Xiaomi 12S Ultra review

Video recording

The Xiaomi 12S Ultra can record video up to 8K24 with all three of its rear cameras. 4K30 and 4K60 modes are also available on all of them. You can choose between the h.264 codec (the one used by default) and the more efficient h.265. There's always-on stabilization across the board too.

We're no fans of smartphone 8K, and the 12S Ultra isn't helping win us over. Its main camera footage at this (excessive) resolution is, in fact, less sharp than the Mi 11 Ultra - the old Xiaomi Ultra remains the reference for smartphone 8K detail, even if that one isn't perfect either.

The two expose equally well and have comparable dynamic range and contrast, and all of that is pretty nice, actually. The new phone's colors are more vibrant, and we do appreciate that in our videos. Still, if you're paying the 130Mbps bit rate toll, you're doing it for the detail, and the 12S Ultra isn't delivering as much as the 11 Ultra.

The utlrawide's 8K is more or less the same as that from the predecessor, while the telephoto's 8K again struggles to match the quality of last year's model, itself hardly spectacular either.

In 4K resolution, the main camera's footage is similarly more expressive than what we had on the Mi 11 Ultra, and we do enjoy the livelier color reproduction. The increase in sharpening we're not so thrilled about, but it's not unreasonable; while detail is good, but not 11 Ultra good. Contrast and dynamic range are praiseworthy, though. 4K30 and 4K60 both essentially have the same quality too, which must be some sort of sorcery because they both use the same bitrate (50Mbps for our tripod-mounted balcony scene, 62Mbps when walking in the park).

The ultrawide, in turn, does not discriminate between 30fps and 60fps, and both frame rates come with the same detail and sharpness, very good at that. Dynamic range and contrast are also hard to fault, but we're not sure what to make of the slightly less enthusiastic color rendition - compared to both this year's main camera and last year's ultrawide. It's not bad, and it's all the way down to dull; it's just different.

The telephoto continues on that wavy path when it comes to color, and this time, we see a difference between its own 30fps and 60fps modes, with the high frame rate having more vivid colors next to a more conservative 30fps mode. What's all that about? For what it's worth, sharpness and detail remain the same between the two, though that's still a notch below the Mi 11 Ultra, as was the case in 8K. There's clearly some ironing out to be done in firmware.

That said, all these differences we've mentioned above are minuscule and only really observable in deliberate head-to-head comparisons. In all likelihood, you'll be perfectly happy with all of the daylight videos from the 12S Ultra.

And yes, that includes the phone's stabilization capabilities as well. It will competently iron out walking shake, all the way up to 8K if that's your thing, but more importantly, it will do it in 4K30 and 4K60. It will do smooth pans, and it will stay planted in one direction if that's what you want it to do, all of that applies to all three cameras, including the 5x telephoto, which has to be the steadiest zoom camera we've seen (it's sort of a tie with the Mi 11 Ultra, but that's not really taking away from the 12S Ultra's achievement).

At night, the 12S Ultra's main camera maintains its composure and produces some of the better low-light videos from a smartphone. It's got a wide dynamic range, no loss of color saturation and solid detail capture, though understandably, there's noise and some softness in the shadows if you look closely. Having said all that, it's not really feeling like a gamechanger, not when we already have the Mi 11 Ultra, and to an extent the Find X5 Pro.

The ultrawide, on the other hand, doesn't inspire confidence, and darker scenes have it beat. More decently lit scenes like the one below can actually produce usable results, though noise and softness in the shadows can be visible even without you looking for them. A Find X5 Pro does a lot better under these conditions too.

The 12S Ultra's telephoto was particularly uncooperative for video recording in the dark - we couldn't get it to work in any of the scenes we captured the other clips in. Instead, it was the main camera at work, and you probably don't want to see those samples.

Here's a glimpse of how the Xiaomi 12S Ultra compares to rivals in our Video compare tool. Head over there for the complete picture.

Xiaomi 12S Ultra against the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra and the Galaxy S22 Ultra in our Video compare tool