Xiaomi 12 Pro Review: Experience Coexist with Performance

1. Introduction

The digital series is the first product line of Xiaomi cell phones, it is Xiaomi 1, Xiaomi 2, these classic models, there are now MIX, Civi and other series, and even the entire Redmi brand.

It can be said that the digital series is the foundation of Xiaomi cell phones, and is also one of the largest user groups of Xiaomi cell phones. In terms of positioning, almost every generation of the digital series is based on the mainline of stacking materials, set the first hardware, advanced technology as a whole.

Unfortunately, cell phone development has long ceased to be hardware stacking alone, but the joint hardware and software tuning, Xiaomi did not focus on this point earlier, resulting in the fall of a configuration did not lose, the experience did not win the argument. But also let it realize that heap configuration is only one aspect, the most important thing is still experience, that is, the feeling of use.

Xiaomi’s response is relatively fast, this year’s software level has been adjusted one after another, the launch of the MIUI 12.5, which can be called a major version of the update, and Xiaomi 12 began, the digital series began to transform, the most directly visible is the external publicity.

Before the release of the Xiaomi 12 series, warm-up information rarely mentions the hardware configuration, almost always experience-oriented, Lei Jun has repeatedly stressed the deadly experience, which is the first time for the digital series, to know the past are the first, the first, innovation and other words, and Xiaomi 12 only used three words, “fast, more stable.”

This time Xiaomi brought three models, respectively, Xiaomi 12X, Xiaomi 12, Xiaomi 12 Pro, two body sizes, of which Xiaomi 12 and Xiaomi 12 Pro core configuration is the same, directly against Apple, the first time to dual size debut.

There is an “even number of real flagship” between the xiaom6 fans, meaning that if the Xiaomi digital series coincides with an even number, then it is worth buying, although the flirtation means more, Xiaomi’s performance in the past two years seems to be not far from this statement. How does Xiaomi 12 Pro perform? Then look down for Xiaomi 12 Pro review.

The work of Xiaomi 12 provides black/blue/purple three AG glass material color, as well as the vegetal leather version of the original wild green, in hands, this color scheme is.

Xiaomi 12 Pro front screen canceled the four-curved form, replaced by a hyperbolic, centered hole design, and the mainstream flagship is the same, the body R corner more rounded and smooth, in line with the visual perception, the lower bezel control is okay, the overall view of the moderate, but unfortunately, no edge of the front camera under the screen, is it reserved for next year’s mega cup?

First look at the Xiaomi 12 Pro front, and the regular flagship is not much different, choose a mature micro-curved screen, for the digital series, Xiaomi seems to become more cautious, parameters are also routinely upgraded more.

Xiaomi 12 Pro uses a 6.73-inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 3200 × 1440p, Samsung E5 material, second-generation LPTO, 552 PPI, full-screen brightness of up to 1000nit, peak brightness of 1500nit, support for 120Hz refresh rate, and ten fingers 480Hz touch sampling rate, as well as JNCD ≈ 0.43 △ E ≈ 0.4, the dual front and rear ambient light sensors, 10bit color depth, etc.

Xiaomi said this screen second generation low-power 2K screen, the reason is four aspects, respectively, E5 light-emitting material, the second generation LTPO, Micro-Lens micro-prism technology, all belong to the hardware level to reduce power consumption, the focus is still to see whether the software level can play a role, so Xiaomi 12 Pro built-in a function called intelligent dynamic refresh rate.

This feature allows the screen to achieve a sliding variable speed, if memory serves, it should be the first Android, simply put, the refresh rate will follow the screen sliding screen and change, such as from top to bottom of this simple sliding operation, the screen refresh rate will slowly decline with the speed of the screen movement, from 120Hz to 90Hz, then to 60Hz, 30Hz, and finally down to 10Hz, this practice is very power-saving.

But after testing, it seems that at present only Xiaomi’s App support, other third-party applications are not yet supported, I hope that more can be added subsequently.

