Xiaomi 12 Pro is the newest flagship killer from Xiaomi, coming in April alongside a Xiaomi 12 and Xiaomi 12X.
Xiaomi company also offers budget phones under the names Redmi and Poco. With this budget device and also with its flagship devices, Xiaomi gets to the top 3 list of the most popular devices in the world.
With its excellent phones with good quality and low prices, in June 2021 they become the number one Smartphone Brand globally for the first time. So with this Xiaomi 12 series, they will become even better. But enough about Xiaomi company successes, let’s talk about Xiaomi 12 Pro.
Xiaomi 12 Pro is a flagship phone with around $1,000 price, and some best-in-class features like it’s 120W fast charging that powers the phone up fully in under 20 minutes. The Xiaomi 12 Pro stands to be the most fingerprint-resistant, with its excellent design and materials used to build this gorgeous device.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip inside the Xiaomi 12 Pro, with up to 12GB RAM. The phone’s 128GB or 256GB storage also impresses, though there’s no SD card slot, just a dual SIM slot, but with 256GB storage capacity, who needs the SD card, right?
Then there’s the Xiaomi 12 Pro’s battery capacity and charging speeds. While the capacity isn’t huge at 4600mAh, it’s optimized to get through a full day with between 10-20 percent power remaining.
What’s more impressive than the Xiaomi 12 Pro’s battery life is its charging speed. Powering up in just 18 minutes, the 120W charging is the fastest on any phone around right now. That the Xiaomi 12 Pro also has 50W wireless charging is just a sweetener to a very rounded smartphone spec mix.
Xiaomi 12 Pro release date and price
The price of this device is starting at $999 / £1,049 for the 8GB RAM 128GB storage option. With this price, and excelent performance and features, Xiaomi 12 Pro undercuts phones like the iPhone 13 Pro Max, Oppo Find X5 Pro, and Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. They all costs more than $1,000.
The Xiaomi 12 series releases on April 15, with pre-orders starting April 1.
Design
The squircle camera surround is now a more mature rounded rectangle; the frosted back is now a rich, silken finish that’s lustrous, still velvety to the touch, and supremely fingerprint resistant; and the color options are downplayed.
Xiaomi 12 Pro will be availible in Blue, Gray, and Purple, none are eye-popping or bright, with each color being slightly muted. This might sound bland, but it actually looks refined and ultimately grown up – even in the most ‘out there’ color, Purple.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro is a curved glass and metal phone. The display is Gorilla Glass Victus, while the frame is a matte, blasted metal that’s loosely color-matched with the back panel of the phone.
Weighing 205g, the Xiaomi 12 Pro is the same weight as an iPhone 13 Pro, and significantly lighter than the 240g Pro Max. It’s relatively slim at 8.2mm, though its tapered sides make it feel very elegant.
Also worth noting, the screen’s touch sensitivity works great even when being pelted by water droplets or handled with wet fingers.
Power and volume buttons are on the right, and a dual-SIM slot is at the base. On the front, it’s just curved glass and screen, while around the back is a stepped camera surround.
Display
The 12 Pro uses a Samsung LTPO AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. Xiaomi claims the variable refresh rate ranges from 1-120Hz, which should result in power saving benefits over phones like the Galaxy S22 Plus, whose screen drops down to 48Hz at the lower end. Indeed, swiping through the UI and scrolling through Twitter are smooth.
It’s also handy you can set the refresh rate to 90Hz, and the resolution to 1080p (at a software level), so you can save battery if need be.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro’s screen is also sharp with its WQHD+ resolution, giving it a pixel density of 521PPI – higher than an iPhone 13 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus; and with a superior peak brightness to most phones at 1500 nits, HDR10+ video looks fantastic, and outdoor viewability is no problem.
Side-by-side with some of the best phones around, the Xiaomi 12 Pro’s brightness comes into its own during video playback, with bright elements shining brilliantly. Colors are displayed accurately, and the phone has a range of display modes, with more granular control over color and white balance than most competitors.
