Xiaomi 12 Pro long-term review

MIUI 13, updates

The Xiaomi 12 Pro is running MIUI 13 on top of Android 12, with an update to Android 13 definitely on the way - although this being Xiaomi, you shouldn't expect that to arrive very soon. And when it does, don't expect it to bring huge new user-facing changes - those are generally brought forth by new MIUI releases, so if a new coat of paint is what you're after, MIUI 14 is much more likely to deliver that, whenever it arrives.

Speaking of which, MIUI definitely needs a refresh in its looks, which are now feeling a few years out of date - and that's because they pretty much are. This same design language has been used for the UI for years, and it's high time for some improvements. We don't dislike the look, by the way, we just think it can be improved and given a more modern vibe, since as it is it's getting a bit long in the tooth.

MIUI 13

Similarly, it's high time for Xiaomi to issue security updates faster and on a monthly basis. Our 12 Pro is still on the July 1st, 2022 security patch level, and it's unacceptable for a high-end Android smartphone to be this out of date. Sure, it will probably receive an update in the next few weeks, taking it to the September patch level, but these really should be monthly, if for no other reason than to be on par with what Xiaomi's biggest competitor, Samsung, is doing.

Current software

Major Android updates should also come out in a more timely fashion at least for high-end Xiaomis, but as we already mentioned those delays are less of a problem since the company customizes the looks so heavily that MIUI always looks like MIUI and never quite looks like Android. Still, some more care needs to go into this, and maybe tying MIUI releases to Android releases, the way all other Android device makers do with their skins, wouldn't hurt either.

All that said, the point here is that if you're getting the 12 Pro or any other Xiaomi for that matter, you shouldn't expect monthly software updates or quick updates to major new Android versions, unfortunately.

Bugs

Moving on, we have to address some bugs in the latest version of MIUI 13 for the 12 Pro. Before we go into them, it goes without saying - but we'll say it anyway - that bugs are unacceptable at this price point, especially bugs that go unfixed for months, which all of these are. You may or may not be affected by each individual problem we'll describe, but having these issues is not okay for a top shelf product.

In no particular order, let's jump right in then. The font size setting has no "M" (aka Medium) setting, going from "S" (Small) straight to "L" (Large) in a jump that's very obviously too big. Maybe this isn't a bug per se but intended, that doesn't make it better.

Next up, we switched to the 'old' style (read: Android's way) of showing notifications and Quick Settings since we've grown out of love with the Apple-inspired split system that Xiaomi's been pushing lately - for one reason and one reason only: you need to swipe too much to the left of the top part of the screen to get notifications, and notifications is what we want to see, throughout the day, much more than Quick Settings toggles. The bug here is that there was no way to edit the Quick Settings tiles. We had to switch back to the 'new' style with the split mode, and then back to the 'legacy' one again for the Edit button to finally show up the second time.

You still can't, after at least a year, if not more, actually use internal app links on the home screen in the default launcher. If you long-press on an app's icon, you get the list of internal links as you should, but you then can't place them on the home screen, as you can in every other Android skin out there.

YouTube and Spotify playback gets randomly stopped because the apps get randomly killed when they're in the background, even while playing! This only happened around ten or so times in our use, but it's a mind-bogglingly stupid behavior - it even happened when there wasn't any other app in the foreground, so having to desperately free up RAM is definitely not the reason.

MIUI's love for killing background tasks is well documented, but this is obviously going too far. We also found that we'd randomly not receive any notifications from Facebook Messenger. This too only happened a few times, but it was still infuriating. Then again, it only happened for notifications from this one app, so we can't be certain it was a MIUI problem and not something to do with Messenger itself.

Perhaps the biggest issue we've encountered is Do Not Disturb mode simply not working at all as intended - be that with it manually activated, or when it was scheduled. It just doesn't do anything, no matter what settings you have for it. MIUI used to have a similar issue a few years back, but it was fixed at some point... and now here we go again.

Do not disturb settings

It goes without saying that you might not want to hear notifications from your phone while you're sleeping, and DND mode is the way to take care of that - just not on this phone, since it doesn't work. It's unclear to us how such a big feature not working can slip software quality control, but it has, and we can only hope it will get fixed in a future update.

