Xiaomi has launched its premium flagship smartphone, the Xiaomi 12 Pro in India featuring a 6.73-inch 2K+ 120 Hz LTPO 2.0 display, a 120W fast charging, and is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. This is certainly the most powerful flagship smartphone from the company, and like its sibling Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge, the Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G also supports the superfast 120W fast charging alongwith 50W fast wireless charging. Here’s what you need to know about the smartphone in our Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G review.
Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G Specifications
- Display: 6.73-inch LTPO 2.0 E5 AMOLED 10-bit color display (1B colors), 2K+ resolution (3,200 x 1440 pixels, 522 ppi), 1-120 Hz adaptive refresh rate, 1,500 nits peak brightness, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, sRGB, 8,000,000:1 contrast ratio, Corning Gorilla Glass Victus
- Software: MIUI 13.0.4 interface, Android 12 operating system
- CPU: 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 (armv9) octa-core SoC clocked at 3.0 GHz, Kryo processor (Cortex-X2/A710/A510), 6 MB L3 cache, 7th generation AI Engine
- GPU: Adreno 730 Graphics
- Memory: 8 GB OR 12 GB LPDDR5-6400 RAM
- Storage: 128 GB OR 256 GB UFS 3.1 2-LANE internal storage
- Main Camera: Triple cameras (50 MP Sony IMX707 primary camera + 50 MP ultra-wide + 50 MP (48mm) telephoto camera), Optical Image Stabilization, EIS, 8K Video Recording, dual-LED flash
- Selfie Camera: 32 MP
- Others: In-display fingerprint scanner, Face Unlock, 4x quad stereo speakers tuned by Harman Kardon
- Cellular: 5G network, dual SIM, dual standby support
- Battery: 4,600 mAh battery
- Charging: 120W Xiaomi HyperCharge fast charging (100% in 18 mins), 50W Wireless Turbo Charging (100% in 42 mins), 10W reverse wireless charging, PD 3.0, QC 4+
- Price: ₹62,999 (8 GB + 128 GB), ₹66,999 (12 GB + 256 GB)
- Offers: ₹10,000 off introductory offer
Design, Display, & Build
Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G offers a sleek and solid design, with a smooth Velvet Matte Finish back and curved design, it looks highly mesmerizing. The matte back (which is more like a velvety frosted glass) gives you a soft touch and it shines in the sunlight. We got the Noir Black variant while there are two more – Opera Mauve, and Couture Blue. The design is highly sleek and premium with its metallic frames and curved edges, it’s also resistant to fingerprint smudges on the backside. It certainly has one of the best design builds in its segment.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G uses a new display technology, you will find a 2K+ display that uses LTPO 2.0 technology (low-temperature polycrystalline oxide). It is a special kind of backplane technology designed for AMOLED screens, we have seen it on the OnePlus 10 Pro 5G and the realme GT2 Pro – some of the contenders in this segment.
The Xiaomi flaunts has a 6.73-inch 2K+ display with 10-bit color depth (1B colors) utilizing the LTPO 2.0 technology and E5 AMOLED panel. The resolution is 2K+ (3200 x 1440 pixels, 522 ppi) along with an adaptive refresh rate of 1-120 Hz and peaks at a 1,500 nits brightness. The display also supports HDR10+, Dolby Vision, 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, sRGB, and an 8,000,000:1 contrast ratio.
The screen is covered with the new scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass Victus on the front side while the backside has a metallic build. You can see the triple camera bump on the rear side. The fingerprint scanner is under the display and you will find an in-screen selfie camera on the front which offers 32 MP.
The right side has a power button and volume controls. The top has a microphone, an IR Blaster, and loudspeakers. The bottom side also offers loudspeakers making them stereo. There are a total of 4 speakers inside – 2 dedicated woofers (100 Hz – 2 kHz) and 2 dedicated tweeters (2 kHz – 20 kHz), and these quad speakers are tuned by Harman Kardon. The sound quality is certainly good on the phone and far better than single or mono loudspeakers. The speakers support Qualcomm aptX, Dolby Atmos, and Hi-Res Audio (wired and wireless).
