Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 5G review: ticks all the boxes, but at what price?

Compared to last year’s Redmi Note 11 or even the Note 11S (Review), Xiaomi’s latest Redmi Note 12 5G comes with several upgrades. For starters, the phone supports 5G thanks to a more recent Qualcomm SoC, more base storage, and a smoother display. However, all this comes at a price. At Rs. 17,999 for the base variant, these upgrades don’t look particularly exciting considering most smartphones in this category (or even below) already come with them.

And then there’s the competition, with smartphones like the Realme 10 Pro 5G and Moto G82 5G (Review) offering much more value for a similar price. Do the upgrades given to the Redmi Note 12 5G add genuine value and should you upgrade? I’ve been using it for over a week now and here’s what I think.

Redmi Note 12 5G Price in India

The Redmi Note 12 5G comes in two variants and three finishes. There’s the base variant that gets a healthy 128GB of internal storage and 4GB of RAM which is available for Rs. 17,999. There’s the 6GB RAM variant priced at Rs 19,999 which also gets the same amount of storage. Both the variants come in Frosted Green, Matte Black, and Mystique Blue finish. We received the 6GB RAM variant in Frosted Green for this review.

Redmi Note 12 5G design

At 7.9mm, the new Redmi Note 12 5G certainly looks slim, but it is moderately heavy at 188g. The frame and the back panel are made of polycarbonate. The back panel has a soft matte finish which gives it a classy look but it also attracts smudges easily. However, these are easy to wipe off. The sides are flat and the frame also has a matte finish, making holding this large phone a chore as it is quite slippery. The design of the camera module has changed, which now looks like a block of polished glass that has been lifted from the back panel, giving it a modern look.

The frame and back panel of the Redmi Note 12 5G are made of polycarbonate

The Redmi Note 12 5G’s display has a punch-hole cutout for the selfie camera and is of the AMOLED type. The fingerprint scanner is placed on the side, inside the power button. The bezels around the left, top and right sides of the display are sufficiently thin, but there’s a noticeable chin at the bottom that takes away from the premium feel.

The Redmi Note 12 5G has the usual IP53 rating for dust and water resistance, but despite all the cosmetic improvements, it doesn’t really stand out in my opinion, nor is it as flashy as the Realme 10 Pro 5G.

Redmi Note 12 5G specifications and software

While the design isn’t flashy, the Redmi Note 12 5G is certainly well equipped when it comes to hardware. There’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 SoC, LPDDR4X RAM, and UFS 2.2 storage. The latter can be expanded up to 1TB using a microSD card inserted in the hybrid dual-SIM tray. The phone supports eleven 5G bands along with dual-5G standby. Communication standards include Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 5.1, a USB Type-C port, IR sensor, and a 3.5mm headphone port. The latter can be used with the built-in FM radio app. The phone packs a 5,000mAh battery and can be charged using the 33W charger included in the box.

The Redmi Note 12 5G has an IP53 rating for dust and water resistance

In 2023, it’s a bit of a surprise that Xiaomi is releasing the Redmi Note 12 5G with Android 12. The phone runs MIUI 13, which comes with its own set of customizations, albeit not as advanced in terms of theming as you’ll find on Android 13 devices (regardless of the custom skin). What you do get is the usual bloatware, with various Xiaomi-branded and third-party apps pre-installed, including Amazon, Facebook, Amazon Prime Video, Zili, to name a few. Apart from the daily spam notifications from the GetApps app, thankfully I didn’t receive any other spam notifications from the other pre-installed apps.

Redmi Note 12 5G performance and battery life

The software experience on the 6GB RAM variant of the Redmi Note 12 5G was quite smooth. Despite all the bloatware and pre-installed third-party apps, everything ran smoothly, whether I was multitasking, launching new apps, or fetching recently used apps from memory. The phone supports virtual RAM feature (allocated from internal storage) and I had it set to 5GB (max limit) during the review period. While day-to-day usage was smooth, I did notice a random bug where apps kept locking to a particular orientation. Oddly enough, shaking the phone really hard seemed to fix it temporarily.

The 6.67-inch, full-HD+ Super AMOLED panel on the Redmi Note 12 5G has a 120Hz refresh rate, but it’s not adaptive, so you’ll need to manually set it to either 60 or 120Hz. During my review period, I had the screen set to 120Hz at all times. The screen gets fairly bright outdoors, and produces vibrant colors using the default color profile, but more natural-looking colors on the Standard setting.

