Does the Xiaomi 12T Pro have enough juice in the tank to compete with other high-end models? He features a primary 200-megapixel picture sensor and ultra-fast 120 W charging to entice his planet. All while being powered by the most powerful processor available. Despite this, its pricing, while expensive, is reasonable in this market sector. So much for the executive summary. Now is the time to get specific with a full test.
TECHNICAL SHEET :
| Model | Xiaomi 12T Pro |
|---|---|
| OS version | Android 12 |
| Manufacturer interface | MIUI |
| screen size | 6.67 inches |
| Definition | 2712 x 1220 pixels |
| Pixel density | 446 ppp |
| Technology | AMOLED |
| SoC | Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 |
| Graphics chip (GPU) | Adreno 730 |
| Memory (RAM) | 8 Go, 12 Go |
| Internal memory (flash) | 256 Go |
| Camera (back) | Sensor 1: 200 MP Sensor 2: 8 MP Sensor 3: 2 MP |
| Camera (front) | 20 MP |
| Video recording | 8K @24 fps |
| Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi 6 (ax) |
| Bluetooth | 5.2 |
| 5G | Yes |
| NFC | Yes |
| Fingerprint sensor | Under the screen |
| Ports (inputs/outputs) | USB Type-C |
| Battery | 5000 mAh |
| THE | 0.997 |
| Dimensions | 75,9 x 163,1 x 8,6 mm |
| Weight | 205 grammes |
| Colors | Black, Silver, Blue |
| Repairability Index? | 7,6/10 |
| Prix | 729 $ |
A FINISHED Design, BUT NOT TOO MUCH!
Refined. The Xiaomi 12T Pro is well-polished. At least, that’s how it appears at first glance. It seduces mainly with its back, which has a gorgeous matte finish and rounded edges on the side edges and corners. The smartphone, on the other hand, does not desire to divert from the path. We’re back on familiar terrain on the front, with its flat screen and modest centered punch.
The rectangular picture block on the rear appears similar to that of the Xiaomi 12 Pro, with the primary camera taking center stage. This module is likewise more projecting than the others.
The overall handling of the Xiaomi 12T Pro is excellent. The 205 grams of this lovely baby should not be overlooked, but they will not hinder with regular usage. The rest of the gadget is fairly huge, measuring 163.1 mm in height. It’s useful to know.
We must not overlook the bad aspects. In this regard, two things immediately spring to mind: the relatively thick black outline around the screen and the scratches that emerged on the rear too soon. Both of them are quite inconvenient on a $800 smartphone. We shall relativize by noting that the somewhat wider boundaries are not prohibitive and have the advantage of being homogenous, thereby avoiding the enormous chin side. Scratches can also be avoided by using a protective cover.
We merely lament that the finishes on this Xiaomi 12T Pro aren’t a little more polished to keep the sophisticated aesthetic throughout.
Otherwise, keep in mind that all physical buttons are on the left. The fingerprint reader is located beneath the screen, and two speaker grilles are visible, one on the upper border and the other at the bottom.
There is no 3.5mm jack on the program. The front is protected by Gorilla Glass 5, but the Xiaomi 12T Pro does not have an IP certification, which would have ensured its water resistance or even waterproofness.
GREAT WORK ON THE SCREEN :
The Xiaomi 12T Pro has a 6.67-inch Amoled screen. 20:9 aspect ratio, variable refresh rate ranging from 30 to 120 Hz, touch sampling at 480 Hz, and 2712 x 1220 pixel resolution In summary, very beautiful things on paper, in the manner of what is anticipated at the upper end.
In actuality, we get an excellent contrast and a maximum brightness that does not disappoint, peaking at 910 cd / m2 according to our measurements. You’ll need the sun pounding down on your head to make you squint.
Regarding colors, keep in mind that the great majority of users will be quite content with the “Intense” option, which is the default setting. The latter adjusts the tones based on the material shown. If you want authentic renditions, though, choose “Color orginal [sic].”
