Why would I choose Xiaomi 12T Pro and Xiaomi 12T

Hundreds of new smartphone models enter the market every year. But there are few devices about which you know in advance that

You will definitely enjoy working with them.The T-series from Xiaomi is just such smartphones. And, perhaps, it will not even be a mistake to say that it was Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro 3 years ago that finally convinced me that Xiaomi makes smartphones that are not inferior to Samsung, Apple or Huawei.

Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro was so good that he could even stand.

If Series 10 was a statement that Xiaomi couldmake cool smartphones (there they said so in the slogan: “Flagship camera, display and speed”), then the Xiaomi 11T Pro and 11T models have gained clearer positioning. Each flagship-level smartphone, in addition to excellent performance, should have some features. In the 11th series, the camera became such. Advanced algorithms “planted” the 108 MP module, calling the whole thing “cinema magic”.

The positioning of the 12th series has not changed. It's still a cool camera feature.

In this article, let's talk about the features of Xiaomi 12T Pro and 12T that make these smartphones uniquely cool.

No kidding, now on the market in its priceThe 12T Pro has no competitors in the segment. And if you own the "dark magic" of buying in places that cannot be named, then Xiaomi 12T Pro, in my opinion, is generally the best of the new smartphones in terms of price / features. I would suggest to refute it in the comments, but just this moment was analyzed in a separate article (link below). The material was readable, but no one could offer anything.

#199. Which smartphone to buy in 2022?

We are looking for options in every price segment, and trying to understand if the Realme 10 is better than the Galaxy 7?

And we also had a review of smartphones. And we plan to release another test comparison of Xiaomi 12T Pro cameras with other devices in a week.

Review and comparison of Xiaomi 12T and 12T Pro

Let's take a look at two great new items...

Little things that matter</ p>
- eSIM is here!
- Fast charge
- Battery life
- Update policy and MIUI 13
Camera
Screen
Phenomenal performance on both smartphones
Specifications
Conclusion

Little things that matter

Let's start with the appetizer!In 2022, in the premium segment, companies can no longer afford to make smartphones about which they will say: “The camera is fire! Everything else needs to be worked on." Should be a complete set!

Please note that the curtain does not displayonly VoLTE, but also the fact that the smartphone is connected to a Wi-Fi 6 network. The smartphone has a Wi-Fi 6E-enabled modem with a frequency of 6 GHz. This is important, as many people "save" by claiming Wi-Fi 6, but without the 6 GHz band. With the proper quality of the Internet, 2 GB of test photos “fly away” to the cloud in less than a minute.

eSIM is here!

The virtual SIM feature is the prerogative of flagships. Go to Yandex.Market, there are only Samsung and Apple flagships (+ gray Google Pixel).

eSIM in Xiaomi 12T Pro is a theme. Xiaomi 12T Pro is, by the way, the first Xiaomi smartphone with eSIM!

Can be used in Russia, but much nicer- on trips. Arrived in Montenegro, slap-slap, and no need to pay for roaming. The option is located in the SIM card settings. So far, 40+ countries are available, but it is clear that the list will grow. For example, Kazakhstan is not declared, but I saw on the forum that Beeline Kazakhstan is ok!

The only negative is that when eSIM is activated, the second physical SIM card slot is disabled.

Fast charge

Here it must be said that both models are equipped with120W adapter that charges up to 100% in 19 minutes. The smartphone has 9 thermal sensors that monitor overheating, allowing the battery to withstand 800 cycles without degrading capacity (here it should be clarified that the industry standard is an effective battery capacity of 60% after 500 full charge and discharge cycles).

But I would like to draw attention to the fact thatIn this case, Xiaomi HyperCharge technology itself is important. For example, using Xiaomi's 65W GaN charger, the smartphone charges from 30% to 100% in 17 minutes. To understand the speed, 4 minutes of 65W charging is 15% charge. Thus, 20 minutes is 75%, while the smartphone does not overheat, becoming only slightly warm.

And this completely changes the scenarios for working with a smartphone. You simply stop monitoring the charge level. Who cares? There is always 10-15 minutes, and this is enough for the smartphone to last the day.

Finally, I would like to note that today Xiaomi -one of the main innovators in the field of fast charging. Today, many people put powerful adapters in the kit, and the peculiarity of Xiaomi is that the company is working not only on charging speed, but also on extending battery life.

Battery life

Having said about the adapter, we will immediately close the issue of battery life.

