foldable phone race.

That timing matters for anyone thinking about a premium phone purchase. Xiaomi is offering bigger hardware numbers than Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 in several places, while Apple’s expected foldable iPhone remains unconfirmed in the provided reporting.

Huawei is part of the same design shift in the available reporting, but the confirmed details here are mostly about Xiaomi. The safest read is this: Xiaomi has launched a serious high-end foldable in China, Huawei is already influencing the shape of the category, and Apple may soon reset the comparison.

What launched before Apple’s expected foldable iPhone

Xiaomi’s 18 Fold is a book-style foldable that launched in mainland China. It is available to preorder there from ¥10,999, which The Verge converts to about $1,600, with official sales starting on September 10th.

The launch comes in the same week Apple is expected to announce a foldable iPhone. The sources do not confirm the Apple phone’s final name, pricing, specs, or release date, so any direct Apple comparison has to stop there.

Huawei’s role is narrower in the supplied reporting. Xiaomi is described as following Huawei and Samsung in moving to a short, squat design, and another Verge headline refers to Huawei’s latest trifold. No Huawei model specs, launch price, screen sizes, battery capacity, or release plan are confirmed in the provided sources.

Xiaomi 18 Fold specs that matter

Displays and shape

The Xiaomi 18 Fold has a 7.58-inch inner display and a 5.38-inch outer display. Both are OLED panels, and Xiaomi says they reach up to 4,000 nits of peak brightness.

The shape is the bigger change. Both screens use a roughly 1.4:1 aspect ratio, making the phone shorter and wider than Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8. The Verge’s hands-on report says it still feels compact and pocketable when closed, with a cover screen that is comfortable to use one-handed.

The tradeoff is app behavior. The same report says the short cover screen may have issues with some apps running awkwardly. When open, the format is described as natural for movies and ebooks, while possibly less suited to multitasking work.

Chip and gaming hardware

The 18 Fold is Xiaomi’s first phone in the provided reporting to use its own Xring O3 chipset. Xiaomi says it offers Snapdragon 8 Elite-level performance.

Inside that chip is Arm’s Mali G2-Ultra NX GPU, which brings mobile-first support for Arm’s DLSS-style graphics acceleration on Android. Arm calls the feature set “neural graphics,” with techniques including:

• AI upscaling, which creates a higher-resolution-looking image
• Frame generation, which creates extra frames between rendered frames
• Neural denoising, aimed at improving advanced lighting output

Arm claims the Mali G2-Ultra NX brings an 85-percent performance increase over the GPU Xiaomi used previously, and a 14 percent increase over Arm’s previous flagship in “non-AI gaming.” These are claims for the Arm GPU inside Xiaomi’s Xring O3 chip, not independent test results from a retail phone.

Arm also claims up to four times the framerate when Neural Super Sampling, Neural Frame Rate Upscaling, and Neural Denoising are used together. The Verge notes that games likely will not feel four times faster because frame generation can add latency. Arm’s Chris Bergey said the first titles will mostly use super sampling, with frame generation coming in early 2027 and denoising “soon after that.”

The first confirmed games for Arm’s new graphics accelerator are Where Winds Meet, Infinity Nikki, and Arena Breakout: Infinite. Bergey also said more games are on the way, but did not name them.

Battery and charging

The Xiaomi 18 Fold has a 6,000mAh silicon-carbon battery. That is larger than the 4,800mAh battery in Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8, according to the same reporting.

Charging support is listed at 67W wired and 50W wireless. Battery life has not been independently tested in the supplied sources, so the figures show capacity and charging capability rather than real-world endurance.

Arm’s power claim is also worth keeping separate from a battery-life review. Bergey said an entire phone with these chips will consume no more than 2.5 watts, with 1.5 watts for the GPU. He gave an example of playing at 1080p, 60 frames per second for three hours instead of 30 minutes, but that was a claimed scenario tied to Arm’s graphics approach, not a published retail benchmark for the 18 Fold.

Cameras

Xiaomi gives the 18 Fold a triple rear camera system with its long-running Leica partnership. The setup includes:

• 200-megapixel main camera with a 1/1.56-inch-type sensor
• 50-megapixel 3.5x periscope telephoto
• 50-megapixel ultrawide

The Verge notes that these camera specs still lag behind Xiaomi’s slab flagships. Even so, the triple-camera setup answers one complaint raised about Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8, which lacked the triple camera expected from a phone approaching $2,000 in price.

Where Xiaomi looks stronger than Samsung, and where it does not

On paper, Xiaomi’s advantages over Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 are easy to scan:

• Bigger battery: 6,000mAh on Xiaomi, 4,800mAh on Samsung
• Shorter, wider screens: roughly 1.4:1 on both Xiaomi displays
• Triple rear camera: including a 200-megapixel main sensor
• New Arm GPU: Mali G2-Ultra NX with neural graphics support
• Peak brightness: up to 4,000 nits on both OLED displays

The weaker points are also clear. The 18 Fold is slightly heavier and thicker than the Galaxy Z Fold 8. Xiaomi has not announced any IP rating for the phone, which matters if you care about dust or water resistance.

The crease may also be more visible. In The Verge’s hands-on impressions, the 18 Fold’s crease looked more obvious than on Samsung’s foldables from this year. Oppo is described as the only company to have all but eliminated the foldable crease with its Find N6.

Software does not appear to be a major differentiator. Xiaomi includes split-screen apps and floating windows, but The Verge says Xiaomi has not shown foldable software flourishes that are unavailable elsewhere.

Should you preorder the Xiaomi 18 Fold or wait for Apple?

For most readers outside China, the answer is to wait. Xiaomi has not confirmed whether the 18 Fold will launch internationally, so importing one may mean dealing with availability, support, and software questions that are not answered in the supplied reporting.

The 18 Fold makes more sense if all of these apply:

• You are in China or comfortable buying a China-first device
• You want a short, wide foldable rather than a taller design
• You care about a 6,000mAh battery and fast charging specs
• You want a triple rear camera on a book-style foldable
• You are interested in Arm’s new Android gaming graphics features

Waiting makes more sense if you want to compare Apple’s foldable directly, need a confirmed IP rating, dislike visible creases, or depend on specific apps that may not behave well on a short cover display. The Apple device is still expected rather than announced in the sources, so the practical comparison should happen after Apple confirms what it is selling.

There is also a wider pricing issue hanging over every flagship phone. The Verge reports that soaring memory costs are pushing phone prices higher across the tech industry, with AI demand adding pressure to memory supply. That does not confirm Apple’s next iPhone price, but it explains why premium phones may feel more expensive across brands.

Conclusion

Xiaomi’s 18 Fold is the clearest new challenger here: a short, wide foldable with a large battery, high-brightness OLED screens, a triple Leica-branded camera system, and Arm’s newest mobile graphics hardware. Huawei is part of the same foldable design shift in the reporting, while Apple’s expected foldable iPhone remains the product buyers have not seen yet.

If you are outside China, wait for Xiaomi’s international plans and Apple’s official announcement before spending flagship money. If you are in China and want the widest confirmed spec sheet now, compare the 18 Fold’s strengths against its missing IP rating and visible-crease concerns before preordering.