Xiaomi 12 Pro, Xiaomi’s weapon to conquer the high-end in 2022

Xiaomi is constantly searching for the fact that consolidate in the high range of mobile telephony. The company, very well positioned in terms of sales in Spain, is looking for the third consecutive year to reach as many pockets as possible, also with a high-end phone. After the Xiaomi Mi 10 and the Xiaomi Mi 11, the new generation of the company’s flagship arrives in our country, and it does so with two models: The Xiaomi 12 and the Xiaomi 12 Pro.

I have been using the Xiaomi 12 Pro as my main phone for several days and in this article, I am going to develop How has my experience been with this great bet?with which Xiaomi wants you to forget about Apple, Samsung and OPPO.

Technical sheet of the Xiaomi 12 Pro

Something more compact, although large

For this new generation of phones, Xiaomi seems to have opted for more compact devices compared to the previous generation. In this way, both the Xiaomi 12 and the Xiaomi 12 Pro they have a more restrained size, a detail that, in hand, is much more noticeable in the normal model. But despite this, they are still great phones.

The rear of the Xiaomi 12 Pro has also evolved, and in my opinion for the better. It seems that the matte finish is the favorite, both of the public and of the companies, and that is just what we find in these new phones.

The back surface is smooth, very pleasant to the touch and with a great treatment to repel fingerprints. In this generation, the camera module has a rectangular format to house a gigantic main sensor, accompanied by two other sensors that I will talk about later.

As a whole, and in my opinion, the design of the Xiaomi 12, although it continues in the wake left by the Xiaomi Mi 11, brings a certain personality and identity to Xiaomi’s high-end range. feeling solid and very premium phone.

If we turn the terminal upside down, we see that the screen has a slight curvature on its sides, something that is also present, almost symmetrically, in the rear sector. This detail makes the grip of the Xiaomi 12 Pro comfortable and allows us to use the phone for long periods of time without much problem.

Of course, it must be taken into account that its size means that the phone has a few 205 grams of weightso it’s not the lightest device I’ve ever had in my hands, but it does improve the weight of other high-end devices that it can compete against, such as the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, or the iPhone 13 Pro Max.

A 2K screen at the height of the highest range

The screen of the Xiaomi 12 Pro also offers the necessary specifications and quality to live up to the rest of the phone’s specifications. In this generation we have a large 6’73’ AMOLED panel which like many of the competitors in this price range, has LTPO technology. Thanks to this, the panel is capable of adjusting its refresh rate in a range from 1Hz to 120Hz, depending on what is being displayed on the screen, so that the impact on the device’s battery is less.

After my first tests, the screen of the Xiaomi 12 Pro leaves me with a very good taste in my mouth. We have an all-terrain panel, capable of offering great sharpness, especially when we choose the WQHD + resolution (3,200×1,440), a brightness capacity more than enough to use it in most light conditions, and fluidity to spare to enjoy our favorite video games, as well as smooth transitions, present at all times.

The best hardware for the best Xiaomi

The Xiaomi 12 Pro arrives with the specifications that every high-end phone would dream of: The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, 12 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, 256 GB of storage, etc. In short, on paper, the Xiaomi 12 Pro is one of the best Android phones we can currently have.

My experience with the phone has been very satisfactory and everything feels fast and smooth on the Xiaomi 12 Pro. Opening, closing and switching between open applications is done instantly, gaming performance works flawlessly with no trace of any lag, and overall everything works as expected.

At the level of heat dissipation, this Xiaomi 12 Pro has a cooling system for the system baptized as Liquid Cool Technology. With normal use, the phone does not heat up in the least, but when taking pictures consecutively, it does seem that the phone suffers more in this section.

Regarding the software, we have MIUI 13 based on Android 12, and everything has worked quite stable during my tests. As I have told you, the days that I have been using the Xiaomi 12 Pro I have not had any problems with lag or jerks. Although I think that this customization layer is not fully optimized, even for this great Xiaomi flagship. I think that MIUI 13 is too demandingand this is something that may affect the battery of the device, as I will tell you later.

