Xiaomi 12T Pro long-term review

Camera image quality

The 12T Pro doesn't have the world's first 200 MP camera in a phone, but it does have Xiaomi's first 200 MP camera, and that's significant in its own right. Back in the day, Xiaomi was the first to the market with a 108 MP main sensor, and now it's among the first to come out with an even more pixel-dense snapper.

The main question on your mind after reading that is probably: does the higher resolution translate into better or worse picture quality? And that is, indeed, a very good question. We've seen countless times before that more pixels need not necessarily equal more quality. Both Apple and Google made do with 12 MP sensors for a very long time, and with very good results.

On the other hand, 200 is a good round number for marketing to brag about, and we are naturally drawn to the 'bigger is better' sometimes-fallacy ('sometimes' because it is true in some ways, and way less so in others). So, understandably, Xiaomi wants to make a big deal out of the fact that the 12T Pro's main camera is so high-res.

We'd like to focus (pun naturally intended) on actual image quality in this review, and as usual, we went with default settings since those are what 99% of people will end up using 99% of the time. This means shooting exclusively in the 16-to-1 bin mode, which outputs 12.5 MP images. If you want to take a look at what full 200 MP shots look like, or the intermediate 50 MP step, make sure you jump to our normal review of this phone.

With that introduction out of the way, we will say that the daytime shots captured by the 12T Pro's main camera turn out to be detailed, with high contrast, wide dynamic range, and almost non-existent noise. Colors do pop a lot, and for some people, even too much, but we think they're on the verge of being too saturated, but not quite there. Sharpness is also there, but again, not so much that we'd call these severely oversharpened. So, overall, these are very good, if you don't mind the colors. If you're at the other end of the fence and would like even more saturation and even more contrast, flip the AI toggle.

Daytime samples from the main camera

The ultrawide camera is the umpteenth 8 MP one we've seen in the past couple of years, especially from Xiaomi, Redmi, and Poco, and we're getting severe Snapdragon 625 vibes here (if you got that reference, congrats - you're old). The images it shoots during daytime are okay, with good dynamic range, though detail levels could be higher, and softness does always tend to creep into the edges. Colors are also very obviously not matched to the main camera, which is something we're used to seeing on mid-rangers, but 'flagship killers' like this one need to try and do better in the future.

Daytime samples from the ultrawide

While there's no proper standalone zoom cam on this model, you do get a 2x toggle in the viewfinder, and the images thus captured are pretty good. They may even be as good as a cheap dedicated 2x shooter would have been able to produce, so perhaps there's no point in mourning the lack of one. If the ultrawide is anything to go by, it's pretty clear that the priority was the main camera in the development of this phone.

The 2x shots come out with good detail levels, and similar looks to the 1x images, perhaps unsurprisingly since they're coming from the same physical sensor. Sharpening does sometimes go overboard, especially in very contrasty lighting conditions, which is a shame, but that's what you get when sharpening in non problematic conditions is almost too much to begin with.

Daytime 2x zoom samples

For nighttime photography, there's Auto Night mode, which is on by default. When it engages, you're getting incredibly similar shots to those in the dedicated Night mode. And for this reason, we decided to turn Auto Night mode off, so that you can get an idea of what it's like shooting in 'pure' Auto mode, with no Night mode magic applied, and then compare that to manual Night mode shots, which are almost always practically indistinguishable from those captured with Auto Night mode.

Because Xiaomi's Night mode is very quick - among the fastest we've used, in fact - we would, however, strongly recommend you keep Auto Night mode on, and then just shoot in Auto mode all the time. You will be very pleased with the results, we reckon.

Okay, let's see some samples. With no Night mode applied, you can see that the images captured in Auto mode are fine, considering the amount of ambient light there was in our scenes. When there's enough light around, you're even getting some good shots that sometimes exhibit finer detail levels than what Night mode produces. Then again, the tonal extremes are muffled as you might expect.

Nighttime samples from the main camera

Switching to Night mode unsurprisingly improves shadow detail, without going overboard with brightening the shots so much that you might think they were captured during the day. That used to be a trend in the mobile world for a short while, but seems to be dying out now. So what we get are more natural looking exposures like this, that are more atmospheric while not blowing out highlights. White balance is good, dynamic range is great, but sharpening is applied pretty heavily.

Night Mode samples from the main camera

The ultrawide struggles at night - we've probably written this phrase more than any others in our long-term reviews, and it's a staple when we're dealing with such 8 MP sensors. Without Night mode, you'll barely make out what's in the frame.

Nighttime ultrawide samples

Switch to Night mode, and you're getting dramatically improved results, if you have the steady hands for it - it takes the most time to process such shots on the ultrawide, and it's a good couple of seconds more than on the main cam. If you are able to be still for that long, then you'll get way better dynamic range. Highlights are toned down, shadows are lifted up, you know - standard Night mode stuff, but this camera needs that magic a lot more than the main one.

Night Mode ultrawide samples

2x zoom shots at night are pretty good in Auto mode, and obviously are better the more light there is around you when you capture them.

Nighttime 2x zoom samples

Switching to Night mode does the usual, improving dynamic range at the expense of some added sharpness.

Night Mode 2x zoom samples

Selfies come out good, if not amazing. Skin tones are accurate, but a tad muted perhaps, while the dynamic range is very good. Sharpness is good too. Portrait mode shots are very good, with great edge detection and subject separation. The blur effect isn't very realistic, but we'd wager that might not be an issue for people who grew up used to synthetic phone-made blur.

At night, things go downhill, but if you have some lighting around you, there's still a good chance you'll capture a usable image. And employing the screen flash will aid in your face being very much front and center, at the expense of your surroundings, but that tradeoff is very much understandable. There's even a brightness intensity slider for the "Fill light", as MIUI calls the screen flash, which is great to see.

Selfie samples, day and night, Portrait mode off/on

Overall, the Xiaomi 12T Pro has a very good main camera in all lighting conditions, a decent (but not more than that) ultrawide, and a good selfie camera too. So it's definitely not competing with the best of the best when it comes to image quality, but it's also not likely to let you down either - unless you had unrealistic expectations regarding the 8 MP ultrawide. It's a solid camera package for the price, which a better ultrawide would have made even more commendable.