Yesterday, Xiaomi debuted the Xiaomi 12S Ultra, which is the successor of the highly acclaimed Xiaomi 11 Ultra. Going by Xiaomi’s launch presentation, the device appears to be one of the top contenders for the best smartphone of this year.
However, many of you might remember the hype surrounding the Xiaomi 12 Pro, and how the device failed to live up to it. So can the brand be trusted this time? Is the device really as good as it’s made out to be? Let’s find out by going over each upgrade one by one.
Starting with the biggest upgrade of the device, the new camera main camera packs the Sony IMX989 sensor that has a large 1-inch sensor size and a 50-megapixel resolution. The increased sensor size will allow for more light to be captured resulting in sharper and more color-accurate images. However, what grabs our attention, even more, is the brand’s partnership with Leica in co-developing this camera.
As many of you would know, Leica recently ended its partnership with Huawei to join hands with Xiaomi. While with Huawei, Leica provided its custom tuning on devices like the Huawei P50 Pro which is currently one of the best camera smartphones in the world.
Xiaomi 11 Ultra’s camera is known to produce pictures that are a bit bland and lack contrast and saturation. The white balance on the device is also a bit much on the cooler side. But going by Xiaomi’s sample pictures clicked on the 12S Ultra, these shortcomings appear to have been dealt with and probably have Leica to thank for it.
The second major upgrade is the new chipset. The 12S Ultra houses a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip which promises many improvements over its predecessor, mainly thanks to TSMC’s 4nm node that it’s manufactured on. However, the brand made similar promises with the release of the Snapdragon 888 and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, and we remember how that turned out.
Another issue with Xiaomi phones is the decay in performance over time. Last year, we bought a Xiaomi 11 Ultra which averaged 55 FPS in Genshin Impact on the Highest settings. Now, the same device is only able to run the game at a meager 38 FPS.
So, before giving an opinion on the performance, we will conduct our personal testing on a device bought from a Xiaomi offline store and not one given to us by the brand to make sure it’s as close as possible to a device that a normal user will get.
We are also not excited about the Samsung E5 AMOLED panel on the Xiaomi 11S Ultra as all the E5 panels made by Samsung this year have had an issue where they appear green if you look at it from the side. The panel also has an LTPO function which makes DC dimming impossible making the panel rougher on the eyes.
The back design of the Xiaomi 12S Ultra has so far gotten mixed reviews with some loving while others not so much. However, what we find dissatisfactory about this back panel is the lack of options. Xiaomi has only released the phone with a vegan leather back, leaving out materials like glass or ceramic. This makes a phone case pretty much a necessity for the 12S Ultra as the vegan leather material is not as scratch-proof as either of the two mentioned above.
The battery of the device has also received a reduction in capacity compared to its predecessor at 4860mAh. This is 300mAh less than the last-gen device. Xiaomi has promised that the new Surge P1+G1 chip will allow the device to have a longer battery life than its predecessor, but that claim might be a little far-fetched and the additional battery capacity would’ve been better for the long run.
If we consider these facts and uncertainties, the Xiaomi 12S Ultra doesn’t look that much impressive compared to last year’s Xiaomi 11 Ultra. However, if all the claims made at the launch turn out to be true, we might have the most all-rounded flagship of the year on our hands. So stay tuned for our upcoming full review of the device.
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