Xiaomi 12 Pro Unboxing & Review
Using this device for a few days, I can assure you that you are about to have your mind blown by the Xiaomi 12 Pro. If you are new to the channel, welcome, and if you are returning, welcome back; I'd love it if you could hit that like button so more people can see this review and get informed. Alright, without further ado, let us get into the video. UNBOXING As always, we'll start off with the unboxing experience of Xiaomi's premium flagship.
I got this blacked-out box just before launch with all of the unique features of the Xiaomi 12 Pro on it. Sound by Harman / Kardon and 5G inscription. I have to say that 5G is pretty much a requirement than a feature at this point. Cutting off the tapes and opening the box shows you a smaller box with a "Designed by Xiaomi" inscription at the back. On opening that, you get the SIM ejector tool. Inside it, you get a silicone case, the 12 Pro's starter guide in multiple languages, the warranty card, and, lastly, the safety information. Next is the Xiaomi 12 Pro itself, with all the highlighted features up-front, but we'll get to it later. Taking the paper material out, you see the rest of the accessories.
You get sizeable 120W charging adapter. For context, if you take 1,000 Naira bill, this is what it looks like in comparison. This is one of those things where you have to see it for yourself to know how large and quite heavy it is. We did test the charger in this video, so do stick around until the end. You then get the power cable. That is all that's in the box, and I must comment Xiaomi, the paper materials used within the packaging are recycled but still have quality. Good one on the environment and hey, we get a charger. Getting to the device now, you see the highlighted features, what Xiaomi calls Pro-grade triple 50MP camera array. A 50MP Telephoto Lens and 50M Ultra-wide Lens, How cool is that, guys. 50, 50, 50 and of course, the selfie camera is 32MP. That is a lot of value right there if you ask me. Even the Processor we get on here is a very new one, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, 4nm processor with 5G, WQHD Display with 120Hz that's also AMOLED. The Quad Speakers and Sound by Harman Kardon and 120W Charging capabilities plus 50W wireless turbocharging.
(02:28) We will get into these features in this video, so don't go anywhere. Let's get to it. DESIGN Removing the recycled paper wrap and sticker from the back, you see that the Xiaomi 12 Pro comes in a pretty neutral design overall, nothing too over the top with this grey colour that I got it in. Still, though, giving a significant facelift to this design is the triple camera set up on the back of this device. I pretty much screamed in shock when I saw this camera set up. Fun fact, each camera on here is a 50-megapixel camera, and you do not want to miss out on how they perform in reality, so stick around for that. The Xiaomi 12 Pro is a sizeable device, with ample screen real estate, and the height of about 6.4 inches. That aside, we get nothing on the left of this device. You'll find the volume rockers and the power button right underneath that on the right side. On the bottom, we've got a type-c charging port, the sim tray, the bottom speaker grille, a microphone, and, as you can see, no headphone ports.
At the top, there is another microphone and the speaker grille. The Xiaomi 12 series actually feature the Sound by Harman Kardon and the audio experience we witnessed here at the studio what that I’d describe as immersive. IT’s also powered by Dolby Almost with some form of spatial sound and realism. The Xiaomi 12 Pro has quad speakers right here even as it’s 2 speaker grilles. This comes in the form of two tweeters and two woofers that have an interesting range. So, as I said, this is not the most elaborate design. Nevertheless, I think that the best things about this device are on the inside of it, so let's get to it already. DISPLAY The massive, almost bezel-less display on the front of the Xiaomi 12 Pro is a Corning Gorilla Glass Victus screen on the outside and a 6.73 1440p WQHD AMOLED DotDisplay on the inside. The display has a resolution of 3200 by 1440 and a refresh rate of 120Hz. On the matter of refresh rates, the display of this device is a Dynamic 120-hertz LTPO, which means that the display varies at refresh rates between 1 and 120 hertz.
Depending on what you are doing with the device, the refresh rate will automatically set itself to the most suitable refresh rate per time. This is a great way to enjoy using your display without messing too much with your battery life. Xiaomi also claims that the 12 Pro has a touch sampling rate as high as 480 hertz. Looking at some specs, you'll find out that this display also comes with Dolby Vision, HDR 10+ support, a contrast ratio of 8,000,000 to 1, and 1,500 nits of peak brightness. Remember that I mentioned earlier that the screen is a WQHD screen? Well, as another extra effort to optimise battery life and keep your device running for as long as possible, there is a feature on the device that allows you to switch between two different resolutions. There is a full HD+ resolution and a WQHD+ resolution. Depending on your battery life and personal preferences, the device allows you to switch between resolutions as you wish via the settings. There is a lot of stuff happening under the hood to ensure that this display is as high quality as possible. Whether you're watching videos, playing games, and as funny as it might sound, scrolling, you get to experience feeling quite an incredible amount of smoothness on this device. Honestly, scrolling was one of my favourite things about using the Xiaomi 12 Pro.