Alternatively, to always take full use of it, choose “Saturated.” We also took our measurements with this, using a probe and Portrait Displays’ CalMan program. We wanted to see what the screen could do when it went full out.
The variety of hues shown does not disappoint us. The Xiaomi 12T Pro can cover 153% of the sRGB color space and 102% of the DCI-P3 color space. Your eyes will love being able to experience a variety of tones. The emphasis in saturated mode is not on fidelity. Nonetheless, the panel in SDR does not veer too far from reality. As a result, the average Delta E on the DCI-P3 is 3.31. The higher this index, the better. So there is cause for celebration.
Surprisingly, this integrity is lost while viewing HDR content. The average Delta E on DCI-P3 is thus 6.4. The colors will be stunning, but they will not be realistic. Remember how we utilized the saturated mode? As a result, this is predicted behavior. This is very excellent news for the Xiaomi 12T Pro.
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The average temperature with these settings is roughly 7360 K. This reveals a rather significant blue dominance (6500 K being the ideal target for a perfect balance with red). Again, this is not surprising for a saturated mode. If these minor drawbacks worry you, keep in mind that the “Intense” option was definitely designed for you.
SOFTWARE: SOME TROUBLES WITH MIUI
Xiaomi has accustomed us to its home interface with the release of several smartphones. MIUI 13 has already being tested (along with Android 12 ). This software experience is clearly the wand on the 12T Pro. As a reminder, it distinguishes itself from the competition with its control center, which is loosely influenced by iOS and emphasizes management of connected things in the home via Google Home widgets.
Xiaomi continues to provide a plethora of options of all sorts that allow you to go quite far in customizing the phone… However, MIUI 13 lacks some of the most fundamental features. Where are the Material You spirit and the Monet feature, which allow the system’s colors to be tailored to the wallpaper? We have seen this option implemented on other interfaces such as One UI (Samsung) and ColorOS (Oppo) without affecting their DNA.
Furthermore, there are a LOT of pre-installed third-party programs on this Xiaomi 12T Pro, which adds redundancy. Because Opera was just added to Chrome and the Mi browser, you will have three browsers by default. By promoting third-party apps in this manner, the manufacturer is able to keep the price of its smartphone under control. Nonetheless, we’re talking about a device that costs 800 dollars: this is difficult to stomach on the high end.
Fortunately, these unnecessary programs may be uninstalled. It is also easy to disable the obnoxious antivirus that is activated whenever programs are downloaded, even if they originate from the Play Store.
You won’t have to worry about your SVoD movies and series. The Xiaomi 12T Pro uses Widevine L1 to achieve HD quality on these systems. In terms of security upgrades, our model is using the September patch when we publish this test. This is an acceptable delay.
AUDIO: COMFORTABLE SPEAKERS
The Xiaomi’s two reasonably balanced and strong stereo speakers allow for decent sound output. In order to truly satisfy audiophiles, the bass must be a touch behind. Don’t anticipate miracles either.
You may adjust the listening experience to your tastes by using the equalization and Dolby Atmos options in the sound effects menu, which are both accessible with headphones or earbuds.
PHOTO: 200 MPX SATURATION
The Xiaomi 12T Pro blows hot and cold in the image. It has the advantage of having a primary sensor with 200 megapixels (f / 1.69), but it lacks a true telephoto lens. It is actually pleased with a super wide-angle sensor of 8 megapixels (120 degrees, f / 2.2) and a sad sensor specialized to macro of 2 megapixels (f / 2.4).
Was it worth sacrificing the telephoto lens on an 800 dollar smartphone to integrate a 200 megapixel sensor? We may already say no, but we must qualify by mentioning that other phones at comparable costs make a similar tradeoff.
With the disappointment out of the way, we can now concentrate on the inherent photo quality of the Xiaomi 12T Pro.
