Xiaomi is now entering the 200-megapixel era after offering a phone with an impressive 1-inch sensor. The phone doesn’t have a huge imaging sensor, but the performance is still quite impressive. As usual, the T series is a standalone design and not a successor or upgrade to the Xiaomi 12 series. They also have little to do with the 12S models, so let’s look at them with fresh eyes.
The exciting thing about the Xiaomi 12T Pro is the first phone to come with a 200-megapixel camera. It is built around the Samsung ISOCELL HP1 image sensor, a 1/1.22-inch sensor with a pixel size of 0.64µm, which can be divided into 1.28µm (quad-in-one) or even 2.56µm (16-in-one) depending on lighting conditions and user intent.
There’s no telephoto lens on the Xiaomi 12T Pro, but the high-resolution sensor natively supports 2x lossless digital zoom. It can also shoot 8K video and record HDR10+ footage. And it has Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) for longer exposures in the dark, and advanced features such as eye-tracking and motion-tracking autofocus are not absent.
If you’re buying the 12T Pro for the camera, it must be for the main camera; the other three cameras are less impressive: an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle camera with a 1/4-inch sensor (1/1.12µm pixel) and an f/2.2 120° lens and a 2-megapixel macro camera, a 20-megapixel selfie camera (1/3.47 inch, 0.8µm, f/2.24 and 78° lens) is located on the front of the body, and there is an in-display fingerprint reader under the screen.
Speaking of the display, it is a 6.67-inch AMOLED panel with a resolution of 1220 x 2712px (20:9, 446ppi). It can run at a 120Hz refresh rate or you can also have it automatically switch between 30, 60, 90 and 120Hz modes. The 12-bit panel supports HDR+ as well as Dolby Vision, is factory-corrected, it has a typical brightness of 500 nits (900 nits peak) and is protected by Gorilla Glass 5.
One thing this phone shares with the 12S series is the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, which will continue to offer a balance between performance and efficiency even after the fast-approaching 8 Gen 2 arrives. Xiaomi has considerably beefed up the cooling on the 12T Pro model: the VC is 65% larger and there is 125% more cooling material.
In terms of performance, the Xiaomi 12T Pro Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+ is paired with 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage in the base version, but it can also be bought in 8/256GB and 12/256GB configurations, running Android 12 (MIUI 13) as the operating system.
The 12T Pro is powered by a 5000mAh battery with 120W of fast charging capability power (charger included). 5000mAh is enough for up to 13.5 hours of screen-on time, after which the battery can be restored to 100% in just 19 minutes.
The 12T Pro has built-in stereo speakers (tuned by Harman Kardon with Dolby Atmos support), Wi-Fi 6 (ax), Bluetooth 5.2 and NFC (in certain regions), as well as being a dual-SIM phone with 5G connectivity.
The Xiaomi 12T Pro will be available on 13 October through Xiaomi’s official channels and will start at €750 for the 8/128GB model.
Xiaomi 12T
Although the Xiaomi 12T lacks the main camera of the Pro model, it still offers a similar screen and battery configuration, combined with the performance of the Dimensity 8100-Max chipset and a solidly performing 108MP camera with a sensor based on the ISOCELL HM6, a 1/1.67″ sensor with the same size pixels as the 12T Pro’s main camera of This camera also has OIS stabilization and an f/1.7 aperture and lacks 8K video or more advanced features such as eye-tracking autofocus.
The rest of the cameras are the same as the Pro version, including an 8MP ultra-wide angle (1/4″, 1.12µm, f/2.2 and 120°) and a 2MP macro, and a 20MP selfie camera (1/3.47″, 0.8µm, f/2.24 and 78° aperture).
Mounted on top of the same selfie camera is the same display: 6.67″ 20:9 AMOLED panel with 1220p+ resolution. 12-bit panel supports HDR10+ (no Dolby Vision) and 30/60/90/120Hz refresh rates, as well as a 480Hz touch sampling rate. Like the Pro, it has a typical brightness of 500 nits (900 nits peak) and Gorilla Glass 5 protection.
The 12T is also fitted with Dolby Atmos stereo speakers but without the technical additions of Harman Kardon. Connectivity capabilities include Wi-Fi 6 (ax), Bluetooth 5.3 and NFC (in some regions), again a dual-SIM phone with 5G connectivity.
As we mentioned earlier, the phone is powered by the Dimensity 8100-Max processor and can be paired with 8/128GB or 8/256GB of RAM (LPDDR5 and UFS 3.1, no 12GB RAM option) and runs Android 12 with MIUI 13.
Despite the difference in the main chip, Xiaomi claims that this model can get up to 13.5 hours of screen-on time and that the phone comes with the same 120W charger that takes just 19 minutes to get the battery to 100%.
The Xiaomi 12T will be launched on 13 October alongside the Pro and will be cheaper compared to the Pro: €600 for the 8/128GB model.
