Shadowing Practice: Xiaomi made an iPhone Duo. It’s Unhinged. - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
1
Yeah, Xiaomi's just done it again, except this time it's even more blatant.
2
Do you remember last year when Apple released the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, and then two weeks later Xiaomi released their 17 Pro and Pro Max?
3
How they literally skipped the number 16 so the names would match?
4
Well, this year they are coming for Apple's throat.
5
Clearly they've been paying attention to the iPhone duo, and clearly this Xiaomi 18 fold is designed to destroy it.
6
But what I'm curious to see is, obviously the Xiaomi is going to obliterate Apple on specs, but having used both phones, have they also managed to deliver a better overall experience?
7
So first things first, in classic Xiaomi fashion, you get everything you need with the phone.
8
So unlike the iPhone Duo, which will literally ship with just the phone and a cable, here you get that, plus the charging brick,
9
and an official phone case.
10
Imagine that.
11
Oh gosh, I swear these boxes are all opening up the wrong way.
12
But look at this, this isn't some cheap clear plastic afterthought that's just been thrown in.
13
Let's get that phone open.
14
So if there's any doubt in your mind that this Xiaomi is built to go up against the iPhone Duo.
15
Let me fix that for you.
16
It's the same size, and I mean literally the same size.
17
Height -wise, we are talking bang on to the tenth of a millimeter as the Duo.
18
And on this same -sized body is a same -sized 5 .4 -inch cover display.
19
So you get all the pocketability benefits of the Duo, but also because it's so wide, it's just as much of a stretch when you're trying to single -thumb your way through.
20
And this display is not just the same size, it's the same outline.
21
Same flat edge on the left, same really large radius corners on the right.
22
And I think this is great.
23
It uses all the available space that you have and more importantly stops it looking like a Google Pixel fold.
24
God I hate those corners.
25
But here's where it gets funny.
26
The phones even share the exact same 1 .4 to 1 aspect ratio
27
which I think is one of the best things about the new iPhone
28
because it's the same ratio as a sheet of A4 paper
29
which is specifically designed to scale perfectly
30
when you fold it in half into A5 so
31
that you can print the same document in any size and nothing's going to get misaligned or cropped out.
32
Which means that just like the Duo, this 5 .4 inch cover display opens up to a 7 .6 inch inner display that's basically the exact same rectangle,
33
just bigger.
34
So any app or game that's optimized for one of your screens is in theory optimized for both of your screens.
35
And I can't quite believe I'm saying this, but the crease is also like 98 % erased from existence.
36
You absolutely will forget that it's there most of the time.
37
So, now that we've established how uncannily similar the two devices are, what has Xiaomi done to actually top Apple?
38
I know I said it's not just about specs, but they're a pretty good place to start.
39
You'll enjoy this.
40
We'll keep score.
41
The Xiaomi's thinner, 5 .02mm compared to the iPhone's 5 .2.
42
So it's still not like a razor -thin phone, but the difference adds up when it's folded, because then we're talking 10 .7mm against Apple's 11 .3.
43
But what I'm noticing even more is the weight.
44
I shouldn't do this, I literally have one of these.
45
This is 219g versus Apple's 254.
46
That's huge.
47
That's the difference between Xiaomi being one of the lightest foldables of the year and Apple being the heaviest.
48
And it's lighter while carrying a 6 ,000 milliamp hour silicon carbon battery.
49
That's more than any iPhone, any Galaxy, any Pixel, including the ones that don't have to fold themselves in half.
50
So it absolutely slaughters the 4 ,700 -ish of the iPhone.
51
And this delivers.
52
This is the longest lasting foldable I've ever used, with faster charging too.
53
67 watts against Apple 60.
54
And really, that Apple number deserves an asterisk, because the charger they sell you to hit that is not a true 60 -watt charger.
55
It's a 40 watt that can, for a few minutes, scale up to 60 to speed up the beginning.
56
There's brighter displays.
57
Xiaomi calls them Super Sunlight Panels because of their 4000 nits of brightness versus Apple 3000.
58
They've got a similar looking horizontal camera array, which only serves to highlight the fact that there is a whole extra third camera here.
