Xiaomi 12 Pro long-term review

Display quality, brightness

A high-end smartphone with a high-end screen is par for the course, and the Xiaomi 12 Pro doesn't deviate from the formula. Quality-wise, it packs an impressive display, with outstanding peak brightness - even though it doesn't quite match Samsung's best, it's still absolutely no problem to use outside on bright sunny days, the screen always remains easily legible.

It's also a high-res panel at 1440x3200, and while this reviewer still bets most people can't actually tell the difference between that and 1080p+ at normal phone use distances, you can't argue against this being nice to have, especially on a device that is anything but cheap. Perhaps counterintuitively, we won't say you should choose 1080p resolution in Settings and stick with that - you may not notice a difference, but it feels weird not to use the full capabilities of your device in the service of marginal, and frankly unneeded battery life gains.

Display settings

While there are a ton of color settings, and it's rather easy to pick very accurate ones, out of the box the screen presents itself with hilariously punched-up colors to the point of them looking cartoony, while whites and even grays are ridiculously blue. It's been a while since we've seen a default color profile be so extreme, and it was off putting to be honest. Thankfully it was all an easy fix - we picked Original color and went with the Warm temperature preset and restored our sanity.

In case you're wondering, Original color is accurate to sRGB, while the default Vivid mode should be accurate to the P3 color space, and it would be if it just toned itself down a little. If you want to live on the edge, go with the Adaptive color toggle which seems to massively change the colors depending on ambient lighting. We like settings such as this when they're subtle in what they're doing - this one totally isn't, you will undoubtedly notice the huge shifts from warm to cold colors. If you're into that, you'll be very happy, we left it alone.

Color and brightness settings

The auto brightness algorithm is very good, and it was refreshing to have a very good one again after a few months in which we've dealt with mostly sub-par implementations in our previous long-term reviews. While good, it wasn't perfect, as it had a tendency to refuse picking the lowest possible brightness, even when we were in almost pitch darkness. This didn't happen all the time, only sometimes, seemingly at random, and a quick manual adjustment fixed the problem of course.

Those were in fact the only manual adjustments we ever had to make, which speaks volumes towards how well tuned the algorithm is overall. We definitely give Xiaomi points for this, as despite it sounding like a minor issue, having a badly tuned auto brightness algorithm will severely impact your quality of life in using a phone, if you need to constantly adjust it manually. It's a minor hassle, sure, but a hassle nevertheless.

On the other hand, we would have appreciated it if the minimum brightness level was at least a tiny bit lower. It was bordering on too much when we were using the phone in a pitch dark room. Our use of the dark mode definitely helped in alleviating this issue somewhat, but if you like the light theme you might find the minimum brightness level just a little bit too bright.

Refresh rate

The display naturally supports 120 Hz refresh rate - and we say naturally because not even mid-rangers can get away with less these days (right, OnePlus?). The way the setting is presented, though, is a bit confusing, as it makes you choose between the default Auto, and a Custom setting that can be 60 Hz, 90 Hz, or 120 Hz. But that doesn't mean it locks the refresh rate at the level you pick - you're basically just setting a maximum.

Refresh rate settings

We went with 120 Hz, again because we want to enjoy all the phone has to offer, and it's a nicely dynamic implementation that will drop the rate depending on your interaction with the device. It's a very well done system, as you never actually feel like it's refreshing slower than it needs to. So it seems like it's at 120 Hz all the time even though it isn't, and it saves some battery in the process. Win-win.

Curves

As we've mentioned already in the Design section, and as you've undoubtedly noticed, the Xiaomi 12 Pro's screen is curved on the sides. Some people hate this, others love it, we're in the latter camp but the point here is that there are some issues with accidental touches out of the box. And that's incredibly weird seeing as how it's been years since we've had accidental touch problems on a Xiaomi. And yet, here we are.

Using the phone 'naked', without a case, instantly resulted in a lot of accidentally registered touches from the palm we were holding it with. Needless to say, this shouldn't happen out of the box, but thankfully there is an easy solution. Just go into Settings and switch to the least sensitive setting for ignoring accidental touches - it's called Big area and it's not the default. Alternatively, if you're still having issues afterwards, go with Custom and pick your own area size. And finally, if nothing works, just put a case on the phone - this generally alleviates 85-90% of accidental touches on any device.

