Apple Made a Phone That Folds in Half

Apple's first folding iPhone, the iPhone Duo, goes on sale October 23. Pre-orders open a week earlier. Apple showed the phone on September 9, 2026. Apple is already selling the iPhone 18 Pro alongside it. Engadget

The Duo folds shut like a small notebook. It costs $1,999. It runs on Apple's A20 Pro chip, which handles its computing work. Apple announced the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max at the same September event. It published a Newsroom release titled "Apple unveils iPhone Duo." Reuters

Xiaomi, Oppo, Motorola and Samsung have all made folding phones much like the Duo. Most rivals now sell a folding phone in this short, wide shape. The closest match in size is the Xiaomi 18 Fold. It arrived just days before the Duo was shown. It went on sale across China after Apple's September launch. Both phones have a 7.6-inch screen inside and a 5.4-inch screen outside, with the same proportions.

The differences are weight, thickness, cameras and where you can buy them. The Xiaomi 18 Fold weighs 219 grams. The iPhone Duo weighs 254 grams. When folded, the Xiaomi measures 117.8 x 83.6mm. It is 10.68mm thick. The Xiaomi has three rear cameras. The Duo has two. It starts at 10,999 yuan (about $1,640). For now it is only sold in China.

Samsung uses a wider front screen. The Galaxy Z Fold8 has a 7.6-inch inner screen and a 5.5-inch outer screen in a wider folded shape. It has straight edges with no curved corners. It launched in August. It starts at $1,900, $100 less than the Duo. Engadget's review gave it 8.9 out of 10. The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra keeps a square-like shape.

OPPO is focused on the crease, the faint line where the screen bends, and pen use. The OPPO Find N6 is a folding flagship phone with Zero-Feel Crease. It has a 200MP Hasselblad camera. It works with the OPPO AI Pen. OPPO calls the Find N6 its latest flagship foldable. It is certified to stay flat even after 600,000 folds. It cuts long-term crease lines by up to 82%. OPPO

The older model still matters for thinness and charging speed. The OPPO Find N5 is 8.93mm thick when folded. It has a 5600mAh battery. It supports 80W SUPERVOOC charging and 50W AIRVOOC charging. It runs on the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. OPPO's first folding flagship was the OPPO Find N.

Xiaomi's lighter weight comes after years of work on hinges and materials. The Xiaomi MIX Fold 4 weighs 226g and uses Xiaomi's hinge 2.0. The Xiaomi MIX Flip weighs 192g and is 15.99mm thick when folded. The Xiaomi Mix Fold 3 is rated for up to 500,000 folds and uses very strong steel rated at 1800MPa. The MIX Fold 4 uses the Xiaomi Guardian Structure with S2 glass fiber on aramid fiber and ceramic. The 18 Fold is lighter than all past Xiaomi folding phones.

Folding phones will make up less than 3% of all phones sold in the world in 2026, according to IDC.

The broader context here is convergence rather than invention. Hinge ratings, inner screen size and outer screen shape have settled down across brands after years of tests. Weight tells part of the story. A 35-gram gap matters when you hold the phone open to read and do two things at once. Crease behavior matters more. OPPO's flatness test and Xiaomi's fold ratings set the toughness standard that phone carriers and business buyers will use for any new phone.

In my view, the practical gain is for app makers and heavy users. A 7.6-inch inner screen in this folded shape is now common across Xiaomi, Samsung and Apple. That sameness makes it easier to build large-screen layouts, pen tools and multitasking without betting on one brand's shape. I have watched my own children treat folding screens less as novelties and more as pocketable tablets. If that habit spreads, the Duo may help make the shape normal for Western apps that have treated it as a rare case.