59
So we've got a 200 megapixel main, and resolution's not the most important spec, but it can actually let you take 200 megapixel selfies,
60
which is enough detail to make any human alive pretty insecure there's a 50 megapixel ultrawide
61
and then the key thing that the other passport sized folds have skipped a telephoto camera
62
which is also 50 megapixel with a 3 .5 times optical zoom
63
and it's all topped off with space for two physical sims
64
instead of apple zero an ir blaster to use it as
65
a tv remote pre -installed screen protector on the cover display
66
and they've done a heck of a better job than i would have done face unlock
67
which is not face ID levels of secure so you won't use it for banking, but just for getting into your phone, it is less hassle than the Touch ID that you're going to have to resort to on the Duo.
68
Oh yeah, and it's less expensive.
69
I was going to say cheaper.
70
Definitely ain't cheap, starting at the equivalent of $1 ,640, which is still a pretty big saving compared to Apple's straight up 2Gs.
71
So if we were just talking about on -paper hardware, then as every single person watching this probably expected, it is a total whitewash for Xiaomi.
72
But the software might actually be their bigger flex.
73
Apple was very proud at the launch event of the iPhone Duo
74
that they could now finally offer two -app multitasking on a smartphone.
75
Wow.
76
The future is now, folks.
77
You want to know how many this phone can do?
78
Let's try, shall we?
79
Let's start with YouTube.
80
I'll watch a video of a phone that I don't need.
81
Alright, well, now I want to buy the phone I don't need.
82
So let's throw that to the side and pull open AliExpress.
83
Ooh, I wonder what other shopping apps I could find it on.
84
Let's get the Play Store open.
85
And every shopping spree also needs a soundtrack.
86
Spotify.
87
There you go.
88
So that is four apps all running at the same time.
89
Are we done?
90
No. No, we are not.
91
Because a new phone also needs a new wallpaper, right?
92
Pinterest is a pretty good way to find that.
93
Oh, wow.
94
These car ones are really cool.
95
But then, hmm, just for science.
96
Of course, if any of these cars happen to be available on Autotrader, it might be worth finding out, right?
97
That's six apps, and it treats them as a single group, so I can swipe the whole lot away in one go, and then bring them all back with one tap on the dock.
98
All right, now I'm done. Or am I?
99
Because then I need to figure out how much I'm actually spending.
100
So let's get the calculator.
101
Stick that in a floating window.
102
Oh, yeah, that's a pretty large number.
103
I guess we'll need the dial pad, too might as well apologise to Drisha before she sees the bank statement.
104
Six multitasking apps and two floating windows, all running at the same time.
105
You can flick between the apps by tapping at the edges like this.
106
You can resize each individual window by just dragging.
107
And if you swipe in with at least four fingers, you can see everything that's running at once.
108
You can reorder it and even just jump directly into the app you want.
109
Yeah, I mean, I guess you can have another point, Xiaomi.
110
Now, clearly, this is an incredibly fiddly niche maneuver that I don't expect many users will be maxing out.
111
But the point is, you can.
112
And the phone keeps up.
113
And there's something really mentally reassuring about the fact that the only limit is how much you can keep track of, not how much the company has decided you're allowed.
114
And you're not even constrained to keeping your ATAPs as half screeners, you could even just drag them all the way open
115
and use them like they're tablet apps while retaining this ability to quickly dive in and out of them.
116
So, Xiaomi's strategy is pretty clear here.
117
Just like what they did last year, the goal with this 18 fold is to 1 release something that looks very comparable to the new iPhone, and that's software just as much as it is hardware.
118
I mean, even Apple's liquid glass appears to have made it over.
119
2 release it right around when the new iPhone launches.
120
3 flex the visually obvious things that this can do that Apple can't.
121
Clearly there's plenty of those.
122
And finally, just accept that you're going to make less money per unit and sell it at a lower price.
123
Put all of this stuff together and it's a knockout combo for fast tracking your way to the center of the conversation.
124
However, there's a very important detail that gets skimmed over in that conversation, and it's a detail that Xiaomi doesn't really want you to think about.
125
See, the thing that's actually impressive and unique about the iPhone Duo is not so much the hardware itself, It's mostly the way that the software is custom -built around that hardware.