MAIN PHOTO SENSOR :
As always, we begin with images taken in favorable light. There is nothing to complain about in terms of detail accuracy and sharpness. The dynamics, on the other hand, may be stronger. The phone may not always see properly in some darkened environments.
Let us also discuss colorimetric processing. To heck with loyal colors! The Chinese brand’s algorithms frequently demonstrate that they find actual life too boring. It’s especially noticeable in the image below, when the grass becomes EXTREMELY bright. While many people like slightly saturated hues for more stunning images, Xiaomi occasionally overshoots the slider. It’s flattering, but the artifice is frequently lacking in nuance.
When it comes to low-light photography, the default settings are usually sufficient to provide very good, well-lit photographs. Night mode is enabled by default on the Xiaomi 12T Pro. And I would advise you to trust it since it does a good job of giving clarity to scenarios. It does not do miracles, but the renderings are adequate. Furthermore, the smartphone tends to saturate the colors less at night.
However, you may disable the automatic night mode by navigating to the camera’s settings.
200 MEGAPIXEL MODE :
With such a primary sensor, we must try the 200 megapixel mode. The phone will not blend pixels in post-processing while using this function. Instead, if you take the photo in favorable lighting, it will generate a bigger (and heavier) and clearer image.
It’s also worth noting that Xiaomi’s 12T Pro performs weirdly in this case. Why bother forcing so much clarity with microcontrasts on a 200 megapixel photo? Manufacturers frequently promise that you can print these big size photographs without hesitation. These types of features, on the other hand, would be quite noticeable.
Nonetheless, in the majority of cases, the 200 megapixel mode demonstrates that it can go beyond the 108 Mp mode.
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ULTRA GRAND-ANGLE
The extremely wide-angle lens isn’t horrible in and of itself, but it falls a little short. On the one hand, colorimetric uniformity is extremely unusual (and with this mode you will get even more saturated photos). However, as one advances out from the center, the shots gradually lose crispness.
Expect no miracles from night scenes. We don’t see anything.
PORTRAIT AND MACRO :
With its bokeh effect, the Xiaomi 12T Pro’s portrait mode is accurate and easy on the eyes.
When it comes to color rendering, keep this in mind.
The macro mode, as predicted, remains quite gadget-like. Even if we can identify an above-average ability to capture crisp images of objects, the findings are simply too weakly defined to be adequately used.
SELFIE :
The 20 Mp sensor (f / 2.24) in the front performs an excellent job of capturing the intricacies of your face. Simply deactivate all of the “beauty” features that smooth the skin.
Also, don’t depend too much on the screen feedback you’ll get when snapping the shot. On the backlights, the rendering is usually awful, but the treatment applied in the aftermath allows it to catch up with everything.
VIDEO :
You can shoot video at up to 8K resolution and 24 fps. Because the interest in 8K on smartphones is still speculative, I’d rather show you what 4K looks like at 60 frames per second on the Xiaomi 12T Pro.
If you wish to shoot in 1080p, you can get up to 60 frames per second using the front sensor.
TOP PERFORMANCE!
The Xiaomi 12T Pro can brag of being a terrific competitive beast in terms of sheer power, thanks to its Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor. The most demanding 3D games will run well on this smartphone. The good benchmark scores below speak to this: it performs similarly to the Asus Zenfone 9, which especially pleased us in this regard (it has the same Qualcomm chip).