Some cameras with a lot of ambition

Xiaomi seems to have put a lot of love into the camera section of this Xiaomi 12, since we are facing the first Android phone whose three sensors reach 50 MP each. The usual thing in this type of device is to have a higher resolution main sensor along with two less, but this year all three play in the same league.

The photographic set of this Xiaomi 12 Pro is made up of a 50 MP Sony IMX707 main sensora 50MP telephoto lens that has two optical magnifications, and reaches up to 20 digital magnifications, and finally an ultra wide-angle sensor, also 50MP.

Unfortunately, in the short time I have had, I have not been able to test the camera of this Xiaomi 12 Pro as I would have liked. Even so, I was able to take some pictures outdoorsin decent lighting, and the results are quite interesting.

Xiaomi’s new high-end phone seems to be able to capture the colors and all the information related to the lights and shadows of the captured images quite easily. Contrast works very well. and the backlights give a better result than I expected, regardless of the sensor we are using.

highlight here the good job the ultra wide angle sensor seems to do, with well-corrected distortion in the corners of the image. On the other hand, I think that the telephoto lens falls behind if we take into account that we are talking about the best phone that Xiaomi has brought to our hands.

As I have told, the telephoto lens is capable of reaching two optical magnificationsoffering less versatility than the rest of the telephoto lenses that we can find in other high-end phones, with which this Xiaomi 12 Pro will compete. And despite offering a digital zoom of up to 20x, I think that the quality is reduced considerably with this type of shot, offering images that are very unclear and full of noise.

There is much left to prove about the camera of this Xiaomi 12 Pro, and I have to expand much more on it in the final analysis of the phone. And although these first results have generally convinced me, I think there is still a lot of work to be done for Xiaomi to bring a camera that stands up to the competition once and for all. And in the case of a high-end phone, and seeing how the competition is doing, we must be demanding, which is why I think that Xiaomi should not have any margin of error in this section.

An autonomy that sows doubts

autonomy is the section that has worried me the most throughout my experience with the Xiaomi 12 Pro. The phone has a 4,600 mAh capacity battery, a figure in principle sufficient to last the day of use. The bad news is that in my tests, the phone has not been able to maintain the type as I thought.

I notice some lack of optimization in this section, and making intensive use, as I usually do in most mobile phone analyzes, the battery has been discharged faster than normal. With the phone charging at 100%, and in just one morning of use, I have managed to download it up to 39% at around 3:00 p.m. These are lower figures than normal for the type of use I usually give when I test phones.

Considering that the phone has an LTPO screen, which technically reduces the impact on battery drain, I’m having a hard time understanding what the problem could be. I think that MIUI 13 requires too many resources from Xiaomi phones, and at the moment, it seems that it does not manage to be fully optimized. Taking into account all the technology that this phone incorporates, and being a high-end, I expected a better job in the battery, at least in this first contact.

The good news in the battery section comes thanks to fast charging, since the Xiaomi 12 Pro supports 120W fast charging which is included in the device box. According to the company, the charge is completed from 0 to 100% in just 17 minutes.

It will remain to be verified in the analysis if these figures are real, although we can already tell you that without even enabling faster charging, it’s already a missile charging. The 120W fast charge does not seem to be active by default, and it is that without touching settings (in the settings we can enable the fastest charge) we have charged the device in less than half an hour, calculating about 65W.

An evolution with a lot to say

The Xiaomi 12 Pro is the third evolution of a high-end phone from Xiaomi. The company seems to have learned from its mistakes in the past, and after my tests, I think we are facing a great high-end phonealthough it needs to improve, and urgently, some of its sections.

The screen and performance feel almost perfect on the Xiaomi 12 Pro, but the lack of optimization at the battery level and a stable camera but one that feels inferior to that of its most immediate competitors, are the two pending issues that Xiaomi cannot afford to have at the launch of one of its main phones of 2022. As always, keep in mind that we are facing the first contact with the Xiaomi 12 Pro, and that we will expand much more on our experience in the final analysis of the device.