Xiaomi announced its latest Redmi Note 12 series in the Philippines last week.
The online-exclusive base model carries a suggested retail price of P8,599 (around $155), while the top-end Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus 5G is priced at P21,999 ($397) for the lone 8GB/256GB storage variant. In this review, we’re taking a close look at the latter, which brings a few nice upgrades to the category, including a 120Hz OLED display and a 200-megapixel camera sensor from Samsung.
Perhaps more importantly, the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus 5G is one of the fastest-charging devices you can get at this price range, thanks to Xiaomi’s 120-watt HyperCharge standard that has been advertised to top up the phone’s battery in half the time most midrangers and some flagships do.
Updated this review with this unboxing video
Coming to the hardware, the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus 5G features a dual-glass design, with a flat Corning Gorilla Glass 5 layer on top of the panel and a slightly curved glass at the back featuring a glossy or matte finish depending on the color variant. Our Polar White edition has a glossy surface, so it looks quite elegant but also attracts fingerprints easily, just like other shiny phones.
Our Polar White edition has a glossy surface
The plastic frame with rounded corners means there are no antenna lines to be seen on the unit, adding to its clean and minimalist look. It’s also important to note that, unlike the Midnight Black and Sky Blue variants, which are painted black and blue, respectively, our Polar White unit uses a two-tone color scheme to highlight the frame and camera island on the rear.
At around 208 grams, the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus 5G has some heft to it. It certainly feels heavier than the 187g Redmi Note 12 Pro 5G and standard Redmi Note 12, which weighs just a little over 183 grams. Operating the smartphone with one hand isn’t the easiest thing to do, as most apps require the attention of two hands.
The newly launched smartphone features two built-in speakers — one at the top and the other at the bottom
The Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus 5G features two built-in speakers — one at the top and the other at the bottom. The secondary speaker is slightly weaker than the down-firing one, though the pair still delivers a proper stereo effect and is loud enough to punch through a significant amount of ambient sound or be heard while walking on the street with the phone in your pocket. This has proved especially beneficial to this author who sometimes has to listen to live NBA games with the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus 5G in his shirt pocket.
Not surprisingly, the handset is armed with a 3.5mm headphone jack that sits on top of the frame, letting you plug in wired headphones. And like the Redmi Note 11 series before it, the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus 5G offers basic IP53 water resistance, which should give you some peace of mind while using the smartphone in the rain or taking pictures near the pool. You also get an IR blaster that is paired with Xiaomi’s own Mi Remote app for controlling appliances, including TVs and air conditioners.
The 6.67-inch OLED screen comes with a 120Hz refresh rate, much like its predecessor, but upgrades to 10-bit color depth and HDR10+ and Dolby Vision certifications
Meanwhile, the bezels around the display are not the slimmest around, but at least they’re not obnoxiously thick like those found on the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G we reviewed earlier. The FHD+ OLED screen measures 6.67 inches diagonally and comes with a 120Hz refresh rate, much like its predecessor, but upgrades to 10-bit color depth and HDR10+ and Dolby Vision certifications.
The Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus 5G likewise offers high-frequency PWM dimming to help minimize eye strain in dim lighting conditions. Xiaomi promises a peak brightness of 900 nits, and the device does get bright enough for a comfortable outdoor experience when you raise the slider to its limits and enable Sunlight mode.
Widevine L1 certification is available on the phone, allowing you to stream HD videos with Dolby Vision on Netflix. You can also watch HDR content on the YouTube app without any issues. The OLED panel is visually excellent for the category, and for most uses, the screen size is enough.
The Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus 5G is equipped with a 200-megapixel Samsung Isocell HPX 1/1.4-inch sensor
Of course, the main camera at the back is arguably the biggest attraction here. Unlike the regular and Pro models in the series, the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus 5G is equipped with a 200-megapixel Samsung Isocell HPX 1/1.4-inch sensor with 0.56µm pixels and a Tetra2Pixel color filter that simulates different pixel sizes to adapt to varying lighting conditions.
The same technology can be found in the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra’s 200-megapixel Isocell HP2 sensor, which can do both 4×4 and 2×2 pixel binning for 12-megapixel and 50-megapixel images when shooting in low-light environments. Despite the high megapixel count, though, the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus 5G is limited to 4K video recording at 30 fps instead of 8K due to its midrange processor.
