Xiaomi launched back in 2019 patented triple designbut with today’s knowledge that kind of funky design will never work in the real world. There was another patent that showed a more sensible design, but it needed segments that could bend both ways, which can be tricky. A month ago, we heard rumors that Xiaomi would show a tri-fold phone (or at least a prototype of one) at MWC in February 2025. And now, a patent has been published by China’s National Intellectual Property Administration that shows what this device could look like.
The patent was issued in December 2022 and has been kept secret since then. Unlike that earlier design, this one is much more sensible and follows the same basic plan as the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate – there is only one screen that is fully accessible and you can expand it so that you only see a third of it.
The camera island is much smaller than the Mate XT’s, but that may just be wishful thinking in the patent. The individual segments on a tri-foldable need to be pretty thin to keep the folded thickness reasonable, pushing the camera modules into a thick island.
Xiaomi’s patent for a triple phone
Anyway, based on the August rumor, this tri-foldable will be part of the Xiaomi Mix series. However, it is not clear whether this will be the new Mix Fold or a separate series.
Huawei was the first, but several companies are working on triple designs. Xiaomi of course, but also Samsung. In 2022, Samsung demonstrated the Flex G conceptwhich folds inward twice (forming a sort of G-shape). Going back even further into 2020, Samsung Display’s blog shared some thoughts about tri-fold (and rollable) designs. Remember, this was just a year after the original Galaxy Fold launched.
We also went in 2020 hands-on with a TCL triple display conceptThe following year, a Microsoft patent showed a triple surface phone (although we’re pretty sure the Surface line is dead at this point). There are more contenders – this year we’ve seen triple concepts of Opposite And TechnologyLet’s say there is a Cambrian explosion of foldables in 2025.
Source (in Chinese)