In everyday affairs, smartphones are enough for 1-1.5 days. Given the fast charging, you stop monitoring the percentage of charge in the blind. I can only say with confidence that in PUBG, at maximum brightness and maximum performance, the smartphone is enough for almost 4 hours. This is a good result, after which your eyes will not be “in a pile”.

Separately, I decided to register this item, because I wanted to emphasize the minimum discharge process in standby mode.

Moreover, 12T on MediaTek bypasses 12T Pro on Qualcomm on this point. During the night, the Pro is discharged by 4%, while the 12T is only 2%.

Update policy and MIUI 13

12 series (like Xiaomi 11T Pro models) workson the MIUI 13 shell on top of Android 12. The smartphone will receive at least 3 versions of Android and 4 years of security patches, ending its life on Android 15 (and I can’t predict the MIUI version).

In the near future, smartphones will receive the MIUI 14 update, and then Android 13.

MIUI 13 is one of the best skins for Android today, as it combines the speed of "pure Android" with additional features built into the system.

The most basic example is the ability to play video with the screen turned off. By the way, the whole toolbar is good, but this feature is in my personal top.

Another example is the built-in functionwhich allows you to clean the metadata from photos when sending (the metadata contains a lot of information, starting with geolocation). There is also a photo editing option next door - getting rid of unnecessary objects. I won’t lie - the result is not from Google Pixel 7 advertising, but it’s great for social networks.

The peculiarity of the functions is that they are at hand. No need to dive into the jungle of settings to look for them. Everything works on the fly.

AI independently found highlighted all the figures of people. In order to remove them, a couple of taps are enough.

So, MIUI 13 has a powerful explorer that allows you to connect to your smartphone as an FTP client. Ideal for sharing files between your smartphone and computer or with other smartphones.

Every day on my Xiaomi I use Always-Onscreen and notifications using illuminated edges (a very good replacement for the notification indicator), an FTP function for sharing photos and working with an Android TV set-top box, the ability to distribute Wi-Fi 6 from a smartphone, floating windows that allow you to comfortably work with two applications (usually Telegram and YouTube) and playing videos with the screen turned off.

Floating windows allow you to comfortably work with two applications. In this case, the Telegram messenger window was called through the game panel.

Of course, there is much more to MIUI, and a series of separate materials can be made about this.

Camera

Obviously the star of this item will be 200 MPcamera Xiaomi 12T Pro. But first I want to make an important clarification. Some perceive the T-series as photo flagships, obliged to put everyone and everyone on the shoulder blades, including “reflex cameras”. If this were the case, then there would be no sense in smartphones for 100 thousand.

Of course, Xiaomi 12T and 12T Pro jump above their heads, but only in their category.

Here are the camera specs:

	Xiaomi 12T	Xiaomi 12T Pro
Cameras	108 MP main (matrix 1/1.67″), f/1.7, OIS 8 MP wide, f/2.2 2 MP macro, f/2.4 20 MP selfie, f/2.24	200 MP main (matrix 1/1.22″), f/1.69, OIS 8 MP wide, f/2.2 2 MP macro, f/2.4 20 MP selfie, f/2.24

Check out the size of the 200MP lens compared to the 108MP lens on the Xiaomi 12T.

I will say a seditious thing, but Xiaomi does not wantthe user shot in 200 MP resolution. The manufacturer carefully hides this option in the settings. And even if you select ULTRA HD shooting, the device will offer a resolution of 50 MP by default, 200 MP will need to be selected separately.

The fact is that no one needs pictures fromresolution of 16383 by 12288 pixels and larger than 50 MB. The idea is that the 200MP sensor captures more light, more detail, resulting in a sharper and richer picture when shooting in difficult conditions.

The idea behind the 12T-series cameras is to give the user a versatile camera that can handle everything from macro photography to shooting objects in motion.

Here is an example of shooting a video of a quartetdrummers and a couple of photos (note: link to video at the end of the section). See how balanced the shots turned out - fireworks in the foreground and the light from the screen in the background. The main thing in these photos and videos is that they were made on the principle of "point and shoot", even with the white balance was not played. And after all, these are, in fact, “night” photographs.

Continuing the theme of photographs with complex light.The camera did a great job both with the chameleon in motion (and it moves fast!), and with the photo of the foliage against the sun. And even in the photos of the karting track you can see the time on the scoreboard.

If we talk about daytime photos, then here the 12T Pro, perhaps, can compete with the flagships.

I am glad that for photography it is equally successfulall three lenses can be used. For example, here is a reflection in a New Year's ball, but the shot on the ultra-wide-angle module looks more interesting, right? And then look at a couple of examples of macro photography.