In daytime scenes, the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus 5G performs well and saves 12-megapixel photos with accurate colors and sharp detail in the default Photo mode. You can also enable the 200-megapixel option for greater definition at the cost of a much larger file size.
The primary camera is paired with an 8-megapixel sensor behind an ultrawide lens and a 2-megapixel macro option with a fixed focal length of 4cm from the lens. You’ll need plenty of light to get decent results from the macro cam, but the secondary shooter is plenty wide and surprisingly good, and distortion correction is automatically applied to fix the corners of your shots. Meanwhile, we found the 16-megapixel selfie camera to be adequate.
Sample shots
The Plus variant is powered by the 6nm MediaTek Dimensity 1080 5G chipset, same as the Redmi Note 12 Pro 5G. The chip is a slightly improved version of the Dimensity 920 inside the likes of the Redmi Note 11 Pro Plus 5G and local variant of the Realme 10 Pro Plus 5G, hence the similar benchmark scores.
Our unit comes with 8GB RAM and 256GB of internal storage and runs the company’s latest MIUI 14 custom overlay on top of Android 12, which is a bit of a letdown considering other Xiaomi models offer the brand’s newest Android 13-based software experience. The Memory Extension feature is on by default, but you can disable it if you don’t want to create additional virtual RAM by using up to 5GB of the phone’s built-in storage.
As expected, the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus 5G handles day-to-day tasks like a champ, and multitasking is a breeze, thanks to the generous serving of dynamic RAM. The most demanding game we tested was Genshin Impact, and we found the game to be playable at around 30 fps with the graphics set to Medium or lower. Lighter games, such as Mobile Legends and Dead Cells, ran at a smooth 60 fps with minimal frame drops.
The 5,000mAh battery supports Xiaomi’s 120-watt HyperCharge standard using the included GaN charger and 6A-rated USB-C cable
The other major highlight here is the fast charging. The 5,000mAh battery supports Xiaomi’s 120-watt HyperCharge standard using the included GaN charger and 6A-rated USB-C cable. Most phones in this price segment top up at a fraction of that top speed. Xiaomi advertises that the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus 5G can go from zero to full in less than 20 minutes, highly impressive given its sub-flagship pricing.
However, there’s a catch: You need to switch on the toggle for “Boost charging speed” in the Settings menu and recharge the unit with the screen turned off, likely to prevent overheating the internals. Otherwise, the charging rate will be limited to 80 watts, and it would take the smartphone roughly 30 minutes to reach a full charge from a dead battery.
We were concerned the size and maximum refresh rate of the display would affect the battery life too much, but that was not really the case. We rarely had to recharge the device overnight, as the battery could last more than a day with ease. In the PCMark battery-rundown test, our unit took 11 hours and 6 minutes to dip below the 20% battery-life mark with the refresh rate set to 120Hz.
Benchmarked
Final thoughts
All things considered, we think the new Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus 5G is an excellent all-around option that refines one of the best sub-flagship devices from last year. It excels in the display and camera departments, and the IP53-rated, dual-glass design is a nice touch, too. More impressively, the Plus variant takes fast charging to the next level and cuts out the usual waiting time in half, delivering a full charge in half an hour or less.
Availability
- Lazada: https://www.lazada.com.ph/xiaomi-official-store-global/
- Shopee: https://shopee.ph/xiaomiofficialstore.ph
- TikTok Shop: https://www.tiktok.com/@xiaomiphilippines
- Xiaomi Stores: https://buy.mi.com/ph/service/wheretobuy
Realme 11 Pro Plus 5G specs
- 6.67-inch AMOLED display, FHD+ resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, Corning Gorilla Glass 5, Dolby Vision
- 6nm MediaTek Dimensity 1080 chipset with 5G
- Mali-G68 GPU
- 8GB LPDDR4X RAM
- 256GB UFS 2.2 storage
- Triple 200-megapixel main, 8-megapixel ultrawide, 2-megapixel macro rear cameras
- 16-megapixel front camera
- Side fingerprint reader
- 5,000mAh battery with 120-watt fast wired charging
- MIUI 14 based on Android 13
- Colors: Polar White, Midnight Black, Sky Blue
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