Xiaomi 12 review

Triple-camera setup but no telephoto

Xiaomi's biggest omission with the 12 is arguably the telephoto camera. One would expect proper magnification from a flagship phone.

On the bright side of things, the handset packs good camera hardware. The main one is Sony's IMX766 with 50MP resolution, big 1,0µm pixels measuring 1/1.56" in size. The sensor itself is aided by a 6P lens supporting OIS and offering f/1.9 aperture.

The auxiliary ultrawide camera is manufactured by OmniVision with model number OV13B10. It offers 13MP resolution, 1.12µm pixels and is 1/3.06" in size. The optics provide a 123-degree field of view and f/2.4 aperture.

The macro shooter is Samsung's 5MP S5K5E9 paired with 2x telephoto lens and it supports autofocus. A much better solution than most 2MP macro cameras.

Lastly, we have OmniVision's 32MP OV32B40 sensor at the front with f/2.4 aperture and 0.7µm pixels.

Camera menus

The camera app is simple and familiar. First, basic operation for changing modes works with sideswipes (on the modes scroller), and you can also tap on the modes you can see to switch to those directly. Up and down swipes don't work for switching between the front and rear cameras; only the toggle next to the shutter release does that.

You can add, remove, and rearrange modes in the main rolodex by going to the More tab and navigating to the edit button, and you can access that from the settings menu as well. The unused modes will still be in that More tab, but you can switch to a (less intuitive) pull-out pane that's summoned from a line next to the shutter release.

The hamburger menu at the far end of the screen is where you'll find additional options, plus the icon to access the settings. Next to that hamburger menu, you have a flash mode switch, an HDR switch, an AI toggle, a shortcut to Google Lens, and a magic wand with beauty effects and filters.

Camera menus

There's an expanded Pro mode, where you can tweak the shooting parameters yourself, and you can use it with the main and ultra-wide cameras. You get to pick one of 4 white balance presets or dial in the light temperature with a slider, there's a manual focusing slider (with peaking as an option, which is a rare sighting), and shutter speed (1/4000s to 30s) and ISO control with range depending on which camera you're using. A tiny live histogram is available, and a toggle for zebras can be found in the hamburger menu.

Camera menus

Night mode is available on all three cameras, and there's also an Auto Night mode setting in the menu, enabled by default. Another option that caught our eye was Eye-tracking focus, also turned on by default.

Daylight samples

Main camera

Since the Xiaomi 12 is a flagship phone, we had high expectations from the main camera's performance. And we were still surprised by how good the samples look. Our usual round of scenes we use to compare with other handsets were shot in various weather conditions. You will see that some of them are with a significant overcast while others look somewhat sunny. However, the phone was quite consistent in its overall rendition.

12.5MP daylight samples

Everything looks sharp, fine detail can be found across all parts of the scenes, dynamic range is wide and noise is non-existent even indoors. Speaking of indoor shots, the Xiaomi 12 is able to retain much of the detail and sharpness inside without producing fine grain as a result.

12.5MP daylight samples

If we need to get picky, though, one could argue that colors are a bit too saturated and the software tends to go for slightly lower exposure resulting in a more contrast-y look. And even these complaints could be taken as a pro by some users. The high contrast and punchy colors help for a more instagramable look, which is ultimately the goal for most users, isn't it?

Switching the AI toggle would only boost color saturation by a bit, but as we established, that won't be necessary.

AI daylight samples

The 50MP mode isn't recommended either. Photos come out softer and considerably noisier. You only stand to gain a little extra detail and that's about it.

50MP daylight samples

2x zoom

The 2x zoom photos aren't bad as they inherit much of the standard mode's rendition but fail to retain the impressive sharpness. Since there's no proper telephoto camera on board, we were expecting a bit more sophisticated magnification. Instead, Xiaomi decided to go the usual route of least resistance and crops the center of the non-binned image and upscales it back to 12.5MP for the sake of consistency between camera modes. Or at least that's what we suspect Xiaomi is doing here.

2x zoom samples

Ultrawide camera

Xiaomi has done a really good job of maintaining a comparable rendition between the main and ultrawide camera. There are no major differences in color reproduction, contrast and exposure, so expect punchy colors and slightly darker scenes. Dynamic and range and sharpness are less impressive but definitely good enough for ultrawide's standards. Some fine grain can be seen on indoor samples, but nothing too major.

Ultrawide camera samples

Macro

We usually don't like macro cameras as they often feel like a filler on the back without contributing to the overall camera experience. However, Xiaomi's phones are one of the few that supply some of its phones with higher-quality macro cameras. The Xiaomi 12 is no exception.

Macro camera samples

We are used to seeing low-detail, pale and low-contrast macro shots that are difficult to take due to the absence of AF. We have almost none of that here. The 5MP camera may not output the most detailed images but it's a big improvement over the cheap 2MP sensors. There's also AF and unspecified optical zoom, both improving the shooting experience significantly. Colors are punchy, contrast is good and sharpness is more than acceptable.