When I scrolled through the phone both on its interface and different apps, the high refresh rate was evident, and it made it fun to use the device as I swiped from one app to the next. Although, it's not among the display features of this device. I must say that the haptic feedback on the Xiaomi 12 Pro when typing was top tier. It felt like something I would love typing on for a while. I'm considering switching to this guy. PERFORMANCE Everything that this device offers would all be utterly useless if it did not have the proper performance features to back it up. Well, Xiaomi already knew this and placed some of the highest-end features that you can find on the market and similarly on all the latest flagship devices. The Xiaomi 12 Pro is powered by Qualcomm's top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip. As for RAM and ROM power, you get 12 gigs of base RAM, an extra 3 gigs through memory fusion making it 15GB of RAM, and 256 gigs of storage.
It also comes with Android 12 pre-installed and MiUi version 13. Please note that this is not the same as Android 13, and we do not yet know how many android version updates the device will be getting. Numbers aside, the Xiaomi 12 Pro flew right through all the apps I used to run. As usual, I tested out the power of this device by playing graphic-intensive games like Asphalt, PUBG, Call of Duty, and Need for Speed. As a fun test, I played each of these games, minimised and went on the next, and the device did not budge by a single frame. I also noticed that I could max out the frame rate and graphics quality in Call of Duty, which you can not find on most devices. Just a fun fact I thought to mention. I must commend how well this smartphone handled graphic-intensive tasks. This device also is complemented by its speed and all the performance features. You get that game booster feature for gaming, and 120Hz supported games run as smoothly as they get on here. All of these make it a solid choice for people who, of course, play games, and if you're a big power user, I think that this device is just powerful enough to handle whatever you throw at it.
BATTERY/CHARGING Alright, all of the stuff we have discussed so far is great, but what about battery life? Well, the Xiaomi 4,600mAh battery capacity. And while this is a decent battery size, I think I would have preferred something bigger for a flagship device with these many features. In reality, though, all the battery optimisation features that you get on this device play a pretty significant role in helping you get the best out of this battery. Even though I was not constantly on the phone, I used it for long hours gaming, taking photos and 4K videos. With its exciting features that we'll get to in a bit and browsing different apps, the device lasted me up to two days, but that includes a lot of standby time and running all the highest end features that the device warns would drain more battery. If you decide to use this as your primary device and have a lot of on-screen time, you might want to adjust your settings accordingly. With the correct settings, you would never need to be looking for a charger while you are out during the day. When it comes to charging, though, the Xiaomi 12 Pro is by far one of the fastest charging devices I have reviewed. The 120-watt fast charger that comes in the box, which Xiaomi calls HyperCharge, definitely lives up to that name. Within the first 5 minutes of charging with the fast charger, the device went from 0 to 18%. By 15 minutes of charging, the device was already more than half full at 52%. After about 30 minutes of charging, the device was already 88%. It eventually got to 100% after about 35 minutes of charging. So, 0 to 100 in 35 minutes. Wow. Like all the Xiaomi 12 Pro features, the charging also comes with extras. This device is capable of 50-watt wireless turbocharging and 10-watt reverse wireless charging. CAMERAS Let us now get to the cameras on the Xiaomi 12 Pro.
With the new trend of having more than one camera on the phone, most brands put different lenses with low and high megapixel cameras, but not on this device. Xiaomi has placed 3 50-megapixel on this device. Put together; you have 150 megapixels sitting pretty on the back of your device. But before we dig down that rabbit hole, the camera on the front of this device is a 32Mp selfie camera. On the Xiaomi 12 Pro, there is a 50MP primary wide-angle camera that does 8K recording, 4K HDR 10+, Motion tracking focus and Eye-tracking focus like actual cameras, and portrait night mode. The second camera is yet another 50-megapixel camera. However, this ultra-wide camera goes as wide as 115 degrees. The last camera is a 50-megapixel telephoto camera that can go up to 20X zoom. On the inside, what you can achieve with the camera of the Xiaomi 12 Pro blew my mind. First off, you get all their regular photo, video, and portrait mode on the first screen that you see. The pictures I took with the device were sharp. The power of 50 megapixels is evident in how the camera captures detail. As for the ultrawide angle and telephoto lenses, they impress too. The ultra-wide photos carried the usual ultrawide distortion but still maintained sharpness and details. As for the telephoto, it does a good zoom and the processing shows you a sharper form of the image. Once you open the camera app, you get the standard video, photo, and portrait mode.