126
And that is the subtle ingredient that Xiaomi is very much still lacking.
127
Like, we all saw that absolutely bonkers opening and closing animation on the Duo, right?
128
It's a lot simpler here.
129
You start opening, and then about halfway through, the inner screen will just sort of pop on.
130
And more importantly, while we talked about how this screen takes very good advantage of the space, the apps don't take very good advantage of the screen.
131
So you know how Apple redesigned their dock and they put it to the side?
132
They remade the status icons to display them in a more compact way that could fit just above that.
133
And how they put search into the bottom corner so you don't have to stretch as much.
134
Well, what you're seeing here feels a little bit like Xiaomi took their very typical smartphone slash tablet software, they loaded it into this very unusual shape,
135
decided that actually it translates pretty well, and then shipped it.
136
That's why you have these margins on the side that are just empty.
137
Nothing's using that space, because on a normal phone, that space doesn't exist.
138
Now, that's not to say that there aren't good things going on here.
139
It's really cool how the app icons rotate into a landscape view as they're being opened, and then reverse back into position when you close them.
140
I like how if you open settings, for example, on the front, you'll get a typical phone view, which will then morph into an expanded tablet view when you open the phone.
141
Or how when I pull down the notification shade, I can dismiss notifications with a really easy tap from my right thumb.
142
But the point is, it's also very easy to find things that haven't been thought through.
143
Like it feels pretty sloppy that Xiaomi's own camera app has not just black bars, but uneven black bars on the top and bottom.
144
Xiaomi's own weather app looks great when it's closed, but when you open it, you'll find the numbers look really low res because they're just being stretched.
145
And third -party apps are.. worse.
146
I mean, YouTube looks decent enough when it's full screened.
147
But absolutely terrible as soon as you split screen it.
148
Parts of the Netflix UI get messed up any time you rotate the device.
149
Pokémon Champions puts its menu button underneath my selfie camera.
150
Even the Google Play Store doesn't quite know how to behave on this screen.
151
Sometimes the text will randomly jump around, it's weirdly laggy, and this is genuinely a fraction of the oddities that I've experienced.
152
At the start, I thought, maybe this is because it's only launching in China right now, so the Chinese apps will be fine, right?
153
Uh, nope.
154
Genuinely, even many of the pre -installed ones, they open like this.
155
It's not good.
156
Now, in fairness, we don't know yet how third -party apps are going to behave on the Duo either.
157
That's, like, the first thing I'm going to test when I get my own.
158
But what I can say is that at least everything
159
that was pre -installed on that phone did use the screen space well, and that is just not the case here.
160
Oh, literally, as I say it, what on earth is it doing here?
161
But the thing is, if you think about the economics of it, all of this kind of makes sense.
162
Apple is expecting to sell many more units of their duo than Xiaomi's going to sell of this.
163
So there's a much bigger payoff from them investing in building a truly unique software experience for that phone.
164
Apple makes far fewer models in a year than Xiaomi does, so they can give each phone more time.
165
And most importantly, Apple's charging more per phone, so it's worth it for them to do that.
166
But even with this, if software optimization was the only compromise, I still think Xiaomi's got enough going for it to say that it is outdoing Apple.
167
Because don't forget, software gets better over time with updates.
168
Apple can't exactly patch the fact that their smartphone weighs about as much as a baby hippo.
169
Don't fact check me on that.
170
Unfortunately for Xiaomi though, that is not the only issue.
171
See, the more complex that smartphones become, the less that I would say just reading the specs is actually telling the full story.
172
Like the main reason that this phone is so much lighter is
173
that this entire frame is aluminium instead of the iPhone's titanium.
174
So there's an immediate trade -off in durability and particularly scratchability.
175
I would expect this to look worse for the wear in a few years time.
176
I mean just like every other aluminium phone I've used.
177
Now to be honest I wouldn't have minded this at all
178
since aluminum does have the upside of getting heat out of your phone.
179
Except this phone also seems to have a thermal problem.
180
So fun fact, there's actually a Xiaomi -designed chip in here.
181
It's their second ever chip and they're quoting enormous numbers like a 60 % faster CPU
182
and 85 % faster GPU while drawing 64 % less power compared to their first.
