Daily Authority: 👐 Xiaomi's cheaper Fold 4 alternative

🔥 Happy Friday! It’s still pretty hot and miserable, and I don’t know about you but I’m ready for summer to be over. I simply cannot reconcile my desire to be eco-friendly with my need to turn on the air conditioning.

Xiaomi’s second-gen foldable Mix Fold 2

The internet is abuzz with news about the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4, but over on the other side of the planet, Xiaomi announced a fairly compelling alternative.

• The Mix Fold 2 comes more than a year after the first model and with several key improvements.
• There are the obvious spec enhancements, like a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, 67W charging, 120Hz LTPO internal display, and 120HZ AMOLED external display.
• It runs a custom UI called MIUI Fold 13, based on Android 12. Like the Z Fold 4, it has a taskbar and multiwindow enhancements baked in.
• However, the big departure here is size: it comes in at just 5.4mm thick when unfolded, or 11.2mm when folded.
• Compared to the Z Fold 4 at 6.3mm and 15.8mm, that’s incredibly slim for a foldable.
• It’s also priced pretty competitively. It starts at 8,999 yuan (~$1,336), which is more than $100 cheaper than its predecessor.
• That’s also a lot less than the Z Fold 4’s starting price of $1,799.

The bad news

• For now, there are no indications that the device will see a global release.
• The first Mix Fold never made it out of China, and Xiaomi has always prioritized the Chinese market over everything else for its products.
• Still, there’s a small chance the Mix Fold 2 at least makes it to Europe, where Xiaomi gained a significant foothold last year.
• If it does, it might give the Z Fold 4 a run for its money, which would be great because, for now, Samsung is the only player in the game.
• On the (Z) flipside, the only competitor is the Motorola Razr 2022, which was also just announced, and is also a China exclusive.
• It starts at 6,000 Chinese yuan (~$888), which is again cheaper than the Samsung alternative.

Roundup

🤑 While we’re on the topic of foldables, Samsung made screen repair so cheap it could change your mind on the budding tech. It’s up to 90% cheaper (Android Authority).

📲 Of course, you should still get a case. Here are the best cases for the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4 (Android Authority).

💡 Sneaky: Nothing Phone 1 brightness rating dropped by 40% while no one was looking, and the company quietly changed its advertising to match (Android Authority).

🏭 Despite rumors of higher prices, Apple is not expecting a drop in iPhone demand, asking suppliers to make 90 million iPhone 14 units (MacRumors).

📶 How’s that for entrepreneurial spirit: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes (Arstechnica).

🤖 Mark Zuckerberg was roasted by the new Meta chatbot, which called him “too creepy and manipulative” (Newsweek).

🤔 Amazon just greenlit a reality show called “Ring Nation” that uses candid footage from its surveillance network. Perfect viewing for our current surveillance dystopia (Vice).

🖨️ Planned obsolescence run amock: Bricked Epson printers make a strong case for user repairability (The Verge).

🚄 Elon Musk admitted that Hyperloop was an attempt to get legislators to cancel plans for high-speed rail in California — even though he had no plans to build it (Time).

🍿 Get ready for the weekend with the best new streaming TV shows and movies. Personally, I’ll be watching Prey (Android Authority).

📵 You have 24 hrs with no internet or mobile phone access, what do you do to pass the time? (r/askreddit).

Friday fun

I’d like to complain about the heat just a bit more, but this time with an educational spin! A meteorologist from the University of Reading put together a little experiment to show the dangers of flooding after periods of intense heat.

Essentially, the wet and normal grass absorbed water at a fairly quick pace, while the very dry ground barely budged. In practical terms, this shows why there’s a big danger of flash flooding after a sudden deluge of rain.

You can watch the full gif here, but I highly recommend you also check out the comments. There are lots of insights from hydrologists, geologists, and other science nerds if you want to learn more.

While we’re on the topic, here are some of the best heatwave movies to check out…

Stay frosty,

Nick Fernandez, Editor.