Meet Xiaomi 12T Pro with 200MP main Camera Samples

We share our thoughts with the recently released Xiaomi 12T Pro with the SD8 Gen+ 1 and 200MP rear camera.

Xiaomi 12T Pro

Meet Xiaomi 12T Pro!

The Chinese manufacturer recently announced the Xiaomi 12T and 12T Pro for the Philippine market.

To recap, the handset comes with a large 6.67-inch AMOLED display with a 2712 x 1220 resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate, a 480Hz touch sampling rate, and up to 500 nits peak brightness. The panel supports HBM 900 nits, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. It is Gorilla Glass protected.

Inside is the 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen+ 1 octa-core processor, Adreno next-gen GPU, 12GB LPDDR5 RAM, 256GB UFS 3.1 storage and a 5,000mAh battery with 120W fast charging via USB-C.

At the back are triple rear cameras while on the punch hole is the single selfie camera.

Packaging

Let's unbox it first.

The Xiaomi 12T Pro comes in the familiar white packaging with rose gold and gray print of the logo, key specs, key features and regulatory information.

Box inclusions

Inside the box are the phone, SIM ejector tool, USB-C cable, 120W charger, silicone case, and documentation.

Back design

At first glance, the phone looks near flagship grade in terms of materials used, design, and fit and finish.

Upon closer inspection the phone is made of a glass front, polycarbonate frame and frosted glass back panel. 

The glass front and back make the phone look premium while the polycarbonate frame reduces the weight. 

Punch hole camera

As mentioned above, the front 6.67-inch AMOLED screen with a 2712 x 1200 resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate, a 480Hz touch sampling rate, a 500 nits peak brightness and Gorilla Glass protection. It supports HDR10+ and Dolby Vision.

Around the panel are super slim bezels while on top is the single punch hole that houses the front-facing camera.

Images produced by the panel are bright, sharp, detailed, and vibrant. And because of the 500 nits peak brightness, the screen is readable under direct sunlight.

Top and bottom

On top are the IR blaster, microphone port and the first set of speaker grills while at the bottom are the second set of speaker grills, USB-C port and the SIM tray.

Left and right

On the left side of the phone is a smooth surface while on the right side of the phone are the polycarbonate volume rocker and polycarbonate power button. Both the volume rocker and the power button offer flat or unsatisfying feedback when pressed that is similar to lower priced smartphones.

Rear cameras

At the back is the aforementioned 200MP f/1.69 primary camera with a 1/1.22-inch ISOCELL HP1 sensor, 8P lens, and OIS, 8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide angle camera, and 2MP f/2.4 macro camera with LED flash.

The stock camera app features the following modes: Photo, Video, Documents, Pro, Portrait, Night, Ultra HD, Short Video, Panorama, VLOG, Slow Motion, Time-Lapse, Movie effects, Long exposure, Dual Video, and Clone.

The Pro mode allows control for White Balance, Focus, Shutter Speed (30 secs - 1/4000), ISO (50-6400), EV (+-4), and switching between the main camera and the ultra-wide camera.

First Camera Samples

Daylight 1x

Daylight 2x

Daylight 10x

Daylight ultra-wide

Indoor 1x

Indoor 10x

Indoor ultra-wide

Lowlight 1x

Lowlight 10x

Lowlight ultra-wide

Night mode 1x

Night mode ultra-wide

As you can see, the 200MP primary camera and the 8MP ultra-wide camera produce decent images with acceptable sharpness, detail, contrast and color. However, we've seen similarly priced smartphones that take higher-quality photos. We hope Xiaomi improves its performance thru firmware updates.

Daylight selfie

Daylight portrait

Indoor selfie

Selfie Night mode

Selfie low light

The same can be said for selfie cameras. The detail and sharpness are decent in daylight but could be improved in low light and indoors.

Overall, for the price, the camera's performance is underwhelming.

Performance

AnTuTu and GeekBench

We ran some benchmarks like the Antutu where we got a score of 1,030,001. While on Geekbench we got 1,307 points on the single core and 4,143 on the multi-core tests.

3DMark and CPDT

In 3DMark Wild Life Extreme the phone managed to score 2,794 overall and scored 16.7 average FPS. While si CPDT scored 1 GB/s in sequential read speeds and it scored 706.55 MB/s in sequential write speeds.

In real-life use, the phone runs smoothly. There are barely any hiccups. Navigating thru the UI and opening or switching between apps is instantaneous without a noticeable slow down or stuttering.

PCMark Battery test

The 5,000mAh battery managed to withstand over 11 hours and 24 minutes of the PCMark battery benchmark. While the 120W charging brick charges the Xiaomi 12T Pro from 18 percent to 100 percent in under 40 minutes from our experience.

The bottom and top-firing speakers produce sound with good clarity and separation but the maximum volume could be louder as most smartphones with similar pricepoint with stereo speakers are normally louder in volume.

The in-display fingerprint reader and Face Unlock are both easy and quick to set up. Once set up, both detect our face and our fingerprint immediately unlock the phone. The camera does struggle at times when the environment is dark or when we are wearing a mask.

For connectivity, 5G, VoLTE, WiFi, Bluetooth, and NFC works consistently and as expected.

The Xiaomi 12T Pro is running on Android 13-based MIUI. It is familiar and easy to use. People will be happy to know that Google services are present and running as any Android phone with Google would.

Web surfing

Xiaomi 12T Pro Specs

Display: 6.67-inch Gorilla Glass 5 protected CrystalRes AMOLED screen w/ HDR10+, Dolby Vision, Adaptive HDR, 120Hz refresh rate, AdaptiveSync, 480Hz touch sampling rate, HDR10+, FHD+ 2712 x 1220 resolution at 446 ppi

CPU: 3.2Hz 4nm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 octa-core processor

GPU: Adreno

RAM: 12GB LPDDR5

ROM: 256GB UFS 3.1

Back Camera: 200MP f/1.69 Samsung ISOCELL HP1 w/ 8P lens, ProFocus, OIS + 8MP f/2.2 120-degrees ultra-wide-angle camera + 2MP f/2.4 macro + dual LED flash

Selfie Camera: 20MP f/2.4

Battery: 5,000mAh w/ 120W HyperCharge

OS: Android 12 w/ MIUI 13

Connectivity: WiFi 6E, 5G, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, GPS (L1 + L5), dual SIM

Sensors: Accelerometer, light, orientation, proximity, gyroscope, sound, magnetic

Others: Side-mounted fingerprint sensor, face unlock, Harman Kardon stereo speakers, Dolby Atmos, USB-C, Colors: Black, Silver, Blue

Dimensions: 163.1 x 75.9 x 8.6 mm

Weight: 205 g

Price: PHP 37,990

Quick thoughts

With a price point of PHP 37,990, you are getting the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 and a 200MP primary rear camera with an ultra-wide camera.

Let's not forget the 120Hz AMOLED screen with 2712 x 1220 resolution and the massive 5,000mAh battery with 120W fast wired charging.

The Xiaomi 12T Pro offers powerful raw performance and our only concern is the low-light camera performance could be improved.

If you are looking for raw power for under PHP 40K and can look past the poor camera performance, we suggest looking at the new Xiaomi 12T Pro.

What do you guys think?