Portraits Xiaomi 12T Pro and even more so "beats"It's great that on the main, that on the front camera. In the photo with the chameleon, I admit that I overdid it with blur and brought the camera too close.

And in the portrait on the selfie camera, pay attention to the accuracy of the blur. Even the gum from the jacket was left alone. Although most smartphones would definitely try to blur it.

The undoubted minus is that the 2x magnification here is not optical, but “crop” (that is, digital zoom). However, if the “crop” has such a quality, then okay.

And finally, do not forget that Xiaomi hasThe camera has many interesting modes. For example, Ultraburst, which allows you to do continuous shooting. The smartphone takes 50 shots in 3 seconds, allowing you to capture objects in motion. For example, a passing kart or a snapshot of a squash pitch.

Without the Ultraburst mode, the frames look like this. Everything is smudged.

Original photos (zip, 4 MB) >>>
Sample video (MP4, 56 MB) >>>

The 12T-series of smartphones from Xiaomi gives itsthe owner has great opportunities for the realization of creative ideas. Well, if there are no creative ideas, then you can simply expect that the photos will turn out clear.

Screen

It is very good that Xiaomi installed the same screens in both smartphones:

6.67 incha, AMOLED-panel, 120 Hz, 68 billion colors, HDR10+ (the older model still has certification DolbyVision), resolution 2712 by 1220 dots, dot density 446 ppi, protective glass Corning Gorilla Glass 5

To be honest, it's hard to say something about the screen after the test results of many specialized publications have come out.

For example, DXOMARK, which evaluates not only cameras but also screens, placed the Xiaomi 12T Pro screen in the top ten ranking (8th place) of premium smartphones.

Perhaps the most interesting in third-partylaboratory studies - these are two tests. First, the screen brightness test. So, in the automatic brightness mode, the smartphone can accelerate to 970 nits (it is almost impossible to measure not in laboratory conditions). 970 nits is a high value that allows you to use your smartphone in bright sunlight as if it were indoors.

The second moment - the item disappeared from the settings"Flicker suppression". But wait resent! The 12 series does not need this function, since smartphones have a minimum PWM, that is, even at low brightness, the displays do not flicker. I know that for some users this may be important.

MIUI 13 has an excellent Always-On display system. The smartphone offers many animated solutions.

The PWM level in the 12th series is 1920 Hz.If you take some popular Korean flagship, then the flicker level there will be 240 Hz, while an apple smartphone will have 480 Hz. Considering that most users do not notice flicker (only a small percentage of people have eye and head pain), manufacturers do not bother much with this. But PWM is bad for the eyes because it causes the so-called "dry eye". So if your smartphone has a high PWM, then try not to use the screen at minimum brightness and you should not stare at the screen for a long time.

Of course, all the possibilities of the screen can only be experienced live, and they work in conjunction with the hardware.

For example, it's great, of course, to scroll through the menu with a refresh rate of 120 Hz, but it's much cooler to go to Call of Duty Mobile or PUBG at maximum settings and ultra frame rate.

Another option is to watch YouTube videos withenabled upscaling option, that is, improving the original resolution using artificial intelligence. Along the way, don't forget to activate HDR with AI. But MEMS (that is, artificial completion of video up to 60 frames per second) can be turned on if you wonder where this dubious smoothness in the video comes from.

Phenomenal performance on both smartphones

In terms of performance in the 11th series, only the older smartphone on the Snapdragon 888 was interesting. The younger model using the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 (6 nm) was not bad, but banal.

In the 12th series, Xiaomi has corrected itself.Both smartphones run on a "super iron". The 12T Pro has a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, while the 12T has a MediaTek Dimensity 8100-Ultra (Ultra means that this is a customized and further adapted chipset, tailored specifically to Xiaomi requirements).

Perhaps, the example of Dimensity 8100-Ultra shows how MediaTek not only breathes down the back of the head, but even bypasses Qualcomm.

Yes, Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 beats Dimensity8100-Ultra in performance (1.04 million points versus 850 thousand). Not to say that the difference is too big. However, if you run both smartphones in the “Enhanced Performance” mode for a throttling test, then the “drawdown” of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 will be 82% of the maximum performance, and the Dimensity 8100-Ultra will be only 95%. Accordingly, the difference in performance will be only 5%.

However, all these "games" of synthetic parrotsinteresting for geeks. In fact, we have two smartphones that allow us to play any game at maximum or ultra settings. We are talking about Genshin Impact, and about PUBG Mobile, which allows you to install not only 4K textures, but also ultra frame rates. On most smartphones, this menu option is not available.

