Redmi Note 12 Turbo
Last month we did a comparison of the OnePlus Nord 3 and the Realme gt neo5, and my conclusion is that there is in fact no loser between the two. And that the real shame is on the Redmi k60 series, their strongest competitor. After twice announcing price cuts as a temporary response, Redmi finally waited for their true savior, and now I’m holding in my hands the world’s first brand new phone with the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 platform, the Redmi Note 12 Turbo, which will be released globally as Poco F5.
Today let’s see how Redmi returns the favor to its rivals and dominates the budget phone market once again.
By the way, we also made an unboxing video about the Harry Potter limited edition of the model. So if you are interested, you can check it out here.
We will upload the video as soon as possible.
Unboxing & Design
One of the marketing words for the Redmi Note 12 Turbo is magic, so we can see it wrapped in a black box with a mysterious feel. What we got is the white variant with insane 16GB memory and 1TB storage, which is one of the hottest-selling versions because it costs only $400! This is totally insane, and here we can also learn from the label that it supports Dolby Vision display as well as Dolby Atmos sound.
Accessories are not significantly different from Redmi’s previous budget models. A User guide, warranty card, and a TPU case, Unsurprisingly, at the bottom of the package we also have a USB-A to USB-C cable and a 67-watt charger. Now let’s take a glance at the phone, the Redmi Note 12 Turbo.
The white variant has a Chinese name that indicates white feathers and ice, and when you look at the fantastic and charming back cover, you will understand that it is really a very apt name. I love the white to-lime green gradient and the shimmering ice crystal texture as the perspective changes, This would be a great stylized look for summer.
The Note 12 Turbo has a full wrap-around flat body, and most importantly this time they finally removed the cheap plastic bracket that connects the screen to the frame, which was one of the biggest disadvantages of the Redmi K series against OnePlus Ace series. OK now let’s do some more in-depth experience and testing on all aspects of it.
The Note 12 Turbo’s frame and back cover are plastic, but visually it doesn’t feel cheap at all. Redmi has good attention to detail, and the surface of the frame is sandblasted which gives it a metal-like look and feel, and its sides are chamfered so it doesn’t feel sharp when you move your fingers from the back cover or screen to the frame.
The camera setup located on the back cover is no longer a huge integrated module, each camera is like a separate island floating on the back cover. Compared to the K60 series, the Note 12 Turbo has excellent size and weight control, it’s about 0.3mm thinner and 10 grams lighter than the OnePlus Nord 3, and what really gets me is that it still has a 5000mAh battery inside.
Two other details on the Note 12 Turbo that surprise me are that they still retain the 3.5 mm headphone jack in 2023 and that they opted for a well-located side fingerprint sensor. Trust me, while the under-screen optical fingerprint sensor looks more advanced. But if you actually compare them side-by-side, you’ll never prefer the under-screen optical fingerprint sensor again.
Display
When you wake up the Note 12 Turbo’s screen, the display panel that takes up almost the entire front face will blow you away, it’s almost the ultimate form of the smartphone display, though there’s still a hole punch for a selfie camera. This screen supports 12-bit color depth which gives a very nice transition of colors for all the images displayed on the screen, you won’t see those bad color breaks when you watch HDR content anymore.
Performance
Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 may be an unfamiliar name to you, as it is Qualcomm’s latest quasi-flagship platform released last month, which is the first time they have put prime core on the Snapdragon 7 series and brings many features previously supported only on flagship platforms. And most importantly, its GPU performance no longer lags far behind flagship products.
The Note 12 Turbo performed very close to those phones with Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 no matter in Benchmark or gaming. And they were all more expensive than the Note 12 Turbo.
Another benefit I found while playing games is that the new platform has better power efficiency, with neither the back cover nor the frame of the phone overheating during 20 minutes of Genshin Impact gameplay.
For such a budget phone, talking too much about the camera doesn’t seem to have much value, in fact, I always thought Android manufacturers should learn from Apple to keep a high-quality wide-angle camera only on the budget models, just like the iPhone SE 3.
Cameras
Because the Note 12 Turbo’s ultra wide-angle camera and macro camera are average, these days I just used its 64MP wide-angle camera to shoot these samples for your reference. It looks good in the daily shooting but there’s no obvious advantage if compared with other competitors in the same price range.
While I wasn’t expecting much from its camera, there was one thing that irked me. The Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 has a very good image-signal processor, but it seems that Redmi doesn’t want to unleash its full potential in a budget model. Unfortunately, this phone doesn’t support the 4K 60FPS HDR video recording that it is capable to support, so if you are more concerned about video recording, you need to think carefully about buying it.
Battery & Charge
In terms of battery life, the 5000mAh built-in battery and the excellent energy efficiency of the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 make the phone good enough to last all day. Compared to OnePlus, Redmi does a really good job of power management, and sometimes when I don’t play games all day, I can even charge it only once in two days. The 67 watts of wired charging isn’t exactly fast at the moment, but it still meets most users’ needs.
Verdict
Well that’s today’s unboxing and hands-on about the Redmi Note 12 Turbo, which is a phone that impresses me because it really gives up a lot of profit for consumers. Buying a phone with 1TB of storage on a $400 budget sounds like a clumsy joke, but Redmi really makes it happen and gives us the best design and display in its price range. Everyone can foresee that this will be a phone that sells very well, and I’m starting to look forward to seeing how their competitors will fight back, anyway, let’s wait and see.