Settings for ignoring accidental touches

So there are definitely ways around these, but we're disappointed to see this problem arise again, years after having been seemingly fixed by Xiaomi. We've taken Samsung to task a lot for never doing anything about accidental touches on the edges of its curved-screen devices, and Xiaomi was one of the examples we kept giving of manufacturers that solved this problem with software, and now we can't really say that anymore, since things aren't working very well out of the box in the default state, and they should.

Maybe the easy fix is for the company to switch the default to Big area, but even the presence of an entire Settings menu for this is a bit concerning. It wasn't there in the past, and things were fine. So maybe it's there because Xiaomi's software engineers know that the newer phones are worse at this than the older ones were? We'll probably never know. So are accidental touches a problem on this phone? Yes but also no - yes, initially, but easy to fix.

In-display fingerprint sensor

The Xiaomi 12 Pro's fingerprint sensor is under the screen, and it feels like a step back compared to the units used in the company's previous flagships. It's slow to the point of being incredibly annoying, and that means we're always tempted to lift our finger too early - as we've been used to other sensors that are much faster. And that obviously results in a lot of misses - in fact the unlock rate on first try hovers around 40-50% for this reviewer, which is abysmal. But again, that's not necessarily because the sensor itself is inaccurate - it's not the most accurate we've tried, but it easily hits 90%+ accuracy.

The issue stems from how slow it is, and how used we are to faster ones. If you have enough patience and keep your finger on it for what seems like twice as long as it should be, then in 90%+ of the cases it does unlock upon the first try. If you can't get yourself to remember how slow it is, on the other hand, then you'll be treated to a whole lot of frustration.

We don't know what happened and why this generation of fingerprint sensors used by Xiaomi is so much slower than older ones, but we can't say we like this turn of events. Is this just cost-cutting? Maybe, or maybe something else is going on, but we do hope to see faster models on upcoming Xiaomi devices. Competitors like the OnePlus 10 Pro have much faster and more accurate fingerprint scanners under their screens for around the same price, and unlocking is one of the things you do most on your phone, so this area definitely needs to be paid more attention to.

Biometrics settings

Like with any other modern Android device, you can also use face unlock as an alternative, but it uses the selfie camera which means it's much less secure. If you do get tired of the fingerprint sensor's shenanigans and choose to go this route, you'll be happy to know that it's very fast (around twice as fast as the fingerprint sensor), and it doesn't work when your eyes are closed, which adds a tiny bit of security.

Always-on display, Reading mode

The Xiaomi 12 Pro has an always-on display of course, and it can actually be set to be always-on, unlike what generally is the case with some mid-range devices from the likes of Redmi. The always-on display implementation here is among the most configurable out there in the market right now.

You have a ton of designs to choose from, many analog and digital clocks, various images, you can even enter text, and of course the AOD is fully schedulable too, if you don't like it to stay on all the time. Alternatively, it can turn off after 5 seconds and show up only when you move the phone or tap the screen. See? We meant what we said - plenty of customizations possible here, you won't be disappointed.

Always-on display settings

Similarly, MIUI's Reading mode is, at the moment, by far the most feature-rich blue light filter function that can be found anywhere in the mobile world. It's just a godsend for those with sensitive eyes, as it can be used not only to shut off blue light but also to make the colors 'lighter' aka less vivid as well as add a texture to the display for less eye fatigue.

Picking the Classic mode does what every other blue light filter out there does - it suppresses blue light emanating from the screen to a degree that changes based on how far to the right you slide that Color temperature slider - the warmer the temperature, the less blue light you get.

Reading mode settings

If you switch to Paper mode, however, you also get a texture slider, and you can opt to have "normal colors", the aforementioned 'light' (read: desaturated) colors, and there's a full black and white mode too. Naturally, this Reading mode can be scheduled - either to come on automatically at sunset and turn itself off at sunrise, or during a custom period of your choosing. There's simply nothing else like it on the market, and we wish other phone makers would get 'inspired' to 'emulate' MIUI's Reading mode as soon as possible.