In both smartphones, I also like the fact that the devices practically do not heat up during the game. Here the thermal imager was sent for a test, so for once I can confirm the words with numbers.

I would like to add, perhaps, thatXiaomi quickly adapted the ability to allocate additional virtual memory from the drive. So, for example, Xiaomi 12T Pro has an unrealistic 15 GB of RAM. Given that smartphones have the latest memory versions (LPDDR5 and UFS 3.1), the effect is excellent.

You will notice the work of the option if, like me, you loveopen many tabs in the browser: when switching, the page is not reloaded, everything is opened from the cache. (I note that the option is not unique, so virtual memory was also added to the 11T Pro).

Notice how fast the speed is.drive. And a little explanation, since smartphones use the technology of allocating virtual RAM from the drive, the result of the RAM speed in the test is incorrect.

Perhaps the most enjoyableYou get opportunities in terms of smartphone performance when you load devices to the maximum. For example, during the game, when you simultaneously open Telegram with a second window in order to urgently answer, while simultaneously recording the gameplay.

By the way, MIUI has a convenient game bar that allows you to record, take screenshots, and launch other applications as windows.

Specifications

	Xiaomi 12T	Xiaomi 12T Pro
Dimensions	163 x 76 x 8.6mm	163.2 x 75 x 9.1mm
Weight	202 grams	225 grams
Screen	6.67 inches AMOLED DotDisplay 2712×1220 dots, 120 Hz 480Hz touch frequency Corning Gorilla Glass 5 HDR10+	6.67 inches AMOLED DotDisplay 2712×1220 dots, 120 Hz 480Hz touch frequency Corning Gorilla Glass 5 HDR10+ Dolby Vision
CPU	Dimensity 8100-Ultra 5 nm Mali-G610 MC6	Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 4 nm Adreno 730
Memory	8 GB + 128 GB 8 GB + 256 GB LPDDR5 + UFS 3.1	8 GB + 128 GB 12 GB + 256 GB LPDDR5 + UFS 3.1
Cameras	108 MP main (matrix 1/1.67″), f/1.7, OIS 8 MP wide, f/2.2 2 MP macro, f/2.4 20 MP selfie, f/2.24	200 MP main (matrix 1/1.22″), f/1.69, OIS 8 MP wide, f/2.2 2 MP macro, f/2.4 20 MP selfie, f/2.24
Battery	5000 mAh 120W power adapter	5000 mAh 120W power adapter
Speakers	Stereo (Dolby Atmos)	Stereo (Harman Kardon)
Protection	IP53	IP53
IR port	there is	there is
Wi-Fi	Version 6 2×2 MIMO	Version 6 2×2 MIMO
Bluetooth	5.3	5.2
NFC	there is	there is
5G	n1/n3/n5/n7/n8/n20/n28/n38/n40/n41/n66/n77/n78	n1/n3/n5/n7/n8/n20/n28/n38/n40/n41/n66/n77/n78/n75
4G	B1/2/3/4/5/7/8/ 12/13/17/18/19/ 20/26/28/32/66	B1/2/3/4/5/7/8/ 12/13/17/18/19/ 20/25/26/28/32/66
satellite positioning	GPS (L1+L5), A-GPS, GLONASS (G1), GALILEO (E1+E5a), QZSS (L1+L5), NavIC (L5)	GPS (L1+L5), A-GPS, GLONASS (G1), GALILEO (E1+E5a), NavIC (L5)
Colors	Blue, silver and black	Blue, silver and black
Price	~ 41 000 rubles ~ 46 000 rubles	~ 51,000 rubles ~ 58 000 rubles

Conclusion

The advantage of Xiaomi 12T series models overall other smartphones, including other Xiaomi devices, is their unique balance between price and performance. Of course, these are not flagships. But after testing such a smartphone, you wonder if you really want to pay more for a flagship.

So far, the T-series is on the rise, developing,growing with features and interesting features. And the 12th generation is better than the 11th in almost all respects. Perhaps the most striking negative difference is the replacement of Gorilla Glass Victus with cheaper Gorilla Glass 5 protective glass. But these are trifles. Hopefully, Xiaomi will continue in the same spirit.

The choice between the Pro version and the regular version is perhapspretty easy to do. If you like to take pictures and the capabilities of the camera are of interest, then, of course, you should take a “plug”. If photography for you is just one of the functions of a smartphone, then take Xiaomi 12T and you will not regret anything.