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Xiaomi patents a strange foldable but also retractable smartphone

March 29 2023

We see all the colors from Xiaomi: smartphones with dual rear mobile camera, with the antennas and all possible variants of smartphones folding. Indeed, regarding the latter sector it seems that the brand has not given up and has thought of a new model. Undoubtedly one of the most anticipated devices, besides Xiaomi Mi MIX 4, is Xiaomi Mi Flex. Commonly called this way it indicates the first folding smartphone of the brand. In the patent that we are going to see now a Xiaomi device is shown folding is…retractile.

Difficult to think but above all to make: a folding and retractable Xiaomi is shown in the brand's latest patent

Through the portal of the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) we found a prototype, or rather a patent of a very very particular Xiaomi device. The documentation was submitted on 30 September of the 2019 but it was accepted only a year later, on September 15 this year. It is in effect a folding Xiaomi but it is presented in two variants: one that folds on the long side (right or left) and one that folds on the short (bottom) side. Let's see the details through the images.

In the first image above we can see that the upper side features three cameras. These are placed inside a "retractable" mechanism but it does not include that of Xiaomi Mi MIX 3. While the latter allows you to raise the front of the device, in the patent in question the sscreen scrolls downwards in the true sense of the word. In fact the front panel is retractable and swipes to the back, making the gesture with the finger down. A kind of shutter, but in miniature. This would therefore allow the optics to be hidden through a “second generation” retractable mechanism. With this kind of technology it is possible, as can be seen from the second image, to take advantage of a true full screen: the “chin” or “chin” is in fact non-existent, since the curve of the display is in that position.

A second variant is shown in the patent, the one with side sliding mechanism instead of lower. In this model the cameras are placed on the long side of the device and go into hiding as in a wallet. In short, very smart options but also very difficult to make. Precisely for this reason it is impossible to say if the brand will really present smartphones of this kind in the future. Indeed, it is much easier to say that it won't do that at all given the level of difficulty and fragility.