The portrait shots were also pretty good. The app lets you adjust how blurred the background should be. Increasing the blur adds very sharp edges that make the image look over-processed. But, when you reduce it, the processing feels and looks more natural. The Pro Section and More are sections where things get very interesting. In the More section, you get the night mode, 50MP Ultra HD and other modes, which we'll touch on soon. We did take photos in the normal and 50MP mode and there are nuances you can find here and there. The other modes in the more section include short video mode, Panorama, Documents for scanning documents, vlog, slow motion, Timelapse, movie effects, long exposure, supermen, and dual video. These modes offer a wide range of creative options for what you can achieve with the camera on this device. They all come with preset effects that can help you create exciting videos and photos. The "Pro" section is where I think the best thing about the camera of the Xiaomi 12 Pro lies. Generally, with most Pro sections, you only get the flexibility to manually adjust settings like shutter speed, ISO, and White Balance. Well, the Xiaomi 12 Pro does that and takes the Pro thing to a whole new level. You can switch between Pro Video and Pro Photo by tapping on the button to the right side. They even have a section where they explain every thing to know about the Pro mode settings.
First, with the photo mode on the pro section, you can adjust the picture mode to create very flat images that allow you enough flexibility for editing. It also lets you shoot RAW, which is just amazing. Xiaomi still kills with its exposure verification feature on the Pro video side of the matter. Focus peaking highlights the area you have in focus with a red color. Even as you pull focus from one object to the other. Oh yes, you can adjust the Focus point with a slider from one section of your video to another. The video here can shoot 720p at 30 frames per second, 1080 at 30 and 60 frames per second, 4K at 30 and 60 frames per second, and finally 8K at just 24 frames per second. I did record in 8K as well so do tell us what you think. In reality, the video quality from this smartphone was mind-blowing. The level of quality in footage and features that it was able to pull off took me off guard. Of everything I have talked about so far, what was most interesting was how it could shoot log video. One of the many problems with using smartphones to record video is the already processed image with contrast and colours.
For filmmakers who want to shoot flat and then colour-grade by themselves, this camera comes with the option of capturing footage in LOG. Which will go by default to 4k at 30 fps. I guess it does make sense that the tagline for this device is Master every scene. The camera performance of this device is impressive, especially for video, a category that most brands have still not figured out even in their flagship devices. I would definitely recommend the cameras on this device any day and any time.
OTHER FEATURES Now, let's talk security. The fingerprint scanner on the Xiaomi 12 Pro is under the display. Setting it up was pretty simple, and it does take a few seconds to unlock after you place your finger on the screen. The animation and vibration that comes with unlocking and using the fingerprint reader are pretty cool too. As I mentioned earlier, the haptic feedback on this is really well done. Facial recognition is one of the fastest and easiest to set up. In a matter of 3 to 5 seconds, I was done setting up the facial recognition. After the quick setup, I was a little sceptical about how it would perform, but it did not fall short at all. Unlocking the device was as fast as a second. If you have the device set to "raise to wake" and have "stay on Lock Screen after unlocking" turned off, it will unlock itself once you pick up your device and you are good to go. As for the built-in speakers on this device, I was once again shocked by how it performed. The way it handles bass is one of the best I've heard from a smartphone. If you did a blind test, you probably would not even guess it was from this smartphone. I was playing music in the distance, and I almost couldn't tell the difference between this and my laptop that costs thousands of dollars. Here's a sample of how it sounds. The Xiaomi 12 Pro is one of the most impressive flagship devices that have come out this year.
I was kind of shocked by the level of performance and features that it offers. The price tag on this guy is $999 or in Nigeria, according to the Xiaomi Nigeria Twitter handle, it goes for 499,000 very close to 500,000 naira if you add 1k. This is for the 12GB RAM and 256GB storage device, exactly the one I have here and have used. Would I recommend this guy! Well, if you’ve got the budget for it, by all means, try it out at a store maybe, cross reference with what I’ve said in this review video. This is from me using this phone for about 2 weeks now so I think it’s a good buy if you’ve got the budget for it. Let me know your thoughts on this device.
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