exactly many shocks in the wonderful world of smartphones these shiny visible are great and all but they've also kind of become tediously predictable samsung and apple seem happy enough to spaff out identical phones year after year xiaomi and motorola are still relentlessly launching two dozen very similar handsets a month but for me at least 2022 has thrown up one absolute whopper of a surprise and i'm talking about this charm and weed bugger right here the xiaomi 12. sadly so far at least here on youtube it's been almost completely ignored as most tech enthusiasts dribble all over its bigger more expensive sibling the xiaomi 12 pro and that's a massive bloody. because the regular blower isn't just cheaper it's actually much better at least in my eyes which admittedly might be fogged over from the lack of sleep and one too many single malts but i've been using the xiaomi 12 on and off as my personal handset since it's launched i finally had the chance to stick my sim in there full time this last week and a bit and i gotta say i'm in love with the ruddy thing so here's my full in-depth xiaomi 12 review and for the list of great stack so small phones these days are ludicrously huge take. this samsung galaxy s22 ultra for instance if you were ever on a plane and you happen to crash into the atlantic ocean you could use this bloody thing as a flotation device and that's just one of the ways that the xiaomi 12 sets itself apart from the crowd because this lovable wii blower is just 6.3 inches making it one of the most compact phone in 2022 and yeah certainly about three or four years ago if i'd heard myself using the word compact to describe a 6.3inch smartphone i'd have probably given myself a slap but seriously that's the state of the world these days the shack me 12 is comfortable to clutch helped by the 180 gram lightweight finish and it can just about be used one-handed when required it's certainly a refreshing experience coming to this smartphone after reviewing the likes of the find x5 pro and of course the xiaomi 12 pro which is yet another whopper and the xiaomi 12 may be the runt of the bunch but it's also a proper hard case you've got gorilla glass victus up front just to help prevent any cracks or shattering if you have to fumble this device you've also got a screen protector shoved on there by default as well which is good news because victor's does tend to scratch up a little bit easier than previous generations and then around back gorilla glass 5 which is still pristine a full month on despite the fact i've taken the xiaomi 12 chucked it in my backpack god knows how many times just have it bouncing around in there with keys and laptops and all kinds of and likewise that frosted finish means no grubby prints or greasy marks even if you happen to be scoffing at donna at 2 am while drunkenly tweeting at your ex or whatever else it is you have to do at 2 am perhaps if you've got a normal brain you might actually be asleep in which case i hate you you don't get a huge choice of colors with the xiaomi 12 but i do like this subtle purple effort which is very easy on the eye and i've had quite a few people ask me about the water resistance of the xiaomi 12 as well because there's no official ip rating here the good news is this thing has taken an absolute drenching this past month it's literally been out in rainstorms i've had it in the bath wit me all kinds of stuff and it's been absolutely fine no issues with water at all as with all premium androids you'vegot version 12 on here as enhanced by xiaomi's own miui 13 launcher enhanced in some ways that is because me ui like a lot of launchers has its fair share of shall we say quirks just little thing like you'll want to lock in your messaging apps for instance they don't accidentally get hibernated in the background and then you miss something important trickling through the launcherwas generally well behaved here on the xiaomi 12 but one bug that i did notic was the occasional random disappearance of the google feed this was very much a sporadic bug but occasionally you could just like swipe this way until your fingertips started to bleed and the google discover feature would refuse to appear and of course as always pre-installed on this thing you've got the usual crapwear that you didn't ever want or ask for like doom and bucking.com which seems to infest every bloody modern smartphone even samsung but thankfully the xiaomi 12 isn't the usual garbage dump that you get on some of uh xiaomi's cheaper blowers with just a plethora of awful games and just random you spend like half an hour on installing but anyway if you want to know more about me ui i have done a full dedicated video on the the launcher version 12 so definitely go check that out so i don't have to bang on about it again here and repeat myself as for the optical fingerprint sensor well this works perfectly well unless your fingers are a bit moist or sweaty or whatever in which case you'll often have to revert to the face and lock which thankfully does the job and packed inside of this compact chassis is 256 gigs of ufs 3.1 storage sadly not expandable via microsd however like a lot of premium smartphones these days now the 6.28 inch oled screen is surrounded by skinny bezels and it does ever so slightly curve around those left and right edges but only a tiny amount i very very rarely was troubled by any kind of palm intrusion issues as for the visuals well this thing may be dinky but it still spaffs out stunning images with 10-bit color support so yes you can stream dolby vision and hdr 10 plus content and enjoy a realistic natural looking picture it's not a wqhd plus resolution panel like the pro and some other rivals but that full hd plus resolution combined with the smaller stature of the screen means you still get a razor sharp viewing experience that panel is still more than bright enough so you can clearly see everything you're trying to do when you're outdoors on a sun shiny day and while the refresh rate only dips as low as 60 hertz it does still boost all the way up to 120 hertz for a visualc experience that is as smooth as oily lord those stereo speakers have apparently been fine-tuned by oman cordon and they are proper loud on top volume even louder than the bigger pro in fact although the quality isn't quite as good they definitely do the job when you're just streaming a bit of youtube or netflix or whatever and when i was enjoying a bit of music well i had no trouble streaming over bluetooth 5.2 to a speaker or pair of