There’s no HDR display support for streaming apps, but the Redmi Note 12 5G is Widevine L1-certified, which supports Full HD video playback. Videos look good with punchy colours, but fall a little short when watching dark scenes.

The Redmi Note 12 5G runs on MIUI 13, which is based on Android 12

In terms of benchmarks, the Redmi Note 12 5G performs as expected. This 6GB RAM variant of the Redmi Note 12 5G manages a score of 3,63,352 points on AnTuTu, along with 626 and 1,696 points in the single- and multi-core tests of Geekbench respectively. These scores are justifiable when compared to the more expensive Redmi Note 12 Pro+ 5G. In games, Call of Duty: Mobile is playable on default settings (‘High’ graphics quality and framerate), but there is noticeable lag at times.

The touch sampling rate on the Redmi Note 12 5G also felt inadequate for first person shooter (FPS) games. Asphalt 9 Legends also performs in a similar manner, with the phone unable to maintain a stable framerate while playing the game on default settings. The phone is better suited for more casual titles like Subway Surfers and the likes. The single bottom-firing speaker, while loud, sounds tinny and not very immersive when it comes to both watching movies and playing games.

The Redmi Note 12 5G managed to deliver around a day and a half of battery life on a single charge even with heavy usage, which is pretty good. My usage also included some gaming and camera testing. The phone managed to last 17 hours and 57 minutes in our HD video loop battery test, which is pretty good. Charging the 5,000mAh battery is also quick, with the phone managing to reach 37 percent charge in 30 minutes, and complete a full charge in around 1 hour and 14 minutes.

Redmi Note 12 5G cameras

The Redmi Note 12 5G has triple cameras on its rear and a single 13-megapixel front-facing snapper for selfies. The rear setup covers all the bases thanks to a 48-megapixel primary camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera, and a 2-megapixel macro camera. The camera interface is typical Xiaomi, with customizable camera modes and the secondary settings hidden away in a slide-out drawer which can be accessed by tapping the hamburger icon.

The Redmi Note 12 5G has three cameras on the back

The image quality in daylight is just about acceptable and that is mainly due to the details, which are on the low side which I did not expect from a smartphone in this price range. The dynamic range suffers mainly because the phone cannot determine when to use HDR and when not to and automatically switches it off, resulting in blown highlights or overexposed areas. I kept the AI ​​mode enabled during the review period as it resulted in better images with a decent dynamic range compared to the crushed blacks I got in regular photos. However, it also resulted in more saturated images depending on the scene.

Redmi Note 12 5G daylight camera samples. From top to bottom: Primary camera, ultra-wide camera, close-up (primary camera) (Tap to see full size)

The phone’s macro camera is a pain to use, mainly due to its fixed focus setting, and the results after all the adjustments aren’t worth the effort. The ultra-wide camera’s performance is, as expected, worse than the main camera, with lots of barrel distortion and purple fringing in the brighter parts of the image. The color tones and dynamic range are way off from the actual scene, and the photos look like they were taken through a filter.

Selfies taken in daylight look sharp with decent detail and edge detection, but with overexposed backgrounds. In low light, photos appear soft and lack detail, making them look rather flat. There’s also no night mode available for the ultra-wide camera to save the day (or rather, night).

Redmi Note 12 5G low-light camera samples. Top: Auto mode, bottom: Night mode (Tap to view full size)

The primary camera’s low-light performance is quite poor, even when capturing city streets with plenty of ambient light. The primary camera simply can’t capture good details in auto mode. Switching to night mode helps bring out some details in the scene, but with flat textures and colors that look like oil paintings when zoomed in. There’s also a lot of visible noise in the darker areas, even when using night mode. Video recording quality maxes out at 1080p at 30fps and is acceptable at best with an unstable bitrate and slightly choppy footage along with little detail.

Pronunciation

At Rs. 17,999, it’s hard to recommend Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 12 5G unless all you want is a dependable battery life. Xiaomi seems to have lost focus with its base Redmi Note this year, trying to tick all the boxes instead of focusing on quality. The cameras are probably the biggest disappointment, as it often fails to get even the basics right, especially when compared to other smartphones at and below this price point.

The Realme 10 Pro 5G, for an extra Rs. 1,000, has a better SoC, 108-megapixel primary camera and stereo speakers, along with an interesting design. Motorola’s Moto G82 5G (Review) is also a better choice starting at Rs. 18,999 with an OIS-enabled primary camera, an IP52 rating, stereo speakers and a near-stock serving of Android that is confirmed to get its Android 13 update later this year.