With the recent release of the Xiaomi 12T Pro, a lot of people set their eyes on the company’s first smartphone with a 200MP sensor. A lot more people highly anticipated the company’s T-series of smartphones. So, here’s our review of it.
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We’ll still use our usual 6 points when it comes to a smartphone – and we are going to spend more time talking about the cameras because that is the main highlight of this phone.
Design
Starting off with the design. I think the design is done fairly well here. The back panel’s very fine matte finish feels fantastic to touch, doesn’t catch fingerprints, and offers some grip. I mean, it’ll still slip off my fingers if I don’t use a case but it’s better than those super high gloss mirror finish phones.
The back panel curves to the frame of the phone and the screen remains to be completely flat – and I love that.
Display
Speaking of the display, this is the first time Xiaomi is using their new name called “CrystalRes”. What makes it so special that it deserves a new name? Well, I guess it’s the resolution. Instead of sticking with the standard 1080p display, they’ve upgraded to a 2712×1220 pixel resolution display. While it doesn’t seem like a huge increment in resolution over the 1080p screens that they used in the past, it’s still a good upgrade nonetheless.
It is still sticking with 120Hz refresh rate – and that’s okay.
We also tested the screen using our colorimeter – the color accuracy is covering about 99.42% of sRGB and 93.28% of DCI-P3. Although it’s not the best, is still very good in comparison with other smartphones in the market.
As for the maximum brightness, it can reach about 520 nits and you can use it outdoors if it’s not sunny outside.
My only complaint here is that the fingerprint scanner is placed way too low and it’s just not ergonomic to use.
Battery life
Before we get into the more serious parts of the phone, I want to quickly talk about the battery life. It’s still using a 5,000mAh battery and tested at 100 nits of brightness using the PCMark battery life test, we got about 12 hours. While the number doesn’t seem like much – I can assure you that the idle battery life is a lot better than before.
I can say this with confidence because I experienced the same with the Galaxy Z Fold4 that I’ve been using for the past month.
Charging speed
The Xiaomi 12T Pro also comes with a beefy 120W charger in the box too. I did a total of 3 charging speed tests just for fun. The first one is by default. When you unbox the phone and charge it, it’ll actually take somewhere around 30 minutes to get to 100%.
Then, if we head into the settings menu and enable the “boost charging” option, we can actually charge it to 100% in just under 20 minutes. Xiaomi does have a list of warnings if you want to enable the boost charging feature, so be sure that you know what you’re doing.
I should also mention that I got less than 5 data points to map out the graph. It seems that Xiaomi is doing everything it can to ensure the fastest charging and literally suspends ALL apps. It’s a miracle that our battery logging app manages to capture some data points, honestly.
Then the last test is using the Ugreen 100W GaN charger that I have. The reason I use this charger is that it supports USB-PD and there were some comments in our previous video saying that Xiaomi phones support USB-PD and I can confirm that it does – but only up to 20W. And it takes about 70 minutes to charge to 100%.
And this is what we call a proprietary charging standard. You’ll have to use back Xiaomi’s own charger and cable to achieve that high charging speed. When Xiaomi eventually doesn’t include a charger inside the box, this is going to be a big problem.
Performance
Okay, let’s now talk about the performance. This is Xiaomi’s first phone that you can purchase that is powered by the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset. The performance that we can get from this phone is superb and I just absolutely love the gaming experience that I got while playing Genshin Impact at the highest graphical settings.
We did our gaming test and you can check it out at the top right corner there – and while some people commented that it seems like the frame rate isn’t that consistent – I’d argue that it is because I did not turn on the “performance mode”. You see, the Game Turbo did get an update that includes a new interface and a few new features. One of it is the new performance mode that also shows the FPS as well – but unfortunately, it didn’t have a floating widget to monitor the FPS while playing the game.
But nonetheless – the gaming performance is fantastic.
Software – MIUI 13.0.2
Okay, other than the Game Turbo, Xiaomi also updated a few things in terms of the software. In this build of MIUI 13.0.2, we have something called GetApps. This new app is essentially Xiaomi’s own app store that also doubles as a system app updater – much like Samsung’s Galaxy Store.