Low-light samples

Main camera

Even without Night mode active, the Xiaomi 12 offers some high-quality nighttime pictures. There's definitely some HDR working in the background, given the impressive dynamic range. Highlights seem balanced enough, while shadows reveal a fair amount of detail. Images are also surprisingly sharp, fine detail can be observed on well-lit areas, contrast is nice and as opposed to the daylight shots, these offer a more conservative color reproduction. We are quite impressed with the noise management in these photos. We can only spot visible grain in really dark scenes, though we believe it's inevitable.

Main camera low-light samples

Switching on the Night mode makes images look even better. There's definitely some artificial sharpening going on in there, but we think it's just the right amount as it doesn't make the scene look like it's rendered from a video game. Colors are ever so slightly boosted, highlights look even better and shadows get a tad brighter to reveal even more detail. The best part is that none of this comes at the expense of added noise. Or at least the only noisy patches are really hard to notice unless you are pixel-peeping.

Main camera Night mode samples

We can definitely recommend using the Night mode when doing nighttime photography, especially since it doesn't take much time to shoot. In fact, this is one of the fastest Night modes we've used, and it takes only a second or two in almost pitch-black conditions. In this sense, we also recommend leaving the Auto Night mode turned on and let the software decide when it's needed.

2x zoom

As light drops, the 2x zoom struggles to maintain sharpness and reduce noise. The overall rendition is almost identical to the standard 1x Photo mode and even the Night mode can't make these samples usable. Sure, it takes care of the noise and improves the highlights/shadow balance by a little, but the 2x zoom samples leave a lot of room for improvement.

Low-light 2x zoom: Normal • Night mode

Ultrawide camera

For an ultrawide camera shooting in the dark, the 12MP unit seems to be doing a pretty decent job. Compared to the main camera, we observed considerably narrower dynamic range, softer rendition and much of the fine detail is lost along the way. Contrast and noise management seem to be adequate.

Low-light ultrawide: Normal • Night mode

Luckily, there's the dedicated Night mode that works with the ultrawide camera and improves the photos in many aspects. You get cleaner rendition with more detail, sharper objects, better highlights and brightened shadows with a lot more detail. We noticed that the Night mode takes a few seconds to stack the images but it's still rather fast. While the standard photos with the main camera look are excellent on their own, we strongly recommend using the Night mode for your ultrawide shots.

Once you are done with the real-life examples, take a look at our Photo compare tool for some pixel-peeping and see how the Xiaomi 12 fares against the competition.

Xiaomi 12 vs. Sony Xperia 5 III and the Apple iPhone 13 mini in our Photo compare tool

Portraits

The portrait shots look really good. Sharpness and detail are good, colors are punchy, and noise is kept to a minimum even in more challenging conditions. The camera was able to capture the subject's natural reddish hue of the skin, although it's a bit inconsistent and the skin may look rather pale depending on the lighting conditions. The faux bokeh effect is somewhat convincing, but it tends to be a bit too aggressive and finds it hard to deal with more complex foregrounds and backgrounds. Take the second shot as an example and notice the flowers.

Portrait samples

Seflies

The selfies look really good. One could argue that Xiaomi could have done better in terms of sharpness but the overall quality is good. There's plenty of fine detail, wide dynamic range, no noise, punchy colors and the subject's face is always well-exposed. We noticed that the front-facing camera is very sensitive to the lighting conditions because even the slightest drop in ambient light results in a considerable decrease in sharpness. The portrait mode, on the other hand, is pretty convincing, at least as far as selfie portraits go.

Selfies: Normal • Portrait

Video recording

The Xiaomi 12 can do 4320p@24fps videos as well as 2160p and 1080p both at 30 and 60fps. The ultrawide's camera is capped at 2160p@30fps, though. And although all of the videos are electronically stabilized, there's are two additional action camera-like modes that focus on stabilization rather than quality. They are called Steady and Steady Pro and are capped at 1080p@30fps.

Let's start with the 8K footage. Right off the bat, we can see that sharpness isn't great, at least for a true 4320p video. Detail is fine, colors are close to natural, contrast is good and there's no noise. We are particularly impressed by the dynamic range as the cloudy weather usually makes it difficult for video capturing - still, the Xiaomi 12's footage provides balanced highlights and shadows.

The 4K video is understandably softer, but not by much and inherits the same processing as the 8K video. Dynamic range is excellent, colors are accurate, and detail is great.

Even though the ultrawide camera can do 4K videos, they are far from your typical 4K quality. They are soft, lack fine detail, a little noisy and limited dynamic range. There's also some blue-ish tinge on white objects. On a more positive note, contrast is good, and colors seem a tad more pleasing than the ones on the main camera.

The 4K low-light video looks decent enough with controlled noise. Light sources are a bit blown, though, and a bit more color wouldn't have hurt.

The dedicated Night mode for videos is capped at 1080p, but we can't say it looks better than the standard 2160p one. In fact, we don't see any improvement at all, it's just a little softer than the 4K option, which is to be expected.

Once you are done with the real-life scenarios, take a look at our video compare tool to see how the Xiaomi 12 stacks against the other phones we've reviewed.

2160p: Xiaomi 12 vs. Sony Xperia 5 III and the Apple iPhone 13 mini in our Video compare tool