After starting 2022 with a good but unexciting flagship — that would be the standard Xiaomi 12 Pro — Xiaomi hit its strides in the summer, launching a pair of tremendous devices with hardware that clearly trumped rivals — these would be the Xiaomi 12S Ultra with a 1-inch camera sensor and the Xiaomi Mix Fold 2 with an unbelievably thin design.
The bad news for most readers is both the 12S Ultra and Mix Fold 2 were China-only releases. But Xiaomi’s back on the international stage with the 12T series, with the Pro model sporting a headline-grabbing 200MP sensor.
And yes, the 200MP sensor is mostly legit.
- The Xiaomi 12T Pro brings a 200MP main camera that can shoot 16-in-1 binned images, or a full 200MP resolution photo.
Xiaomi 12T Pro: Specifications
| Specification | Xiaomi 12T Pro |
|---|---|
| Build |
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| Dimensions & Weight |
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| Display |
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| SoC | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 |
| RAM & Storage |
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| Battery & Charging |
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| Security | Optical in-display fingerprint scanner |
| Rear Camera(s) |
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| Front Camera(s) | 20MP |
| Port(s) | USB Type-C |
| Audio |
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| Connectivity |
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| Software | MIUI Fold 13 based on Android 12 |
| Other Features |
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About this review: Xiaomi invited me to Munich for the launch of the 12T series, where it also provided me with a device to test. Xiaomi had no input in this article.
Xiaomi 12T Pro: Hardware and Design
- Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1
- Glass back with plastic frame
- 5,000 mAh battery with 120W fast charging
The Xiaomi 12T Pro is a clear continuation of the 12 Pro’s design language, with one major deviation: the 6.7-inch 120Hz OLED display panel is flat. The overall design looks fine, but a bit bland in my opinion. Xiaomi’s 12S Ultra with a leather back and giant camera module, or even rival phones like the OnePlus 10T with that spillover camera module, have more personality and character. It doesn’t help that I got the dull grey colorway; the blue and silver units look more striking in my opinion.
But the phone is comfortable to hold at 8.6mm thick and weighs 205g, and the construction is up to standard too. Buttons are clicky, the optical in-display fingerprint scanner is fast and accurate. Haptics aren’t the best that Xiaomi can put out — they’re still strong but feel less precise — but still a lot better than any Samsung Galaxy FE or A series phone’s mushy haptics.
To the untrained eye, the Xiaomi 12T Pro will look like any other modern flagship, but there are a few areas of compromise to meet this lower price tag. There’s no wireless charging or official IP rating, and the frame is plastic instead of the usual aluminum. The good news is the frame is so thin you won’t really feel the plastic much — your hands are still feeling the glass front (Gorilla Glass 5) and back (just standard glass) most of the time.
Display
The 6.7-inch OLED display has a resolution of 2712 x 1220 and refreshes up to 120Hz, but it’s not an LTPO 2.0 panel. Your options or refresh rate must be either 30Hz/60Hz/90Hz/120Hz, though Xiaomi’s software can switch that for you. Viewing angles and color reproduction are both excellent, but the screen’s maximum brightness of 500 nits (standard) and 900 nits (peak) aren’t as high as other flagships I’ve handled. Under heavy sunlight, the screen is still visible, but not as much as something like an iPhone 14 Pro or Galaxy S22 Ultra.
Silicon, memory, battery, and other bits
The internals are top notch: Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 with 8 or 12GB of RAM and either 128 or 256GB of storage, at LPDDR5 and UFS 3.1 respectively. A 5,000 mAh cell fills the inside and it can be charged at 120W with the included charging brick. From my test, it takes 24 minutes to charge from a dead battery to full.
You have stereo speakers fine-tuned by Harmon/Karon, and as is the case with Xiaomi’s higher-end phones, the speaker grilles are symmetrical and located on the top and bottom of the device for equal sound output. The audio quality is great for a phone speaker.
Xiaomi 12T Pro: Cameras
- 200MP, f/1.6, 1/1.2-inch ISOCELL HP1 sensor
- 8MP f/2.2, 1/4-inch ultra-wide
- 20MP f/2.3 selfie
- 2MP macro sensor (ugh)
First things first: all the images you see in this article are compressed; I have uploaded some full-sized samples to Flickr in the album below.
