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Irish Mirror

Lifestyle

Mark Kavanagh

Xiaomi 12T Pro review: Ground-breaking 200MP camera and superfast 120w charging in an almost-flagship smartphone

Xiaomi Apple OnePlus Samsung

Hugely popular internationally in recent years, smartphone giant Xiaomi launched in Ireland last year with the superb Xiaomi 12 Pro and more compact Xiaomi 12 handsets.

The Chinese giant is the world’s third-biggest phone maker after Samsung and Apple, so it was great to see the devices in Irish stores.

More recently, it brought the Xiaomi 12T Pro to the European market. It’s a more affordable device than the 12 and 12 Pro initially cost – but it still comes packed with high-end specs.

200MP camera

The 12T Pro feature set includes a game-changing and headline-grabbing 200MP rear camera, which can shoot 16-in-1 pixel-binned images, or a full 200MP resolution photo.

And while it’s nice to have the ability to shoot in full 200MP resolution, the camera software does a decent enough job on the pixel-binned images.

These 12.5MP shots boast incredible detail, as you might expect.

I brought the phone on a sightseeing trip to Washington recently and took hundreds of pics with Xiaomi 12T Pro and was a big fan of the natural looking images it produced.

I compared it to similar images shot on Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and OnePlus 11 and was generally pleased with the results.

It’s worth mentioning you can also produce 50MP resolution images as well as the 200MP shots. These are both great options to have.

The 200MP shots are useful if you plan to print an image in a large size. They also enable you to crop in a lot and still produce a detailed image.

Just because it's 200MP does not mean it's better than other cameras with lower resolution sensors. It's not as consistent as some 50MP phone cameras, in fairness.

Other camera system features

Xiaomi 12T Pro can shoot pleasing video at 8K resolution at 30fps, but it’s best to shoot in 4K 60fps as the footage will be stabilised.

I was also pleased with the 20MP selfie camera as it captured sharp and colourful photos with nice bokeh in the portrait mode.

However, I would not recommend either the 8MP ultrawide and 2MP macro camera as the quality is far inferior in both cases to the main camera and front camera.

Performance

The other huge feature on the 12T Pro is the Snapdragon+ Gen 1 chip.

And my benchmark tests and real-world experience showed the same thing – this is one zippy device that can handle almost anything you throw at it.

It breezes through productivity tasks and is superfast when switching between an array of open apps.

However, I would not recommend it as a gaming phone as it heats up quite substantially if you push it too hard on an intensive gaming session in my experience.

For this reason it struggled to complete the Wildlife Extreme Stress Test on 3D Mark.

But aside from intensive gaming you’ll find this a most capable handset in terms of speed and power.

Battery experience

Other selling points include the superfast 120W charger and the large 5000mAh battery.

You can easily get a full day from the battery but if you do run out of juice – as I did during heavy testing days – you can recharge from zero to 100 percent in roughly 24 minutes.

There’s no wireless charging, which would not be a dealbreaker for me especially given how fast the wired charging is.

Design and build

My review model was the Cosmic Black model. It’s a comfortable device in the hand despite the frame size.

It’s just 8.6mm thick and weighs only 205g, about 60g less than the Galaxy Z Fold 4.

One of the areas where Xiaomi makes compromises to keep the price low are in wireless charging (there is none) and not having an official IP rating for water resistance.

There’s also a plastic frame rather than aluminium.

But while the phone’s design does not scream premium, it does not feel cheap in the hand either.,

Display

Xiaomi 12T Pro has a 6.67in AMOLED display with 1,220 x 2,712 resolution. It is sharp and colourful.

The 120Hz refresh rate makes everything feel silky smooth.

But the display is not adaptive, so it’s not as energy efficient as phones with LTPO panels.

However, it has got AdaptiveSync which enables adjustments between 30Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz and 120Hz.

It’s a bright enough panel for everyday use but peak brightness only reaches 900nits.

The screen has Gorilla Glass 5 protection which is a couple of steps back from the latest Gorilla Glass Victus 2.

Other features

You get stereo speakers fine-tuned by Harmon Kardon, and the top of the phone houses an IR blaster, which means you can use the 12T Pro as a stand-in for all your remote controls.

There’s a free transparent protective case in the box along and a screen protector is pre-installed.

Xiaomi offers three years of OS updates but the 12T Pro shipped with Android 12. I’ve since upgraded it to MIUI 14 which runs on Android 13.

Not everyone likes the MIUI but I’m a fan. Like the old Huawei version of Android, MIUI takes as many cues from Apple’s iOS as it does from Android.

There is a high degree of customisation available especially in the Themes app.

Verdict

I was able to live with Xiaomi 12T Pro’s compromises over the past month and still enjoyed immensely the experience of using the handset every day.

It’s a polished smartphone with an excellent main camera and more power and speed than most users will ever need.

Xiaomi 12T Pro ships with Android 12 with Xiaomi's MIUI 13 on top.

The software experience is the same as on previous Xiaomi flagships. Animations are smooth, the UI is super responsive, and everything works as it should.

Pricing

Xiaomi 12T Pro costs €799 from www.xiaomi.ie

Key specs (reviewed model)

Dimensions: 163mm x 76 x 8.6mm
Weight: 205g
Display: 6.67in AMOLED 120Hz 2712×1220 display
SoC: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
RAM: 8GB
Storage: 256GB
OS: Android 12 / MIUI 13 (upgraded to 13/14 respectively)
Rear cameras: 200MP, f/1.69, wide angle camera with OIS; 8MP, f/2.2, ultrawide; 2MP, f/2.4, macro camera
Front camera: 20MP, f/2.2
Connectivity: Dual-SIM 5G, Wi-Fi 6, NFC, Bluetooth 5.2
Battery: 5000mAh
Wired charging: 120W
Wireless charging: No