The bottom side also has a USB Type-C port for fast charging, data transfer, and audio output, a microphone, and a dual SIM tray. The tray supports dual SIMs with 5G functionality and dual standby, no microSD slot is available on the phone. You get a USB Type-C to 3.5 mm adapter in the box so that you can hop in any 3.5 mm earphones/headphones on this phone.
Software & User Interface
Unlike the Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge and other Redmi smartphones which are stuck with the older Android 11, the Xiaomi 12 Pro runs on the latest MIUI 13.0.4 user interface, and it’s now based on the newer Android 12. The security patch available on the phone is 2022/03/01. Xiaomi says the smartphone will receive 3 years of Android software updates and 4 years of security updates. You can at least expect the Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G to receive the MIUI update based on the next Android version.
The MIUI 13 offers all the latest features of the Android 12. About the MIUI 13 interface, you will see a bunch of new features which include upgrades in design, better background efficiency, faster processing, as well as longer battery life. Some features you see are added live wallpapers, themes, a new sidebar, and more.
The user interface runs smoothly, we didn’t notice any lags in the interface, everything is smooth thanks to its 120 Hz display, the MIUI offers a smoother UI experience and UI responsiveness. Please note that the display supports an adaptive refresh rate which can switch automatically from 1 Hz to 120 Hz (1Hz/10Hz/30Hz/60Hz/120Hz) depending on the scenario such as low battery life. Change the refresh rate in the display settings and set it to a custom refresh rate and choose 120 Hz for a throughout smoother experience.
No major bloatware is found aside from the GApps, Xiaomi apps, and a few more – Amazon, Facebook, Zili, Spotify. You can remove them if you don’t need them, the interface is clean and bloat-free.
Hardware, Performance, & Gaming
Moving to its performance section, the Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G is packed with the new flagship Qualcomm chip, Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 which is Qualcomm’s fastest SoC as of now after the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is the successor to the Snapdragon 888 which we saw last year in flagship smartphones. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is clocked at 3.0 GHz along with Adreno 730 GPU for high-end gaming.
The CPU is among the main highlights along with its 2K display. The performance has been significantly improved compared to the predecessor chip, Snapdragon 888. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is even faster than the Snapdragon 888 Plus, with about 20% more performance and 30% better power-saving than its predecessor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is the fastest CPU for Android-based smartphones and should be competing with the Apple A14 CPU.
About the CPU, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is a high-end fast SoC manufactured in a 4nm process consisting of 1+3+4 Kryo core configurations, one high-performance prime core ARM Cortex-X2 core clocked at 3.0 GHz, three performance ARM Cortex-A710 cores clocked at 2.5 GHz, and four power-efficient ARM Cortex-A510 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G competes with the OnePlus 10 Pro 5G and realme GT2 Pro due to their similar hardware and in the flagship segment. We took the phone and run some benchmarks to see how does it stands against the competition and how much it scores to get to the top. One of our Geekbench 5 benchmarks scored 1191 points in a single-core CPU benchmark and 3,533 points in a multi-core CPU benchmark. The GPU has scored 5,904 points which means it has enough power to handle high-end GPU tasks.
And with its powerful CPU + GPU, gaming is the best you get on the smartphone, gaming performance is just right for high-end gamers, it handles everything at max graphics. Battlegrounds Mobile India, Call Of Duty, Asphalt 9 Legends, and games that demand higher resources, the Adreno 730 seamlessly handles all of them without a seat. You can play games with the highest possible graphics, Xiaomi Pro 5G is one of the best gaming devices to pick in the flagship segment. The smartphone is aided by its LiquidCool Technology (Super big VC + 3 graphite sheets) which helps in cooling while you game on it or when the CPU is under load.
Speaking of the RAM and storage options, the Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G has a fast LPDDR5 RAM type and UFS 3.1 2-LANE storage type which is considered to be among the fastest. About the variants, you will find two RAM variants i.e. 8 GB RAM and 12 GB RAM while the storage on the phone is 128 GB and 256 GB. You can’t expand the storage via a microSD card slot due to the missing microSD card support.