In addition, the use of the second generation LTPO technology, Xiaomi side did some screen refresh rate optimization, such as reading e-books, looking at the picture is 1Hz, when typing is 60Hz, browsing information flow quickly raised to 120Hz, combined with these software tuning, Xiaomi only called the second generation of low-power 2K screen.

Xiaomi 12 Pro continues to retain the vegetal leather material, the back for the rectangular camera layout, including three cameras and dual-color temperature flash, where the lens module has a small detail of line division Xiaomi 12 Pro body has several such small unintentional details, such as volume keys also did a special treatment, invisible increase the sense of sophistication of the whole machine.

Then is the degree of lens protrusion, compared to Xiaomi 11 Pro “sink” a lot, for high-end flagship is a must, test the assembly and design process, this Xiaomi 12 Pro can not be faulted.

Xiaomi 12 Pro along with the vegetarian leather material is quite unexpected, may feel more high-end, and the surface texture is delicate, soft-touch, it is said that the use of environmentally-friendly vegetarian leather, organic solvents 0 added, from environmentally friendly PU, reduce energy consumption, reduce carbon emissions.

One said a vegetarian leather feel is indeed better than the glass material, especially since the winter temperature is lower, the feel of the vegetarian leather is not as cool as the glass.

2. System and Highlights

Xiaomi 12 Pro runs Android 12-based MIUI 13 stable version, really did not expect, factory pre-installed MIUI 13 major version update, it can be seen that MIUI polished for a long time, the new version has been able to stable installed.

When the author first opened the phone, he really did not perceive that it was MIUI 13, he always thought it was MIUI 12.5 because the UI and icons did not change much, compared to the previous generations of radical improvements, MIUI 13 does not look radical, but when you think about the performance of MIUI in the past two years, you can also be relieved, and Xiaomi’s recent strategy is to stabilize the word.

Since this is a major version update, then try to say a little about the new features, MIUI 12.5 already has not much space.

The main interface has not changed much, the negative screen has a new look, the content is more aggregated, the information is intuitive and clear, the typography looks comfortable, there is no text logo under the icon, it looks more simple.

The default font is replaced from Xiaomi Lanting Pro to the new MiSans, which still supports stepless adjustment, and the size and thickness can be adjusted. The new font seems to be more oval, which fits with the style of MIUI icons.

Xiaomi 12 Pro uses a 2K + 120Hz high refresh screen, the default is 2K resolution, you can automatically switch the resolution according to the scene, AI master image quality engine are also supported, especially the dynamic screen frame fill, especially comfortable when watching videos.

MIUI 13 brings a new sidebar function, support for global display, slide a specific location can be summoned, showing the most recently opened applications, is a more convenient shortcut, other mainstream UI also has similar features, individuals rarely open with, after all, more than a line in the side, sometimes the edge of the return may also accidentally touch.

The widget is a feature that MIUI 13 is looking forward to, a rectangular block or square block showing different content, such as calendars, commemorative photos, etc., can be placed on the desktop and can be used as a shortcut, so it can be said to be both beautiful and practical.

Some notes, to-do lists, or health codes, and Mi Home device shortcuts are supported by widgets added to the desktop.

MIUI 12 brought privacy features such as interception network, flares, fuzzy positioning, etc. Subsequently, many mainstream ROMs have strengthened privacy protection, MIUI 13 added anti-tracking mode, to the scene, for example, I search for a keyboard in the browser during the day, open a shopping software at night, push ads is the keyboard, think carefully.

MIUI 13’s anti-tracking mode reduces this situation to some extent, first of all, it prohibits the application from obtaining a MAC address to prevent tracking through the MAC address of the device, while intelligently identifying and disabling various types of trackers embedded in the application, such as sharing personal identification by reading and writing cell phone storage, sharing SDK tracking, etc. In addition, blank pass, virtual identity ID, fuzzy positioning is also aggregated to the anti-tracking mode.

3. Performance and Gaming

Core configuration, Xiaomi 12 Pro is equipped with Snapdragon 8 Gen1 processor, with LPDDR5 6400Mbps, a full-featured new generation of UFS 3.1 flash memory.