Let’s talk about that 200MP camera. This is the Samsung ISOCELL HP1 sensor that was announced last year but has only made it onto phones this year. Xiaomi’s actually not the first to use it, as Motorola’s Edge 30 Ultra has launched, though that phone seems to be only available in China for now. I haven’t had a chance to test that device yet, by the way.
Just like Motorola’s phone, Xiaomi’s 12T Pro uses the 200MP camera to shoot 16-in-1 pixel binned images that come out to 12.5MP resolution. Having more megapixels isn’t always a good thing, as the image then needs more light to fill the pixels, but the large 1/1.22-inch sensor and fast f/1.6 aperture do a great job. Photos captured in this normal binned mode have excellent dynamic range, and there’s nice natural bokeh due to the large sensor. Images at night are virtually noise-free.
You can also shoot in full 200MP mode or even in 50MP mode. In these shooting modes, the obvious benefit is you can zoom/crop into an image much more than you normally could and still see fine details. I didn’t really see much difference in image quality between a 200MP or 50MP shot (other than the former can crop in even more) so we might as well just focus on the 200MP shots. Images in this mode are huge — anywhere from 55 to 75MB per image, and they do allow you to crop in significantly more.
However, if you’re expecting extremely detailed and sharp images even when you crop all the way to the actual size, you’ll be disappointed. There’s still a lot of digital upscaling done here on Xiaomi’s end, which means if you zoom into the actual size, the images look very digitally sharpened and artificial. But it’s still a much further crop than you could with a normal 12.5MP shot. In the below sample, I snapped the scene with both binned 12.5MP and 200MP modes, and then cropped into both pictures to roughly the same framing. You can see that, while the 200MP shot isn’t that sharp, it’s still much more detailed than the same crop with a “normal” shot.
Here’s another sample set:
But still, the 12.5MP shooting mode is the default for a reason, that’s when the shutter speed is at its fastest, and the images have the best dynamic range thanks to Xiaomi’s computational photography taking advantage of binning. If I compare a 12.5MP image next to a 200MP image, the former often have better dynamic range.
The 200MP camera on the Xiaomi 12T Pro produces shots that do allow you to crop in significantly more
But how does the 12T Pro’s main camera stack up against the iPhone 14 Pro? Here are samples. In general, the iPhone image is brighter because the 14 Pro will turn on night mode very liberally, while the 12T Pro doesn’t really use night mode unless it’s near pitch-black situations.
I also snapped a full 48MP image with the 14 Pro and see how it compared to Xiaomi’s 200MP shot in terms of details.
We can see that the iPhone 14 Pro’s 48MP mode looks arguably better if we crop all the way in compared to the 12T Pro’s 200MP image, as there’s a lot of digital processing in Xiaomi’s image.
Other cameras, shooting modes
The Xiaomi 12T Pro doesn’t have a physical zoom lens, but the 200MP sensor can do an in-sensor crop to produce a near lossless 2x zoom, just like what the iPhone 14 Pro phones do. The 8MP ultra-wide is a bit underwhelming at night with noticeably soft details.
But during the day, the ultra-wide can still grab some nice images.
Selfies and portraits
The 12T Pro has a really good portrait mode that uses digital crop into the main sensor for a closer focal length but still gets some natural bokeh, which is then boosted by artificial bokeh. I’m also a fan of the “cinematic portrait” filter which makes portraits look like they were snapped by a vintage camera.
The selfie lens is okay — it tends to soften skin to the point details are lost, and the selfie portrait effect appears unnatural.
Video recording
Video recording is great with the main camera if you keep shooting to 4k resolution. You can shoot in 8k but stabilization takes a hit.
Xiaomi’s very fun shooting modes are all still here, including one of my favorites — clone video.
With the 12T Pro, Xiaomi has clearly given the bulk of the attention to the main camera, and not so much to the other lenses. This is mostly fine because the main camera doubles as a portrait and 2x zoom lens too, and still photos and videos from the mains look great. The ultra-wide and selfies could be better, but at this $750-ish price, this main camera can go toe to toe with anyone.