183
Not to mention
184
that the top storage model of this thing is the first smartphone in the world to come with LPDDR6 RAM,
185
which can transfer data faster than the DDR5 that you'll get on everything else.
186
And in normal use, it's okay.
187
You can play games in 30 minute stints without any kind of issue.
188
It's just, when pushed, when I opened up a 3DMark stress test, it actually couldn't finish.
189
The phone didn't just throttle, it specifically overheated, had a panic attack, and force closed the test, barely 10 minutes in.
190
And this wasn't a one -off I did this twice with the exact same result.
191
So I whipped out my thermal camera just to be sure
192
and what's really interesting is that can you see the side of the phone where the chip is was searing hot.
193
The other barely heated up at all.
194
Or to put this another way this phone is doing an
195
incredibly poor job at redistributing the heat that's coming from the chip to the rest of the phone
196
which can lead to a whole menu of longevity issues.
197
And even the cameras are pretty caveated.
198
Like 200 megapixel on the main camera sounds fancy right?
199
But it starts to sound a little less fancy when you realise that as far as sensor size is concerned, which is much more important,
200
this main camera is the same size as that of a base iPhone 17.
201
And as far as the output is concerned, it looks a lot worse, but you'll see that in a minute.
202
And the ultrawide camera is just quite bad.
203
When you record videos with it, you can absolutely tell that this is a compromised camera, with grain creeping in, even in well -lit scenarios like this.
204
And then I guess you got the final sprinkles where Xiaomi's also missing a bunch of the small
205
but important foldable refinements that Apple made with the Duo.
206
Like there's no stylus support here on either one of its two screens.
207
The hinge does not feel as high quality.
208
It's got a slightly scratchy sound and at certain points you'll also hear a very random click.
209
Like just compare the way that this sounds when opening versus a Samsung Z Fold 8.
210
Oh, that's good.
211
There's none of that nano -texture goodness that we got on the iPhone, which is a bit of a triple L, to be honest, because it means that you don't get the immensely powerful anti -reflectiveness of it.
212
You do get, in its place, fingerprints everywhere, all the time.
213
And then the crease, which, while it is about the same depth as Apple's, is a little less hidden here,
214
because you don't have this extra layer above it that is designed to disguise it.
215
Oh yeah, and the speakers too are quite grating, to the point where I actually find myself turning them down lower than I otherwise would to reduce the harshness.
216
So, back to the question.
217
Has Xiaomi built, then, a better phone than the iPhone Duo?
218
I don't think so.
219
This feels like a tick box of a phone, and it's definitely ticked a lot of boxes,
220
which do create some undeniable advantages here versus the iPhone that it is so clearly trying to take on, like its weight and price and a whole extra camera.
221
But I think in focusing so much on trying to tick those boxes, the companies forgot to zoom out and make sure that the overall experience feels well -rounded and optimised.
222
Like the main camera I was talking about.
223
So one of these is a Xiaomi, one of them is an iPhone.
224
And while you decide which, I learned a new word today, smishing.
225
So I realised that Drisha and I have actually been smished about three times this week.
226
it's very fun to say but it's not fun to experience
227
so smishing is basically sms based scams and i don't know about you
228
but i have noticed these everywhere now and not just
229
because i keep ordering weird phones from aliexpress i just find
230
myself constantly having to second guess like did i definitely order a package
231
that is shipped with this career or is this a scam
232
so i'm actually very relieved that surfshark our sponsor has just popped out a smishing tool
233
that does that for me so
234
if it detects a scam it automatically moves it to the spam folder in my messages app.
235
That, plus the billion other benefits of Surfshark, like a really fast, very secure VPN, like an alternate ID feature, like the best price in town.
236
With the code BOSS it's literally $2 a month with a 30 day money back guarantee.
237
Okay, ready to find out which phone is which?
238
I hope you got this right.
239
That's the iPhone, that's the Xiaomi.
240
Catch you in the next one.
📺 Same Channel
B21
The Gaming Market is Starting to Break.
British AccentBusiness EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
iPhone Duo/18 Pro Hands On - Beyond Impressive.