Cameras
On paper, the Xiaomi 12 Pro’s camera is one of the weakest of any flagship. It has less reach with its optical zoom than the lower-cost Pixel 6 Pro, and the phone’s ultra-wide camera lacks autofocus, which the Oppo Find X3 Pro and Find X5 Pro feature. That means the Xiaomi 12 Pro can’t lock on to close-up objects with its widest field of view.
In reality, the phone’s triple 50MP camera mix still works great, with smart software helping it capture reliably good results, even if it isn’t class-leading.
Starting with specs, the Xiaomi 12 Pro’s primary 50MP camera is powered by an IMX707 Sony sensor. Measuring 1/1.28 inches, while it isn’t as large as the 1/1.12 sensor in the Mi 11 Ultra, it’s still one of the biggest camera sensors on the market, out-sizing that of the Galaxy S22 Ultra and Sony Xperia Pro-I.
While all the cameras are 50MP in resolution, only the main camera benefits from such a large sensor, so the telephoto and ultra-wide additions, which feature Samsung Isocell JN1 sensors, fall behind on quality. The ultra-wide camera has great color accuracy and a 115º field of view, though, misses out on autofocus just like the Galaxy S22 series.
Video capture on the Xiaomi 12 Pro is excellent in bright environments, with image stabilization working well even in 8K resolution, or 4K at 60 frames per second. Switching between the ultra-wide and main camera is smooth mid-record, though video capture appears to bypass the telephoto camera unless you start the recording zoomed-in.
In dim environments, the Xiaomi 12 Pro’s video quality loses out to the OPPO Find X5 Pro with its dedicated nighttime video ISP, and the Galaxy S22 Ultra, matching the S22 and S22 Plus more closely.
The 32MP selfie camera uses an OmniVision sensor, and while we haven’t had great results from the brand in the past, Xiaomi ekes out impressive photos from it, especially in well-lit scenes.
Performance and specs
With top-tier power, the Xiaomi 12 Pro is a capable gaming phone, and also tears through day-to-day tasks without getting too hot.
Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, it’s unsurprising that performance across almost all apps we used was so impressive. The version we tested also features an ample 12GB LPDDR5 RAM, so we didn’t expect any slowdown when switching between a bunch of apps.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro’s 128GB or 256GB UFS 3.1 storage also gives you plenty of optional space for files and apps, though there’s no SD card slot, just a dual SIM slot, so file hoarders might want to opt for the higher-capacity model.
Matched with quad speakers sporting Harman Kardon tuning and support for Dolby Atmos, the phone also sounds expansive and loud, though falls behind the iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max when it comes to rounded audio and depth in the bass notes.
Running Android 12 with Xiaomi’s MIUI interface over the top, there’s no doubt this is the best version of MIUI we’ve seen to date. Niggles experienced in the past – dark mode preventing interactive notifications from appearing clearly, the Control Center firing up glitches, and poor localization, amongst others, were all taken care of in the latest update.
MIUI still feels a bit bloated, with AliExpress and a host of Xiaomi apps pre-installed, but the fact it at least looks consistent and runs glitch-free is a huge step in the right direction.
Battery life
The Xiaomi 12 Pro’s battery capacity isn’t huge at 4600mAh, with most flagships clocking in at around 5000mAh these days. Nevertheless, the Xiaomi 12 Pro’s battery is still larger than that of the S22 Plus and the iPhone 13 Pro Max, two phones that make it through a day pretty comfortably.
In turn, we weren’t shocked that the Xiaomi 12 Pro easily got us from morning to night in our month with it, though it definitely isn’t a two-day smartphone.
There are a host of power settings to help eke out a bit more longevity out of a single charge, or indeed, drain the phone quicker. Performance mode enhances gaming oomph while using more power, while Battery Saver shuts off background processes, and Ultra Battery Saver disables all but the most basic features of the phone.
What’s more impressive than the battery life of the Xiaomi 12 Pro is its charging speed, which climbs up to 120W for a full charge in under 20 minutes.
While phones have historically given wireless charging a miss if they’ve packed class-leading wired speeds, Xiaomi crams fast 50W wireless charging in too and 10W reverse wireless charging. This means it can wirelessly charge at around double the rate an iPhone 13 Pro charges with a wire – very impressive.
