Xiaomi finally upgraded their flagship series with three models this week: the Xiaomi 12s, the Xiaomi 12s Pro, and the 12s Ultra. In fact, some of you may have been overwhelmed by the specs of the Xiaomi 12S Ultra. It comes with the largest 1-inch sensor we’ve ever seen on a phone, and no doubt is the superstar model in the series. But today we are going to focus on its little brothers, the Xiaomi 12s and 12s Pro models. 

Well, it seems that Xiaomi applied a low-profile design for the packaging of the 12s series. There are no more large numbers or noticeable texts.

There’s another winner in this launch, which is the German photography brand Leica. It’s the first time Xiaomi is working with Leica on their camera imaging solution. And it’s great to see that all three versions of the 12s series are boosted with the Leica solution. 

So you can see the famous red logo right here. To be honest, the logo kept reminding me of the Huawei P series, which also used to work with Leica on their imaging system. Although it’s not the first time that the legendary brand cooperated with a smartphone brand, Leica still receives great worship from Xiaomi and its fans. 

Xiaomi 12S series features similar design with Leica branding

I knew that the unboxing stage of these two models could be a bit boring, since we’ve learned at the launch that there is nothing new in the 12s and the 12s pro’s appearance. If we have to point out any difference, well their camera’s footnote here was replaced with the word Leica. As for the 12 series, the footnote is just the meaningless 50MP wording.  

So like the 12s Ultra, the Xiaomi 12s, and the 12s Pro also feature Leica’s imaging engine and camera app. The biggest difference is that these two models are equipped with a Sony IMX707 sensor for the main camera, which is slightly smaller than the Ultra version’s IMX989 sensor. Notably, the 1/1.28-inch sensor is still one of the largest sensor sizes on the mobile market. 

For the 12s Pro, the whole camera hardware is no different from the Xiaomi 12 Pro, while for the 12s standard version, Xiaomi upgrades its main camera from the Xiaomi 12’s IMX766 to the larger 707 sensor. 

Xiaomi 12S series performance gets a boost – Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1

Another important upgrade is the chipset. The 12s series is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Plus. Although it’s only a Plus version, the improvement probably will convince you that it’s a completely new generation. The reason why we think so is that the 8 Gen 1 Plus’ production is finally moved back to TSMC from Samsung. Now we can clearly find out if there is a significant discrepancy between the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Gen 1+’s power consumption and heating.

And we will show you the detail performance and gaming comparison between them in the following review. Today, we just want to experience their software and take a quick look at their benchmarks’ results. Well, the MIUI 13 feels as smooth as what we experienced on the Xiaomi 12 series. The display is still the best one that Xiaomi has ever used, a 2K-level 120Hz SAMSUNG E5 AMOLED panel, which is visually stunning like before.

Now let’s briefly check out their benchmark results. Even in benchmarks, the Xiaomi 12s series got significantly improved over the peak performance.

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In the Antutu benchmark, these two models have over 15% improvement from the 12 series. And their power consumption also got significantly optimized from the 12 series, which makes us really look forward to their actual gaming performance. So please stay subscribed, as we will bring you the comparison soon. 

Now let’s talk about the camera system. Well, since the module is still powered by the triple 50MP lenses, the major improvement of the Pro version is about software and experience. While for the 12s standard version, the image shot on the main camera did look better, but we think the biggest improvement is again in the software and experience.  

Xiaomi 12S series cameras are powered by Leica

A few Leica elements are added to their camera app. When first open the camera app, the software will ask you which imaging engine you wanna use, Leica Authentic or Leica Vibrant. The Leica Authentic mode is closer to the original Leica camera imaging preference, including high contrast, an amazing level of detail where it is needed, pleasant softness in areas that do not require much attention, and an ability to see the whole tonal range effortlessly. And the images shot on the 12s models even reproduced Leica’s vignetting to some extent. While I think the Vibrant mode applies more vivid colors based on the Authentic mode, which is closer to what we saw on smartphone imaging before. So here we bring you some samples shot on the 12s models, and we will show more in their detailed review soon. So stay tuned.

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Meanwhile, you can check out the original camera samples from the Xiaomi 12S and the 12S Pro here.

The 12s series also adds four Leica filters, Leica’s classic shutter sound, and the Leica watermark.

On the 12s series, now you can choose the classical Leica watermark in the camera app, which is bigger and more noticeable and eats up a decent place in the lower part. It wouldn’t bring any improvement to the images. But when you see the pictures with the watermark, do you feel some degree of pleasure? Well, I do.

But we found a similar camera app for other Xiaomi phones on the internet. It looks almost the same as the Xiaomi 12S’ Leica camera app. But of course, there’s no Leica imaging engine inside. However, you can also have four custom filters, the same shutter sound, and even the watermark for any other Xiaomi model. 

Obviously, it’s not officially released by Xiaomi but leaked by someone on the internet. That said, here we also want to show you a couple of images shot on the Xiaomi 12 Pro and the 12s Pro with a similar watermark. Can you identify the differences between them? 

And yes, we will talk more about the leaked camera app in the following review. 

So that’s all for today’s first impression and quick hands-on of the Xiaomi 12s and 12s Pro. There’s no doubt that it’s an important step forward for Xiaomi in phone imaging. And we can also see the brand’s desire to bring something different from the cooperation with Leica. 

More about these two models will be put in our deep review video. So please stay tuned. 

And the Xiaomi 12s Ultra’s review and related comparisons are also in the pipeline. So if you have any questions about the 12s series, please leave them down below. 

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