I don’t know why Xiaomi decided that this is a good time to have their own app store but I don’t mind, really. It opens up the possibility for Xiaomi to collaborate with some other apps or games to have some exclusivity deal or something like that. It just means that now, if we want to update the system apps, we’ll be using this app instead.
That aside, Xiaomi did promise 3 generations of Android OS upgrades and 4 years of security patches for the 12T series. That’s good news for everyone!
But then, Xiaomi also announced a few more new features for the 12T Pro – like the ProCut tool. Xiaomi only kept showing and saying the name of this feature but didn’t tell anyone how to actually use it. On that night when we were watching the live stream, I was busily tapping away on the 12T with our friends from Singapore to find out where this ProCut feature is located – and after messing around for a very long time, I eventually found out.
The ProCut feature is kind of hidden. You’ll have to take the picture in the Ultra HD mode – so that means either 50MP or 200MP mode – then head into the gallery, and you’ll see this icon appear on those images. Tap on those images and tap on the icon again, then it’ll automatically generate those images for you.
Basically, the ProCut identifies which part of the image is your subject and tries to generate a few different cropped images. The results are pretty hit-and-miss – but seriously, the communication in terms of UI could have been better.
I guess some things just never change with MIUI because everything else about MIUI remains the same as what we’ve talked about previously. The settings menu is still messy and I still can’t find the screen timeout option under the “display” menu. It’s in the “lock screen” menu.
Cameras
Now, time for the cameras. The Xiaomi 12T Pro has a total of 3 cameras and we’ll focus on the main camera with that 200MP sensor. I just want to say thanks Xiaomi for including a proper OIS. I was genuinely surprised since you guys removed it on the 11T Pro from last year.
But back to the picture quality. This is going to be… tough to talk about. I’m splitting the picture samples into 3 groups – first one is the default 12.5MP, second group is for 50MP pictures, and the third group is for all the 200MP goodness.
To take a look at all the pictures taken with the Xiaomi 12T Pro (there are a lot), then watch our video at the top of this review.
One thing I do want to highlight is that we cannot use manual more – or Pro mode as what Xiaomi calls it – to take 200MP pictures. We only have the ability to take 50MP pics in manual mode for now. Please Xiaomi, add the option to take 200MP pictures using manual mode. Then we can surely take mindblowing pictures using this phone.
So, should you take images in 50MP or 200MP pictures then? I’ll just say this – if you’re uploading the entire image to social media, then you definitely wouldn’t realize any difference.
A few more things to mention
Okay then, with those 6 points out of the way – we still have a few more things to mention about the Xiaomi 12T Pro. The USB-C port at the bottom of the phone is still a USB 2.0 port, so it’ll take forever to transfer out those 200MP pics and 4K 60fps videos.
Since it is using USB 2.0, that means this phone cannot output HDMI signal using that USB-C port.
Then, there is no microSD card slot as well – so we’re stuck with the internal storage only – which might be a problem since those 200MP pics and 4K 60fps videos are taking lots of storage yet it takes forever to transfer them out.
Should you buy the Xiaomi 12T Pro?
So that, conclusion time. We’ll talk about the price first. In Malaysia, it is available in two variants – the 8GB RAM version at RM2,699 and 12GB RAM version at RM2,999. Both variants come with 256GB storage – and I would just tell you to get the 8GB RAM version because we have already explained in another video – watch it at the top right corner – that anything more than 8GB RAM is going to be underutilized.
Then finally – do I recommend getting the Xiaomi 12T Pro? I’d say yes. If you play games on your phone, then this phone is the cheapest smartphone you can buy today with the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. If you’re interested in that 200MP camera sensor, then just make sure you know what you’re getting into and make sure it suits your usage. The color and detail look pretty much comparable to any other smartphone of this range, but the biggest advantage is when you start to zoom in.
I’d say this phone is rather good for videography too since it has a proper OIS system and 4K 60fps recording – but transferring out the video is going to be a pain in the ass with that USB 2.0 port speed.
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