Xiaomi Mi MIX Alpha 2

Everybody has been talking about the Xiaomi Mi MIX Alpha ever since it launched. Some consider it to be too much in the way a concept phone would look and work, while others think this device is highly impractical. Now there are already people dreaming of a successor, codenamed Papyrus. Let’s check it out.

Xiaomi Mi MIX Alpha 2 or Xiaomi Mi MIX Alpha P, as the designer calls it was envisioned by designer Batyrkhan Bayaliev from Kyrgyzstan, who did a fine job with this concept. This time he went with the foldable route, or should I say… expandable. The device codenamed Papyrus is able to expand far beyond its regular diagonal, on account of having two scroll-like mechanisms on the sides.

The core design stays the same, albeit narrower a bit compared to the Mi MIX Alpha. We have a face that’s all screen, except for the top and bottom. Said screen continues on the sides and towards the back, where there’s less of a display estate than on the first model. Papyrus is at its core a narrow smartphone, that can roll sideways and become a much larger tablet.

It can also become even more compact, basically the size of two pens or a huge Snickers bar if you want. It takes on the idea of the Galaxy Fold and makes it even narrower, while allowing the screen to roll like a scroll on two side axis. You just pull from the sides and roll the flexible OLED screen to expand the diagonal to tablet sizes like 7 or 8 inches, maybe more.

It’s rather ingenious and the two parts meet at the back, leaving the front crease-free. I’d take this phone in a heart beat over the Galaxy Fold or the Mi Mix Alpha. Hopefully someone at Xiaomi sees this designer’s work… We also have a very fine video of the concept done by ConceptsiPhone below, for a 3D view of the whole thing… Graphene batteries also come to mind here and several Samsung patents of rollables and foldables.