Snapdragon 8 Gen1 is the latest mobile platform released by Qualcomm, for this new processor, this time mainly to say the CPU and GPU performance, the same to come, AI engine and ISP for the time being skipped.

The first look at the process, based on Samsung 4nm build, in fact, strictly speaking, 4nm is not 5nm iterative upgrade, author prefer to call it 5nm enhanced version, the package is not too much, but the semiconductor process development inch, is in order, can not be rushed, but Samsung foundry a little panic, after all, there is Snapdragon 888 in front, the actual performance of the following said.

The CPU architecture, Snapdragon 8 Gen1 are based on ARMv9 pure 64-bit instruction set to create 8-core Kryo, the first major version of the decade change, with years of v8 is finally pulled down the curtain, the new v9 to improve security and machine learning capabilities, while a comprehensive shift to 64-bit, improve operational efficiency.

The CPU continues 1+3+4 combination, consisting of a 3GHz mega-core Cortex-X2 and three 2.5GHz A710s, and four 1.8GHz A510s. The author can’t help but see a tight heart, thinking of Snapdragon 888 2.84GHz X1 mega-core… According to Qualcomm, Snapdragon 8 CPU performance by 20%, energy efficiency ratio by 30%, and is the first platform to support Unreal Engine 5.

Mega-core and large core upgrades are expected, some unexpected is the performance of the four energy-efficient core A510, but also with a new cluster design, and daily open web pages, brush video with the most is also it, including daily standby will also be used to.

GPU is also a new architecture design, not specified, should be Adreno 730, then it is the first generation in five years, the core area increased by 60%, graphics rendering speed increased by 30%, Vulkan performance is increased by 60%, focusing on improving the game. Other first, to see how the new generation of Snapdragon 8 Gen1 equipped with Xiaomi 12 Pro AnTuTu Benchmark score?

After the actual test, Xiaomi 12 Pro’s AnTuTu run score of 1020324, breaking a million run scores, of which the CPU reached about 230,000, compared to Xiaomi 11 Pro has a small increase, the GPU score is said to be across the upgrade, the score is close to 450,000, which is also the biggest performance upgrade of the new generation of Snapdragon 8.

MEM and UX also have a corresponding increase, the full-featured version of LPDDR5 memory reached a maximum rate of 6400Mbps while having a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate screen, this achievement is not unexpected.

Storage, Xiaomi 12 Pro is equipped with a new generation of UFS 3.1 flash memory, measured sequential read 1941.2MB/s, sequential write speed reached 1256MB/s, you can see a large increase in write performance, compared to the conventional UFS 3.1 flash memory models almost doubled, the benefit is to install applications, loading games faster, there is clear perception.

Before Xiaomi 12 was released, Lei Jun repeatedly said that he got the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 in advance, months of joint tuning, mainly dead-on experience, the new dynamic performance scheduling technology, and the regular frequency reduction are different, indeed a little something, it is millisecond scheduling, almost senseless adjustment.

Dynamic performance scheduling is a real-time analysis of game progress technology, through the interface, behavior, scenarios, distribution of chip frequency, scheduling, frame rate, etc., such as “Honor of King” MOBA game, itself only when the group battle requires high frequency, this technology divides the game into five modes, game start, game lobby, game loading, the single person against the line, large-scale group battle, respectively, with different chip frequency, screen frame rate to complete. To achieve the effect of stable output without heating, to control the Snapdragon 8, Xiaomi side is also put a lot of effort.

Heat dissipation, Xiaomi 12 Pro is equipped with a 2900mm² heat dissipation VC, covering the centralized heat generation area, and three layers of oversized graphite sheet, heat dissipation efficiency. Let’s take a look at its gaming performance.

Honor of King

Xiaomi 12 Pro supports 120fps mode for “Honor of King”, which automatically identifies different scenarios and gives different frame rate display, such as selecting hero interface is 60fps, group battle interface and the single lane is 120fps, frame rate display is 120fps throughout the game, where 60fps is the return interface at the end of the game, if not, there is no problem to keep 120fps throughout the game, and the average frame rate will also be higher.

