Xiaomi 12 Pro First Impressions: A sleek and stylish premium smartphone
Xiaomi’s flagship smartphones have so far been about big numbers and bragging rights. Last year’s Mi 11 Ultra (Review) was a perfect example of this. With the new Xiaomi 12 Pro, the company seems to have taken a subtler approach to a flagship phone. The design of the 12 Pro appears more mature and refined, and there are no flashy numbers for the cameras or even battery capacity. Instead, Xiaomi says it has worked to deliver a better consistency. So, does this sleek, stylish premium smartphone from Xiaomi tick all the boxes for a 2022 flagship? Let’s take a closer look.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro comes in two variants. There’s a base variant with 8GB of RAM priced at Rs. 62,999 and a second variant with 12GB of RAM priced at Rs. 66,999 in India. Both come with 256GB of internal storage and there’s no microSD card slot for expansion.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro’s body features a sleek metal frame sandwiched between two sheets of glass. The display is made of Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus while the back panel is made of Gorilla Glass 5. Both glass panels have curved sides, making the device easy to grip. At 205g, the 12 Pro surprisingly doesn’t feel too heavy.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro features a 6.72-inch WQHD+ AMOLED display with a peak refresh rate of 120Hz
The E5’s 6.72-inch WQHD+ AMOLED display has gentle curves on the left and right sides. It has a peak refresh rate of 120Hz that can drop to 1Hz, thanks to LTPO 2.0 technology. The display is also HDR10+ and Dolby Vision certified, which should make this phone well-suited for streaming HDR video. There’s also a quad-speaker setup tuned by Harman Kardon.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro runs MIUI 13, which is based on Android 12. In the limited time I’ve had with the phone so far, most Android 12 features appear to be present, but I did notice a few pre-installed third-party apps.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC, which has been used in almost every flagship launched recently. There’s also a 4,600mAh battery, which Xiaomi says can be fully charged in just 18 minutes when using the bundled 120W charger in Boost mode. The 12 Pro also supports 50W wireless charging and 10W reverse wireless charging.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro has three cameras on the back
The Xiaomi 12 Pro’s camera setup is unique as all three cameras on the back have 50-megapixel sensors. The primary camera features optical image stabilization (OIS), the ultra-wide camera has a 115-degree field of view, and the telephoto camera enables 2x optical zoom. A 32-megapixel front-facing camera is responsible for selfies.
Being a premium smartphone with a starting price of Rs. 62,999 in India, the Xiaomi 12 Pro certainly looks the part of a true flagship. It looks premium and stylish, but it misses out on one key feature, namely an official IP rating for dust and water resistance. It’s a bit strange considering some of Xiaomi’s budget phones do come with IP ratings. This alone could be a deal breaker for some buyers. I’m also curious to see how Xiaomi’s Android 12 implementation fares against the flagships from Samsung and OnePlus. If you’re interested in this premium smartphone from Xiaomi, stay tuned for my full review, coming up soon on Gadgets 360.
