Best Foldable Smartphones Of 2021: Xiaomi vs Samsung vs Huawei By XDA

So foldable smartphones have been quite a divisive and controversial topic in the smartphone space, while some people like me, totally believe in the form factor and think it's the future mobile. There are a lot of vocal consumers who find foldable phones to be gimmicky. They find it either too expensive or too fragile. Of course, the fact that the very first galaxy fold released by Samsung literally broke in the hands of reviewers didn't help matters, but then foldable smartphones kept getting better and better. The gauss's e42 drew critical, reclaim for good reason. The phone feels very durable, a big improvement over the original fold, and I've been using this phone for seven or eight months now, and many other reviewers have also used it for that same amount of time, and none of us have had any durability, quality control issues yet with the z42.

So the fragility part seems to have been solved, but this phone is still relatively expensive at 2 000 us dollars. Of course, Huawei's max 2 didn't help matters too by launching at a crazy 18 000 Chinese yuan, which is 2 700 us dollars. But this is where the Xiaomi mix fold comes into play. This phone just went on sale in China for 999 Chinese yuan, which comes out to 1 500 us dollars now, 1 500 is still a little on the high side, but it's starting to get reasonable. This is not that much more expensive than a new iPhone or a new Samsung Galaxy s21 ultra.

So the z42 solved the durability issues and the mix fold solve the pricing issue. So that means we're not that far off now, maybe another half a year or one year away from foldable smartphones being a practical purchase for regular consumers, so which one should you buy? What's the best foldable phones of 2021 so far, hi, I'm Ben, and you're, watching DA TV, since the meme x4 is the newest phone on the block. Let's go over the hardware really quick, so you have a 6.5 inch OLED display on the outside. This is a 27 by 9 aspect ratio. So it's quite tall and narrow it.

Actually, it's quite refreshing because you can use this phone with one hand really easily. Even if typing is a little cramped open it up, you have an eight inch OLED display on the inside. It looks very vibrant and punchy, it gets a maximum brightness of 600 nits, and it supports 10 bit color output. Now, unfortunately, this is only a 60 hertz panel. So it's not the zippiest or most fluid screen around inside the phone is a snapdragon triple a with either 12 or 16 gigs of ram and either 256 or 512 gigs of internal storage.

Look at the camera system, so you have a triple camera array right here, we'll start with the middle sensor. This is a 108 megapixel camera, with an image sensor, size of one over 1.58 inch down below you have a 13, megapixel, ultra-wide angle, camera and up top. This is something new we've never seen before. This is an 8 megapixel liquid lens, so this liquid lens is built in house by Xiaomi and what it is its basically one lens that can do two things. So this liquid lens is both three times.

Telephoto zoom lens and a macro lens now the phone measures 17.2 millimeters in thickness, so it is a little thicker than the gauss's e42, which is 16.8 millimeters and the Huawei Mate x2. This is the thinnest of the three at 14.7 millimeter. The hinge of the mix 4 is pretty sturdy and well-built, but unfortunately, but unfortunately it does not stay locked in place like the galaxy z42, sometimes the overall hardware, the mix phone, it's mostly similar to the z42 more than the mate x2. The z42 also has a relatively narrow display, 6.5 inches, and when you open it up, you have a 7.6 inches inside, but this is a 120 hertz panel compared to just the 60 hertz panel of the mix fold now like I said, this hinge, actually stays locked into place, which brings a very practical use, a lot of times I'll set the phone up like this, and I'll be able to film myself if I'm doing something like a workout or for video calls. So this is a phone that you don't need to prop it up against a wall or have a tripod, because you can actually film yourself like that now, because this phone came out late last year, the chipset inside is just a snapdragon 865, plus not the snapdragon triple eight.

Now around the back. The z42's camera system was pretty underwhelming even going by last year when it was brand new. So right now it's totally lagging behind the other two foldable phones. You only have a trio of 12 megapixels, sensors here and the image sensor size are not that large. So whether it's megapixel camera image sensor size, it falls to both the Xiaomi mix phone and the Huawei max2, and this zoom lens is just two times: optical zoom lens that maxes out at 10 times, digital zoom.

This is where the Huawei makes 2 completely trumps, the other two phones. It is the first foldable phone to have a periscope zoom lens inside. This is 10 times, optical periscope zoom lens. So you can get 10 times, zoom shots, that's completely lossless! Maybe you flip it around the front. You have a 6.5 inch display, but this 6.5 inch display feels a lot more natural to use because it is not as tall and narrow. It is more of a traditional smartphone aspect ratio and then, once you open up the May x2 Huawei's lead jumps further.

This is an 8-inch display without a noticeable crease. Compared to the mix fold. I mean they both look great straight up, but when you tilt it to the side, you can see the crease on the remix fold, whereas you cannot see the crease on the Huawei Mate x2. This is also the case for the galaxy z42. When you tilt it to the side, you see the crease in Samsung's foldable, whereas the Huawei makes 2, you have to go more extreme, just to be able to see the crease.

Basically, this display design is a little better, so Huawei managed to get rid of the crease because it built this dual fold hinge system where the screen doesn't fold completely flat. Now we're just going by pure hardware, the May x2 pretty handily beats the Xiaomi mix fold and the Samsung Galaxy z4 2. But then there are some caveats: the Huawei mates 2 is by far the most expensive phone of the three like I said: it costs 2, 700 us dollars and due to us government restrictions, you cannot run google apps on this phone unless you hack the phone, and it can run. Google apps without any issues, makes the mix fold a lot more appealing than the May x2, at least to people outside of China. So I think for most viewers watching this video, the mate x2 is kind of like a fantasy device.

Just to kind of you look at this phone to kind of have an idea what you would want from Samsung for the z43, so we're just comparing these two phones. The 42 has a better screen of the main screen, at least because it has a 120 hertz refresh rate, whereas the mi mix 4 only has a 60 hertz, but then in return, the mix phone has a better cam system. It has a more pixel, dense, main camera. It has a zoom lens that can zoom further, and it has snapdragon triple eight compared to snapdragon 865 plus. This is not quite a fair comparison, obviously, because this phone has been out for seven months already.

The zfo3 is probably coming, but right now in a vacuum, and we do have to compare the remix fold wins slightly, and it's also cheaper too, but then, ultimately, I think these three devices prove that foldable phones are here to state xevo2. It's built like a tank, it's premium feeling, and it's very durable, at least after heavy use. On my end, the mix fold may not feel as premium, but it's also several hundred dollars cheaper. It's actually the mix fold, it's 1500, which is not that far off from just getting a new iPhone, and it can do a lot more than an iPhone and yet Huawei max2. This is the apex, affordable hardware right now, it's a little expensive, but if you can afford it- and you don't need to google, this phone is mind-blowing in terms of hardware and the may 2, while too expensive for most people are kind of like a sign of what we can expect from future.

Foldable Huawei is obviously pricing this at a crazy price for now, but maybe in a year or two all foldable phones can look and feel like this and cost 1 500 so yeah. If you're doubting foldable phones before, I think it's time to reevaluate your stance because foldable phones are here to stay. So if you are interested in purchasing the mix phone, the z42 or even the Huawei Mate x2 check out the description where we'll have purchase links in the description and also visit xd8developers. com, where we're going to have a written version of this article with more product shots and more photo samples. So that's about it for this video thanks for watching, I'm Ben from mixed state developers take care.

Source : XDA