British AccentBusiness EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
Mac vs Windows - It's not close in 2026!
British AccentBusiness EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B24
World's Cheapest vs Most Expensive Laptop!
British AccentBusiness EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B25
I bought the most SATISFYING TECH on the internet.
British AccentBusiness EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B27
The Best TINY Tech on the Internet!
British AccentBusiness EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
✨ Recommend Video
B2214
24 sentences
How Cell Phones Impact Our Relationships
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B22
40 sentences
The Chinese Name That's Better Than the Original
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
108 sentences
We made YOUR Dream Phone
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
250 sentences
Embedded Insiders: Qualcomm's Acquisition of Arduino
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
211 sentences
Why I Stopped Reviewing Cars from XPeng - XPeng GX Review
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
126 sentences
2026 iPad mini - The BIGGEST Upgrade Yet!
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
251 sentences
The Pixel 11 Pro Isn't Really a Phone
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
175 sentences
How scammers steal iPhones
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2371 sentences
Building the world's largest WORKING iPhone!
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
69 sentences
Red Note Q&A - Half a Million Followers and Monetizing
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Xiaomi made an iPhone Duo. It’s Unhinged”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Xiaomi, iphone, app, apple, duo. This video has 240 sentences and 3293 words to shadow. The speech runs for 17:17. The speaker talks fast, about 191 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| fold verb | /ˈfəʊld/ | To bend (any thin material, such as paper) over so that it comes in contact with itself. |
| megapixel noun | One million pixels, used as a unit of resolution of digital cameras. | |
| smartphone noun | /ˈsmɑɹtfoʊn/ | A mobile phone with more advanced features and greater computing capacity than a feature phone. |
| smishing noun | A type of identity theft committed by means of a malicious link that is contained within a text message. | |
| spectacles noun | /ˈspɛktəkl̩z/ | A pair of lenses set in a frame worn on the nose and ears in order to correct deficiencies in eyesight or to ornament the face. |
| watt noun | /wɑt/ | In the International System of Units, the derived unit of power; the power of a system in which one joule of energy is transferred per second. |
| tablet noun | /ˈtæblət/ | A slab of clay, stone or wood used for inscription. |
| importantly adverb | /ɪmˈpɔɹ.tənt.li/ | Used to mark a statement as having importance. |
| crease noun | /kɹiːs/ | A line or mark made by folding or doubling any pliable substance; hence, a similar mark, however produced. |
| foldable adjective | That can be folded. | |
| multitasking noun | The simultaneous execution of multiple tasks (programs) under the control of an interrupt-driven operating system. | |
| optimize verb | /ˈɑptɪmaɪz/ | To act optimistically or as an optimist. |
| ultrawide adjective | extremely wide | |
| swipe verb | /swaɪp/ | To grab or bat quickly. |
| rotate verb | /ˈɹoʊ.teɪt/ | To spin, turn, or revolve. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. |
| open up verb | To open. |
| add up verb | To take the sum of; to total. |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. |
| go up against verb | To challenge someone. |
| jump around verb | To move erratically by jumping. |
| keep up verb | To maintain; to preserve; to prevent from deteriorating or falling. |
| mess up verb | To make a mess of; to untidy, disorder, soil, or muss. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Let's get that phone open.
- You want to know how many this phone can do?
- Let's try, shall we?
- All right, now I'm done.
- Don't fact check me on that.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is designed · been thrown · is built |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | we've established · have skipped · they've done |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | Duo, which will · view, which will · concerned, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 65 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, you'll. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thumb /ˈθʌm/, thermal /ˈθɜːməl/, tenth /tɛnθ/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: notification /ˌnoʊtɪfɪˈkeɪʃn̩/, optimization /ˌɑptəmaɪˈzeɪʃən/, gosh /ɡɑːʃ/, fraction /ˈfɹæk.ʃən/, speculation /ˌspɛk.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: importantly /ɪmˈpɔɹ.tənt.li/, aluminium /ˌæl.(j)uˈmɪn.i.əm/, notification /ˌnoʊtɪfɪˈkeɪʃn̩/, genuinely /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/, optimization /ˌɑptəmaɪˈzeɪʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like fold, megapixel, smartphone.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.