Xiaomi 12 Pro with 120W charging — from 2% to 100% in just 18 minutes
Xiaomi 12 Pro with included 120W charger. Pic: Noel Campion.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro is the Chinese company’s latest flagship and I’ve been using it along with the Xiaomi 12 for the last few weeks. Both phones feature the latest and greatest 4nm CPU from Qualcomm that’s found in other Android flagships from Samsung, Oppo, OnePlus, and Realme.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro and 12 feature a frosted glass back in a choice of three colours — grey, blue and purple. My 12 Pro loan unit was the grey version, which has a classic, but slightly dull look while the 12 arrived in an effervescent purple colour. Both come with a transparent silicone case and a pre-installed screen protector — a welcome extra that many other manufacturers don’t bother with.
The massive camera bump on both phones looks very similar, although the one on the 12 is scaled proportionally in keeping its smaller body. The 12 Pro sports a 6.73-inch display while the standard 12 has a 6.2-inch screen.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro features a 20:9 WQHD+ (3200 x 1440) display with a peak brightness (typical) of 1,500nits and a contrast ratio of 8,000,000. The Xiaomi 12 has a lower resolution of FHD+, (2400 x 1080), a 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio and 1,000nits of peak brightness. Both displays support Dolby Vision and HDR 10+ and 120Hz AdaptiveSync. However, only the Pro uses LTPO (low-temperature polycrystalline oxide) which means it can adapt the refresh rate from 1 to 120Hz to reduce power consumption.
By default, the Pro is set to a lower resolution and AdaptiveSync on. You can set the refresh to always be at 60Hz, 90Hz or 120Hz and the highest resolution but at the expense of battery life. On the Xiaomi 12, you can set the refresh to auto or to 60Hz or 120Hz.
The AdaptiveSync works so well, so I just let the system handle the display resolution and refresh rates.
Although the larger Pro display has slightly betters specs than the standard 12, both look great with excellent colour accuracy, viewing angles and sharpness. The 20:9 screen aspect ratio is awesome for watching the latest widescreen moves. The 12 Pro also features impressive audio in the form of two tweeters and two woofers for a quad-speaker setup. They produce an expansive soundstage with crystal clear dialogue and decent bass for a smartphone. While the Xiaomi 12 has a stereo speaker setup, it produces a big sound for its size. Both speaker systems are tuned by Harman Kardon.
The 120Hz displays and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 CPU with 8GB or 12GB of RAM on the Pro and 8GB or 12GB on the standard 12 is as good as it gets on Android devices. My loan units came with 8GB on the 12 and 12GB on the 12 Pro, but I didn’t see any difference in performance between the two. All the benchmarks I ran showed negligible differences and all the games I tested ran equally well on both devices.
Both of my loan units came with a generous 256GB of storage, which is more than enough for most users but the Xiaomi 12 is also available with 128GB.
The latest Bluetooth 5.2 is also on-board along with WiFi 6/6E, 5G and dual SIM support. There’s even an IR blaster that can be used with the Mi Remote app as a universal remote for your TV and other devices.
During my testing, I had no problem getting a full day of medium to heavy use from both phones. On some days I still had enough juice to get me well into the second day.
One of the key features of the 12 Pro is its ultra-fast 120W HyperCharge tech, which is able to fully charge the battery in 24 minutes in standard mode but only 18 minutes in boost mode. There’s also a 50W wireless charging option, which I wasn’t able to test as well as 10W reverse wireless charging. The 12 features the same wireless options although its wired charging tops out at what is still an impressive 67W. Thankfully, both phones come with 120W and 67W chargers in the box.
Xiaomi 12 Pro and Xiaomi 12 both leverage Xiaomi AdaptiveCharge, a smart charging algorithm that learns and adapts to charging habits to help prolong battery life.
All three of the cameras on the rear of the Xiaomi 12 Pro are 50MP and even the front selfie shooter is an impressive 32MP. This means that all four cameras are capable of capturing incredible detail but a high megapixel count is only part of the equation and doesn’t guarantee image quality. Like all other high megapixel sensors on smartphones, the 12 Pro uses pixel-binning to produce 12.58MP photos although there is a dedicated 50MP mode that should only be used when there’s lots of light and you don’t mind the massive 25MB files taking up space on your phone.
The main camera has a large Sony IMX707 sensor that can capture incredible detail, with natural bokeh and relatively natural colours. You can save the files in either jpeg or HEIF as well as RAW in Pro mode. The main camera is easily the best of the bunch even when the lighting isn’t ideal. I really liked the results I was getting from night shots even when I wasn’t using the Night mode.
While the ultrawide is also 50MP it doesn’t use the same sensor as the main camera. The image quality is excellent in good light but it doesn’t match the main camera for detail or colour accuracy. I saw a particular drop in quality in night photos where it would crush shadows and Night mode only made it worse.
The telephoto camera is only 2x which is great for portraits or getting a little closer to subjects. While this isn’t as impressive as the 10x found on some flagships, it’s more than enough for most people.
The 12 Pro can capture up to 8K video while the standard 12 cannot. This is limited to 24fps while 4K and 1080P can capture video up to 60fps. Video quality is excellent and features such as the One-click AI Cinema offers numerous creative options that make it easy for anyone to capture great footage.
There are also some pro video features including HLG and HDR10+ video capture.
The Xiaomi 12 has a 50MP main, a 13MP ultrawide and a 5MP macro camera. Generally, macro cameras on smartphones are rubbish, but I was blown away by the one on the 12. While 5MP isn’t a lot, I was easily able to capture macro photos with tons of detail. The autofocus is fast and accurate and unlike so many cameras that use the ultrawide lens for macro, I found I didn’t have to be almost touching the subject to get a great up-close macro shot. I also found the ultrawide camera slightly better than the one on the 12 Pro, especially for night mode shots.
Xiaomi 12 and Xiaomi 12 Pro will both receive 3 Android OS updates and 4 years of security patches.
Xiaomi 12 Series customers will receive up to three months of YouTube Premium free of charge, a move to give users access to the best content ad-free and offline, where available 4. The benefits include a subscription to YouTube Music Premium where users can get an unlimited, ad-free access to more than 80 million official songs plus live performances, covers, and remixes.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro and Xiaomi 12 are both outstanding options for those who want flagship performance without the premium price tag. Both offer top-class camera systems with impressive features unless you need more than 2x optical zoom.
While there’s no official dust and waterproof rating, I did notice a seal around the SIM tray so they may be fine to take a quick dunk in water. There’s also no microSD storage but even the base storage of 128GB for the 12 and 256GB for the 12 Pro is more than enough for most users.
The display is also top-notch and the speakers on both devices are some of the best I’ve heard on an Android flagship.
See Xiaomi for more.
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