You will also find RAM extension technology that helps you increase the RAM to an extra 3 GB making a total of 15 GB of RAM on the phone (12 GB RAM variant). The price for the Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G starts at ₹62,999 for its base variant 8 GB RAM + 128 GB variant and ₹66,999 for 12 GB RAM + 256 GB variant. You can grab the Xiaomi 12 Pro with ₹10,000 off as an introductory offer.
Camera
Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G offers a triple camera setup with 3x 50 MP cameras – one 50 MP main camera, 50 MP ultra-wide camera, and 50 MP telephoto. No macro camera is found on the phone which is unusual since we have seen most Xiaomi smartphones with a macro lens. Rivals have started offering a micro-scope lens and 150-degree fish-eye camera. The camera supports Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), EIS, 8K Video Recording, along with a dual-LED flash. The selfie camera is 32 MP.
The photo quality looks appealing and offers a high level of detail, you can see the photographs attached below. The main camera uses the Sony IMX707 while the wide-angle camera uses the Samsung JN1 image sensor. Both the cameras deliver really good image quality, the photos are bright and produce vibrant colors, we liked the bokeh effect in the background.
About the camera features, you get plenty of modes to play with – Night mode, Super Moon, Slow motion, VLOG, Movie effects, Dual video, clone, long exposure, panorama, and much more. The camera supports up to 20X magnification and also supports 4K at 60 fps and up to 8K at 24 fps which is something you should consider if you shoot videos in high quality. On top, the OIS plays a major role in the stabilization. The telephoto lens is decent and does its job nicely, you also get the Super Moon mode which zooms in 5x and snaps clear Moon photos, and Xiaomi Pro Focus Ultra Night Mode for night photography
Take a look at some camera samples that we took from the Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G cameras.
Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G Camera Samples
Battery Runtime & Charging
Moving to its battery size, the Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G packs a 4,600 mAh battery that lasts quite long, expect a day and a half of battery life on moderate use and up to 2 days on average use.
Surprisingly, the Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G has super-fast 120W Xiaomi HyperCharge charging, this phone can be charged fully 100% in just 18 minutes, in under 20 minutes you get a whole-day battery and still left for the next day which is pretty great. The 120W Xiaomi HyperCharge fast charging was first seen on the Xiaomi 11i 5G HyperCharge Edition.
Xiaomi uses its Surge P1 Chipset that aids the 120W Xiaomi HyperCharge charging technology. We assume it has two different cells (2,300 mAh x 2) charging at 60W speed but at the same time, the 120W Xiaomi HyperCharge charging uses parallel charging technology to charge these dual cells at the same time which we saw on the Xiaomi 11i 5G HyperCharge Edition. Due to its dual-cell battery, it takes no longer than 20 minutes to charge fully (if you are not using the phone while charging).
The charging on the Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G is even faster than the flagships – OnePlus 10 Pro 5G (80W SuperVOOC) and realme GT2 Pro (65W SuperDart) giving the smartphone an edge in terms of charging. The 120W Xiaomi HyperCharge Adapter Combo is also sold separately at ₹3,999, but you don’t need to buy one, the charger comes bundled with Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G.
Aside from its 120W Xiaomi HyperCharge fast charging, it also supports 50W Wireless Turbo Charging that charges 100% in 42 mins as per Xiaomi. Plus, it has the facility to charge any device with its reverse wireless charging feature (10W). It also supports Power Delivery 3.0, and Qualcomm QuickCharge 4+.
Verdict
The Xiaomi 12 Pro is really a great pick if you are looking for a premium flagship smartphone, from its design, display, and performance, to its fast-charging, everything about the phone is just great. The 2K+ LTPO display, modern high-performance SoC, long battery life, and impressive triple cameras give the smartphone an overall value for money.
With its curved screen design and a solid metallic body, the Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G seems convincing in terms of design and looks. The 120 Hz 2K+ display with quad speakers offers a seamless multimedia experience. And with its incredible power, gamers and power users won’t have to compromise on its performance.
In terms of charging, the 120W HyperCharge charger takes about 18 to 20 minutes to fully charge the battery which is one of the fastest charging smartphones available on the market. The Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G is a solid flagship contender that offers a sleek and powerful package in the flagship department.