Launcher, Recents, Control Center

The built-in launcher has an app drawer option, and can show the Google Discover feed to the left of your leftmost home screen if you so wish. Inside the app drawer you can get app suggestions up top, for your most frequently used apps to be less of a hassle finding. You can add an A to Z line to the drawer where the scrollbar would normally be, and we find this very small feature to be among the most important in day to day life - hitting the letter corresponding to the app you want to find makes the process of finding an app within hundreds much quicker.

If you want, the drawer can also automatically sort your apps into categories, but that seems like it would make finding anything more convoluted, not less, so we turned it off. Otherwise, the launcher isn't filled with a million different options, which we find a good thing as it doesn't confuse users. There's just the right amount of customization included for our liking, including the swipe animation style (we like Cube the best but obviously you may enjoy something else more). And there isn't too much unnecessary fluff. Overall it's a well executed launcher, this one, even if it's nothing out of the ordinary necessarily. The good news is that we had zero bugs, stutters, freezes, or crashes of the launcher in the entirety of our time with the Xiaomi 12 Pro, and that's exactly how it should be.

Launcher and its settings

Recent apps can be organized in one of two ways - horizontally, the way every other mobile device maker does it, or vertically with two columns, the way MIUI has traditionally, historically done it. We prefer horizontally scrolling Recent app displays by some margin, so we switched to that option - vertical is the default, mind you. We like that you have both options here, but we're also wondering how many people really demand the vertical layout be kept and whether it's worth confusing first-time MIUI users with the vertical default over that. Maybe it's time for Xiaomi to go with the prevailing trend and only allow horizontally scrolling Recents?

Recent apps

In a somewhat similar vein, you have not one but two options for how you want your notifications and Quick Settings toggles organized - we hinted at this already in the Bugs section above. There's the way Android does it, and practically all other Android skins too, and then there's a MIUI-specific way, or dare we say it, the 'Apple-inspired' way with a separate 'Control Center' that you reach by swiping down from the top on the right side of the screen. This is separated from the notifications panel, which can now be brought to view by swiping down from the top on the left side of the screen.

Control center style

When this was initially introduced we did use it for a few long-term reviews. In the meantime we've grown to appreciate that the default Android way of doing things has more merits, and it comes down to two things: it being easier to swipe down from the right side if you're right-handed, and the notifications being lower (and thus, more easily reachable) in the traditional Android style. So the 'new' Control Center is not worth it in our book, but it may be in yours, and you have the option to go with either system, for better or worse. The 'new' Control Center is the default, though, keep that in mind.

Dark mode, gestures

MIUI 13 obviously has a dark mode, which can be schedulable either to go on at sunset and off at sunrise, or during a custom interval of your choosing. We find both the Adjust wallpaper to Dark mode and Adjust text and backgrounds automatically options help make the interface less bright and work well in conjunction with the dark mode, while the forcing of the dark mode onto third party apps that don't have one of their own setting is getting very bare - only showing Amazon's app as an option.

It does work well to invert the color scheme in it when it's turned on, but we're very confused as to why that's the only app that can have dark mode forced upon it by the OS in this iteration of MIUI 13. We remember a time when you could practically force dark mode onto any and all apps - and that seemed excessive too, and it would be excessive today, when most apps do actually have a dark theme. But not all of them do, and now you can't do anything about that anymore, for mysterious reasons.

Dark mode settings

MIUI's gesture navigation system works very well, as it's always done, and it thankfully lets you hide the "full screen indicator" - which is the way too nice name the software gives the white pill bar abomination at the bottom. Hiding that eyesore does in no way impede the functionality of quickly switching from one app to another by swiping across the bottom of the screen, so you literally lose nothing in the process, but gain a much better look overall.

Gesture navigation settings

One thing that is gone is the ability to quickly jump to the previous app by performing the Back gesture and then holding for half a second - this has been replaced by the aforementioned swipe across the bottom, which this reviewer finds more fiddly to use, but not so much that it's impossible to get used to.