In terms of temperature, the most obvious heat of the body is the lens side of the processor location, but the temperature is acceptable, the highest temperature 44.8°, the average temperature of 40.9°.

The Original God

The Snapdragon 8 Gen1 GPU has made significant progress. Previous Snapdragon 888 models could only maintain 60fps for about 10 minutes before they started to lock up, but this did not happen with the Xiaomi 12 Pro, with a maximum temperature of 47.6° and an average temperature of 41.7°.

Peace Elite

“Peace Elite” currently supports only 60fps (90fps is expected to be supported subsequently), for such mainstream games, the manufacturer will optimize it separately. The measured frame rate is very stable, almost into a straight line, almost no heat, maximum temperature 38.4°, average temperature 35.9°.

4. Camera

Imaging, Xiaomi 12 Pro rear for 50 megapixels wide-angle + 50-megapixel portrait + 50 megapixel super wide-angle three cameras, including the main camera debut IMX707 CMOS, 1/1.28” large bottom, support OIS optical stabilization, 4-in-1 after the single-pixel reached 2.44 microns. The light intake is increased by 49%, so the light sensitivity is further improved, and with Xiaomi’s Night Algorithm 2.0, it achieves full focal length super night scene.

In addition, Xiaomi 12 Pro has taken two years to re-engineer its image architecture, and for the first time, it is equipped with Xiaomi Image Brain, which has four modules of built-in intention recognition unit, acceleration engine, a calculation unit, and eco-engine, increasing the speed of photo taken by 53%, the speed of night shooting by 40%, and the speed of continuous photo-taking by 209%, so what you take is what you get.

Daytime Sample Photos

Xiaomi 12 Pro rear three 50 megapixel lens, of which the main camera is the first Sony IMX707 sensor, the overall exposure performance of the machine is quite excellent, the backlight environment is still clear restoration of details, color reproduction should have AI smear, but is not particularly obvious, the sky is a little bluer, the transition is natural, the post-processing is very transparent, ultra-wide-angle lens dynamic range is greater, roadside signs details are also in place.

The machine is not equipped with a periscope lens, so the maximum support is only 20X digital zoom, the author does not know what consideration Xiaomi, the previous generation is still retaining, to Xiaomi 12 Pro instead took away, but 20X zoom is also enough to use.

Night Sample Photos

Xiaomi 12 Pro’s night scene is no longer a door to silly bright, but the highlights are suppressed while the dark areas are restored as much detail as possible, not directly brightened, the night algorithm 2.0 upgrade is more obvious, the color control is very much in place, for example, the first building logo, many phones night scene overexposed to orange, while Xiaomi 12 Pro restored the real red.

For night scenes that are not particularly well-lit, Xiaomi 12 Pro will automatically open the night mode, compared to its predecessor, the imaging speed this time is a qualitative change, the shot can be opened to see, the night scene is also, and Xiaomi image brain can not be separated. In this regard to the Xiaomi, side asked whether the Xiaomi image brain is devolved, the answer is currently only Xiaomi 12 series exclusive, rather, unfortunately.

5. Battery life and charging

Xiaomi 12 Pro is equipped with a 4600mAh battery, note that it is a piece, not a dual-cell, also supports 120-watt fast charging, compared to the dual-cell composition of 4500mAh larger. How about the power consumption of the Snapdragon 8 Gen1? How about Xiaomi’s so-called second-generation low-power 2K screen? Let’s take a look at the actual test data, the customary use of the AnTuTu stress test function to carry out superpower consumption tests.

The stress test is a built-in feature of the AnTuTu test, which tests the stability of the device’s performance by carrying out high-load calculations, requiring the CPU to carry out a large number of calculations, so the power consumption is greater compared to video, daily use, and other scenarios.

