During a launch event entirely in Chinese, Xiaomi has now launched its new flagship mobiles for the Chinese market. It is about both Xiaomi 12 with a smaller format and about Xiaomi 12 Pro which has a larger screen and thus is also larger as a whole.
Both of these phones are powered by Qualcomm’s latest top chip Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Xiaomi is not the first to come out with a phone that uses Qualcomm’s latest top chip. Instead, it is the previously launched Motorola Edge 30 Ultra, or Edge X30 as it is called in China. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 as the system chip is called is made in a 4-nanometer process, unlike last year’s top chip which used 5nm. This gives, for example, an improvement in cpu of about 20 percent compared to its predecessor, Snapdragon 888. We will return to what this means in practice for the performance of, for example, the camera or for demanding apps and in benchmark tests.
Xiaomi 12 first and foremost has an Amoled screen of 6.28 inches and the phone is just under 70 mm narrow, more precisely 69.9 millimeters. It is therefore a slightly smaller phone while the Xiaomi 12 Pro is larger. The Xiaomi 12 Pro is 74.6 mm wide and has a 6.73 inch screen. Xiaomi itself compares the phones frequently to the Iphone 13 and Iphone 13 Pro Max, respectively. In both cases, the Xiaomi phones are minimally smaller but still have slightly larger screens then thanks to a thinner frame around the screens. Both screens in these two phones are protected by Gorilla Glass Victus, the most durable available and they support 120 hertz screen update, but the screen in the Pro model has a higher resolution. In addition, the Pro model is equipped with an LTPO screen, in the same way as Apple has in its Pro models and a way to get even better battery life with the OLED screen.
Not necessarily better
Performance is of course better in this new generation of phones than in last year’s counterparts, but in all respects the newcomers are not an improvement. Xiaomi 12 is a clear strategy change, a step towards a more compact phone. Brightness and resolution in the screen, for example, is lower than in the Xiaomi Mi 11. The new Xiaomi 12 Pro is more similar to the current Mi 11 Ultra and on many levels keeps pace with it, in terms of, for example, screen and camera setup. In terms of performance, Xiaomi states that the Xiaomi 12 Pro phone achieves 1,070,033 in the Antutu performance test, which is better than any other phone so far.
Cameras for speed and in the dark
In both the new phones, we find three cameras on the back complemented by a selfie camera of 32 megapixels in a camera hole in the screen on the front. Xiaomi has a 50-megapixel main camera with a 13-megapixel wide-angle camera and a 5-megapixel macro lens. The macro camera should be able to take pictures at a distance of between 3 and 7 centimeters from the subject. Xiaomi 12 Pro instead has three cameras all with 50 megapixel resolution and then intended as main camera, wide angle and telephoto with 2x optical zoom.
For the cameras in particular, Xiaomi emphasized performance in the dark, where we saw many comparisons with what the Iphone 13 and Iphone 13 Pro can do on similar occasions. According to Xiaomi, the performance of the phones benefits Xiaomi, among other things, so that the camera can take pictures quickly, so that you can take the next one immediately after you have taken a picture. Here we witnessed a demonstration where Xiaomi 12 and Huawei P50 Pro took pictures as a result of a skateboarder, but where Xiaomi 12 managed to take 50 pictures during the same time as P50 Pro took only 17 pieces. However, we must remember that this was Xiaomi’s own test, so it should be taken with a pinch of salt. In all comparisons with the Iphone that Xiaomi showed during the presentation, Xiaomi was also unsurprisingly better than Apple’s phones.
Battery and fast charging
Unsurprisingly, Xiaomi is investing in fast charging. The Pro model is of course best in class on this and offers 120 W fast charging via cable and that to a battery that is 4600 mAh, slightly smaller than that of its predecessor. Wireless charging is 50 W and the reverse wireless charging that allows you to charge another device directly from the back of the phone is 10 W. Little brother Xiaomi 12 has by comparison 67 W wired charging and also the 50 W wireless and 10 W reverse wireless charging. The battery in the Xiaomi 12 is 4500 mAh.
The phones will start to be sold before New Year in China, but will only come to the rest of the world later. Xiaomi 12 costs from the equivalent of 5,300 kronor in China then with 8 GB of working memory and 128 GB of storage. The Xiaomi 12 Pro costs from the equivalent of SEK 6,700, then with 8 GB of working memory and 128 GB of storage. However, these price information is very rough, as Swedish prices are affected by several different factors, most of all Swedish VAT. We must therefore wait for the actual Swedish prices. Both phones are also released with 12 GB of working memory and with 256 GB of storage, then a little more expensive.
In addition to these two phones, Xiaomi showed off the mid-range phone Xiaomi 12X with Snapdragon 870 and the smartwatch Xiaomi Watch S1. It is unclear whether these will be released in Sweden as well.
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