Xiaomi 12T Pro: Software and General Performance
- MIUI 13 over Android 12
- Still runs a bit hot — couldn’t finish a 20-minute “Extreme Stress Test” in 3D Mark
- Excellent battery life
The Xiaomi 12T Pro ships with Android 12 with Xiaomi’s MIUI 13 on top. The software experience is fine and similar to previous Xiaomi flagships, meaning the animations are smooth, UI is fast, and most things work as they should. The usual gripes I have with MIUI are here, like a complicated Settings panel that has three sections dedicated to displays; or the fact that you still cannot double-tap the screen to wake it up.
But other things I love about Xiaomi’s software like the whimsical animations, and the excellent multi-tasking system that lets me open apps in floating windows, are all here.
Performance is great for those who don’t really push their phones. For social media use, media consumption, and snapping pictures, the phone performed without issues. But the 12T Pro disappointingly suffers from the same thermal issues as the 12 Pro initially did, in which the phone could not finish a 20-minute “Extreme Stress Test” from the app 3D Mark. To be fair, the test is named “extreme stress” for a reason, as it is truly pushing a smartphone as much as possible for 20 minutes. The 12T Pro bowed out after the 12-minute mark. For reference, the Xiaomi 12S Ultra could finish the test, and so could other devices like the OnePlus 10 Pro and of course, the iPhone 14 Pro.
Battery life
With a 5,000 mAh battery and the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, battery life has been great. A single charge can get me through a 14-hour day with about 15% battery to spare. Screen on time generally hovered around six to seven hours during that stretch. Charging is fast, as mentioned, with the included charging brick: 24 minutes from 0 to 100.
Should you buy the Xiaomi 12T Pro?
You should buy the Xiaomi 12T Pro if:
- You want a high-performing main camera and the best possible chip in Android without paying over $800
- You like Xiaomi’s UI and ecosystem and want its latest flagship
You should not buy the Xiaomi 12T Pro if:
- You want a more well-rounded, versatile camera system with a good ultra-wide and zoom lens
- You already own the Xiaomi 12 Pro or Mi 11 Ultra
- You are interested in the Pixel 7 series
The Xiaomi 12T Pro is in a vacuum another polished and well-made phone by Xiaomi that doesn’t cost too much relative to its peers. At $750 (converted), it’s a better deal than the closest Samsung flagship (the $999 Galaxy S22). But the 12T Pro has some stiff competition with the Google Pixel 7 series having just launched.
The Xiaomi 12T Pro is another polished and well-made phone by Xiaomi that doesn't cost too much relative to peers
The Pixel 7 Pro is $150 more expensive, but most western consumers would prefer its UI over Xiaomi’s, and the Pixel 7 Pro has a better zoom and ultra-wide lens. While I’m not going to prematurely assume the Pixel 7 Pro has a better main camera, I think it’s a safe bet the Pixel 7 Pro’s main camera should be at least as good as the 12T Pro’s, with a high chance of being better. The Pixel 7, meanwhile, is $599, and it keeps lots of what makes the Pixel 7 Pro enticing.
This comparison is not all unfavorable for Xiaomi, however. The 12T Pro includes a charger, protective case, and screen protector in the box, while these are all separate purchases for the Pixel. And that 200MP camera with a larger sensor has a higher hardware ceiling than the Pixel 7’s three years old camera sensor.
Ultimately, the issue for me is Xiaomi has set the bar too high with its two previous releases — the 12S Ultra and Mix Fold 2. Even if those two phones are only sold in China, Xiaomi gave western media access to those devices, so most smartphone fans are aware of their existence. And when you compare the 12T Pro to those two juggernauts, it can’t help but look underwhelming. It doesn’t matter that those two phones aren’t widely on sale. They exist, and that casts a shadow over the rest of Xiaomi’s top-tier products. Imagine if Samsung had released the Galaxy S22 Ultra only in South Korea, then a month later launched the Galaxy S22 and S22 Plus in the US and Europe. It’d be hard for phone enthusiasts there to be too excited too.
- The Xiaomi 12T Pro brings a 200MP main camera that can shoot 16-in-1 binned images, or a full 200MP resolution photo.
The post Xiaomi 12T Pro review: A mid-year upgrade to 200MP appeared first on XDA.
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