headphones or anything like that as well you've got full dolby atmos support on here the quality stays strong even at range but again like other premium smartphones not only do you not have expandable storage on the xiaomi 12 you've also got no headphone jack just little issues that are just slightly annoying and slightly ruining otherwise perfect experience the haptics are pretty good here on the xiaomi 12 lone are quite as quiet as some rivals like the oneplus 10 pro but they are fully adjustable within theaudio settings menu so you can have them as gentle or as fierce as you like now despite its smaller stature the xiaomi 12 still packs a proper punch using that self-same snapdragon 8gen1 chipset as also found in the pro model and most other android flagships and xiaomi also somehow found room in this dinky wii blower for 12 gigs of ddr5 ram as well so no matter how many apps you chuck at this thing they'll all run perfectly smoothly go to admit though before i actually tested out the xiaomi 12 i thought it would probably still struggle with the most demanding titles out there like gentian impact once i punched up the graphics to maximum settings purely because the heat buildup would be too much to handle but full credit to xiaomi its multifaceted liquid cool tech does a sterling job of shifting that pesky heat suggestion impact plays beautifully even when you push it to its very limits and you also have that game turbo mode on here easily accessed in game with a quick flick of your finger to tweak the performance settings and play about with various other helpful tools you got dual 5g support you've got wi-fi 6e connectivity as well so no issues on the network inside of things whether you're indoors or out now one of the main issues i had with the xiaomi 12 pro model was the rather lackluster battery life it was disappointing to say the least quite often i was in battery saver mode before the end of the day and occasionally i'd even run out of juice entirely before stumbling into bed so i was slightly concerned coming to the regular shambi 12 that this would once again be a massive problem but thankfully not an issue at all you've got a 4 500 milliamp hour capacity cell crammed into this tiny chassis so almost as big as the pro and that combined with the fact that you've got the paired down tech means that battery life is absolutely fine i've never once had to charge up this phone before the end of the day usually have 15 or 20 battery life remaining come the end of it and of course then you've got the 67 watt wire charging support the 50 watt wireless charging support so super flexible so it's another massive ticked box and another reason why i prefer the regular xiaomi 12 to that pro model so finally the camera tech and yeah you do get a different primary sensor here to the pro model but don't fret you've still go the excellent 50 megs sony imax 766 as seen in the oppo find x5 pro and the real me gt2 pro once again with a bit of built-in optical image stabilization the xiaomi 12 does a fantastic job of tracking moving subjects to keep them sharply in focus at all times so it's ideal for snapping kids and pets and the like and thanks to the 766 you can expect mostly natural looking photos whether you're shooting in bright daylight indoors or even at night time with just the occasional bit of polish to make things look a bit more vivid than they really do every shot is packed with detail unless there's very little light to work with in which case yeah you'll see some grin creeping in i had no issues with lens flare and strong brightness and hdr situations don't pose a problem either you can forget about oversaturation or coming up with murky results as well as that primary shooter you've also got a basic 13 meg ultra wide angle option this is handy when shooting some scenery and while this is generally fine for low light shots you can't expect the same natural color capture that many rivals do serve up and unlike the pro model there's no telephoto lens here so if you do want to get closer to your subject you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way by actually using your legs still you do have the option of shooting a 50 megapixel photo and cropping in to get a closer view which works well as long as the lighting is decent and you don't crop in too enthusiastically and oh yeah the xiaomi 12 also packs a five megapixel telemacro camera as well if you want an extreme close-up of something very very near to you and you've also got a pro mode of course as usual on the xiaomi 12 with full support for raw image capture although there's no raw plus support as you get on the likes of the oneplus 10 pro for horn movies you can shoot 4k hdr 10 plus footage so even really strong contrast doesn't faze the xiaomi 12. tracking is once again on point i had no issues at all with focus while the visuals are up to snuff except in rather low light that's definitely where the oppo find x5 series still claims a massive victory with its marisilicon smarts if you want to you can even boost the resolution at 8k here though again with impressive results but to me that does seem a bit like overkill last up the xiaomi 12 serves up a 32 meg selfie shooter which is perfectly fine just remember to switch off all that beautified bollocks if you don't want to look like some sort of weird cgi creation that sensor can deal well with harsh lighting once again and it isn't too put out by ambient conditions either and using that selfie shooter you can capture full hd 1080p footage as well with the hdr options still in place as well quite hand if you are shooting against a bright sky or whatnot and the vocal capture is absolutely fine sorry there is my full final review of the xiaomi 12 the regular model not that bloody pro and i gotta say yeah it's not quite the perfect handset there are a few little issues in there most of which are pretty standard for expensive smartphones the lack of expandable storage the lack of at headphone jack occasional bit of launchy jank as well of course but what you do get with this thing is incredible performance fantastic battery life a dependable bit of camera tech solidmedia chops and it's all wrapped up in a pleasingly compact chassis and yeah it's up against some big rivals right now the oppo f5x5 series the roomy gt2 and the real me gt2 pro but i gotta say i really enjoyed using the xiaomi 12 one of my favorite smartphones that i've used so far in 2022. so that's what i think anyway.
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