| Model | Xiaomi 12T Pro | Google Pixel 7 Pro | Asus Zenfone 9 | Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AnTuTu 9 | 1065890 | N/C | 1085542 | 934653 |
| AnTuTu CPU | 252711 | N/C | 255974 | 226613 |
| AnTuTu GPU | 461568 | N/C | 468392 | 404136 |
| AnTuTu MEM | 175314 | N/C | 181036 | 154007 |
| AnTuTu UX | 176297 | N/C | 180140 | 142592 |
| PC Mark 3.0 | 12878 | 11317 | 16292 | 13216 |
| 3DMark Wild Life Extreme | 2813 | 1822 | 2776 | N/C |
| 3DMark Wild Life Extreme framerate moyen | 16.80 FPS | 10.90 FPS | 16.6 FPS | N/C |
| GFXBench Aztec Vulkan/Metal high (onscreen / offscreen) | 54 / 52 FPS | 48 / 13 FPS | 67 / 51 FPS | 29 / 32 FPS |
| GFXBench Car Chase (onscreen / offscreen) | 70 / 103 FPS | 53 / 57 FPS | 89 / 103 FPS | 32 / 60 FPS |
| GFXBench Manhattan 3.0 (onscreen / offscreen) | 120 / 273 FPS | N/C | 119 / 258 FPS | 85 / 136 FPS |
| Geekbench 5 Single-core | 1308 | 990 | N/C | 1240 |
| Geekbench 5 Multi-core | 4337 | 2669 | N/C | 3896 |
| Sequential Read/Write | 1842 / 1738 Mo/s | 1328 / 236 Mo/s | 1955 / 1453 Mo/s | 1920 / 1307 Mo/s |
| Random read/write | 84162 / 113531 IOPS | 40972 / 52167 IOPS | 94123 / 125455 IOPS | 66203 / 68887 IOPS |
With the graphical settings set to Epic mode, you can easily play Fortnite at 60 frames per second. It’s smooth and enjoyable. Even in the early game, the skydiving, which is generally prone to slowdowns, goes off without a hitch. Otherwise, frenetic camera movements are required to make the decline in the number of frames displayed per second visible to the eye.
Furthermore, the Xiaomi 12T Pro delivers up to 90Hz on Epic’s game, but it’s not worth it because you’ll be confined to low-quality visuals. Finally, in terms of temperature, it should be observed that the smartphone warms up substantially throughout the endeavor without causing too much disruption. To really heat things up, I decided to bring out the big guns: a battery drainer with all the settings turned on (flash, very busy CPU and GPU, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, maximum brightness without standby and GPS ).
AUTONOMY: AS A RESULT OF THE 120 W LOAD
The Xiaomi 12T Pro is powered by a 5000 mAh battery. First, she is quite good at retaining vital percentages while the smartphone is turned off. Indeed, I was unable to begin my test immediately following the smartphone’s unveiling. The latter had been set up, connected to the Internet, and in use for a few hours, although it had been on my desk for at least three and a half days. However, when I was finally able to examine it properly, it had lost just a minimal amount of energy.
Otherwise, the Xiaomi 12T Pro will be able to last the days when it is being utilized without being faultless. The battery level might drop dramatically when taking photographs, movies, or playing games. It is not systematic, but it must be monitored on a regular basis. The smartphone will lose around 7% of its battery in 15 minutes while playing Fortnite at 60 frames per second with Epic. Nothing out of the ordinary, but keep in mind that it can go down quickly.
Let’s chat about the load! I went from 10% to 100% in approximately 25 minutes. So it’s a little longer than the brand’s advertised 19-minute charge time, but it’s still pretty quick. The included 120 W adaptor is nothing short of inefficient. If that’s still too sluggish for you (some people are quite impatient), you may raise the charging speed under the security options. In exchange, the Xiaomi 12T Pro cautions that it is more prone to heat stroke.
NETWORK AND COMMUNICATION :
The Xiaomi 12T Pro does not cause any issues during calls. The person on the other end of the line will recognize your voice, which will not be distorted by the modest compression. If you’re in a noisy area, your interlocutor will be able to discern background noise, but it will never drown out your speech.
Furthermore, I have never had any issues with 4G, whether in the Paris region where I live, on a short trip to Isère, or when flying to Munich with roaming data. It is also worth noting that the Xiaomi 12T Pro is 5G network compatible.
Finally, there is nothing new to report about geolocation.
PRICE AND RELEASE DATE :
Since October 13, the Xiaomi 12T Pro has been available in the markets. It has an official price of 729 dollars and is available in three colors: black, light blue, and silver.