Under the superpower consumption test, Xiaomi 12 Pro persisted for 140 minutes, more power consumption compared to the regular Snapdragon 888 flagship, the actual frequency maintained a full load, so the power consumption is understandably faster, but it can be presumed that the power consumption of Snapdragon 8 Gen1 is somewhat unsatisfactory.

Then look at the range estimate, because this result is based on the CPU has been in the case of full load to obtain, taking into account our daily use and bright screen time, so this data to be converted into a multiplier, resulting in Xiaomi 12 Pro has about 5 hours of battery life.

But the standby battery life is really top, just got it without charging, about 73% power, during the period without charging, experienced running scores, charging, and occasionally bright screen screenshots, download games or software, nearly two days, and 20% power.

As shown in the picture, the highest power consumption is still the screen, the bright screen length is close to 2 hours, this standby battery life is really unexpected, compared to the past to improve too much.

Charging, Xiaomi 12 Pro support 120W wired fast charging, there is a blistering constant temperature of two modes to choose from, the fastest 18 minutes to 100% while supporting 50W wireless fast charging, 42 minutes to 100%.

At this point there is a question, how did the single-cell achieve 120W fast charging? The answer is the Surge P1, Xiaomi another self-research chip for fast charging, more than 1 year in advance of the project, costing 100 million and other research and development investment, the complexity of the start-up and protection circuit is 9 times higher than before, creating a single-cell 100-watt fast charging.

The reason why the cost is huge is not expected to single Xiaomi 12 Pro carry, solve the battery problem, maybe the subsequent breakthrough 120W fast charging stepping stone, other than that, as far as charging is concerned, Xiaomi is definitely in the lead.

After the actual test, Xiaomi 12 Pro sprint mode took 19 minutes from 1% to 100%, and the official data is not much different, including 3 minutes to charge 21% of the power, 9 minutes to charge 58% of the power, only the time to wash to complete charging.

6. Summary

Xiaomi 12 Pro is the third generation of its high-end flagship, the continuation of the digital series heap of material, but also change with this, the body of all the configuration is almost all to serve the experience, such as the second generation of low-power 2K screen, intelligent dynamic refresh rate, dynamic performance scheduling, Xiaomi image brain are so, and deservedly so, the convergence of an experience close to the full flagship.

The Digital series is different from other product lines, Xiaomi cell phones have Noted, MIX, Play, CC, Civi, and many other series, although some product lines were cut, the digital series is undoubtedly the most special of them, because, from the beginning of the founding of the existence of more than ten years, many rice fans have feelings for it, so the performance is not satisfactory, although there is the sound of trolling, but more or less with some. The most important thing is that you can’t be too hard on yourself.

Xiaomi 12 Pro overall performance, more like a flagship phone built under the supervision of the Xiaomi’s fans, said whipping a little too much, but also close, instead of calling it a digital series iterative update, it is better to say that the flagship built according to the feedback of thousands of Xiaomi’s fans, it is not perfect, high frequency is still some heat, the image is also to be optimized, need time to polish.

The series of changes is Xiaomi walk in the road of high-end inevitable, hardware pile of course, but the software with the tuning is a must, and the digital series itself does not need so many first technologies, stability is the pursuit of this huge number of users of the series, Xiaomi is aware of this, is improving to makeup, the process may not be a year or two to complete.

Through the Xiaomi 12 series, only to realize the reason why Xiaomi can accumulate so many users, this is a brand that can listen to the voice of the user, and the key is that Xiaomi listens and will reflect, the original purpose of technology products is to serve people, when a company attaches great importance to user feedback, not to say that it can be invincible, but certainly can last.

But for Xiaomi, the digital series to pursue a balanced, both configuration heaps of material, the first new technology, but also with the software tuning to play the experience, more extreme exploration is given to the MIX series, so to complete the cycle, although some harsh, but can achieve the coolest company in the hearts of rice fans, to achieve what Lei Jun said the living, but also to keep the love, together to the mountains and the sea.

Note: this review was originally published on AnTuTu Benchmark by author Tangzheng.