Redmi Note 12 Pro+ hands-on review

The Redmi Note 12 Pro+ unveiled in China final October debuted in India in January and launched in Europe this week. We’ve been utilizing the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ for a couple of weeks now, and our detailed review is across the nook, however we thought we might share a part of our findings concerning the telephone prematurely.

Unboxing

Let’s test the Redmi Note 12 Pro+’s retail field first. In India, the smartphone is available in a black-colored field, which features a protecting case, a SIM card ejection device, a USB-C cable, a 120W charger, and the same old paperwork.

In comparability, in Europe the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ is available in a white retail bundle, which additionally has the telephone’s image on it. However, it is not consultant of the colour mannequin you get contained in the field.

Another distinction between the telephone’s packages in India and Europe is the ability adapter. Both include a 120W charger, however they give the impression of being completely different, with the one bundled with the field in India a bit heavier.

Regardless, we respect Xiaomi bundling a 120W adapter with the bundle. The model instructed us they did not take away the charger from the field as a result of it might have resulted in an incomplete expertise for the person. Besides, it is the one manner you possibly can make the most of its extremely speedy charging out of the field as odds are you do not have such a strong brick at hand.

Design

The Redmi Note 12 Pro+ packs a 6.67″ FullHD+ “Pro AMOLED” show, protected by Gorilla Glass 5. It has 120Hz refresh price and a peak brightness of 900 nits.

The panel additionally has a punch gap within the middle for the 16MP selfie digicam, however there is not any fingerprint scanner beneath because it’s embedded within the energy button.

On the alternative aspect, now we have a glass again panel sporting an oblong digicam island housing three cameras and an LED flash. The glass cowl would not really feel low-cost, nevertheless it readily attracted fingerprint smudges, so common wiping is required if you happen to aren’t utilizing a protecting case and wish to preserve its pristine seems.

It’s additionally price mentioning that the protruding digicam island causes the telephone to wobble on flat surfaces, and the bundled case would not actually repair it.

The Redmi Note 12 Pro+ has flat frames, however happily, its rear panel has slender curves across the edges, which makes it simpler to carry than telephones with flat edges. However, the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ isn’t any compact telephone, and other people with small fingers might discover it troublesome to make use of it with one hand.

The smartphone has a USB-C port on the backside, flanked by a speaker, microphone, and a SIM card slot. Up prime, it has a 3.5mm headphone jack, joined by one other speaker, a secondary mic, and an IR blaster.

The Redmi Note 12 Pro+’s left-side body is devoid of any buttons or slots, however on the best, now we have the amount rocker and energy button. The latter has a fingerprint scanner embedded, which we discovered to be quick and correct throughout our utilization. However, we’d have favored to see it include an in-display resolution.

Ports and controls

When requested concerning the rationale behind choosing a side-mounted resolution as an alternative of an under-display one, Xiaomi mentioned it is as a result of the previous is quicker and performs higher in the long run than the in-display sort. Well, that does not make a lot sense to us for the reason that Chinese model has launched smartphones with UD fingerprint readers earlier than, even within the mid-range section.

That mentioned, on the upside, the side-mounted fingerprint scanner does extra than simply unlock the Redmi Note 12 Pro+. It helps double-tap gestures to allow you to carry out completely different actions, together with taking a screenshot, launching the default digicam app, and opening the management middle.

Display

The Redmi Note 12 Pro+’s 6.67″ Pro AMOLED show has 900 nits peak brightness, 120Hz display screen refresh price, and as much as 240Hz contact sampling price. It is a 10-bit show, which comes with HDR10+ certification and Widevine L1 assist, permitting customers to stream 1080p movies on supported OTT apps.

It additionally helps HDR10 and HLG codecs, and for an excellent higher multimedia expertise, you get Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos.

The Redmi Note 12 Pro+’s display screen has good haptic suggestions, and the show was sufficiently shiny to learn textual content material underneath direct daylight at max brightness.

It additionally comes with the Always-On Display characteristic, however that is deceptive because it would not actually preserve the display screen all the time on after the telephone is locked, which is what the identify implies. The data is proven on the display screen for under about 10 seconds after the telephone is locked or the show is tapped, which is not one thing we see with Always-On Displays on units from different manufacturers. Xiaomi ought to’ve achieved higher with its implementation.

The Redmi Note 12 Pro+ has 60Hz and 120Hz refresh price choices within the customized refresh price menu and helps 4 refresh charges in complete – 30Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz, and 120Hz.

At the default setting, the refresh price is bumped as much as 120Hz for many of the system menus and apps if you find yourself interacting with the display screen, aside from YouTube, which stays at 60Hz it doesn’t matter what, whereas Google Photos stays at 120Hz even if you find yourself enjoying 30fps movies. For Facebook and Instagram, the show refreshes at 120Hz whenever you work together with the display screen and comes all the way down to 60Hz if you find yourself watching a picture or enjoying a video.

The refresh price expectedly stays at 60Hz within the 60Hz mode for all the pieces, whether or not you might be interacting with the display screen or simply it, whereas the 120Hz mode is principally simply the default mode.

Talking about video games, we tried Call of Duty Mobile, Dead Trigger 2, Real Racing 3, and Sky Force Reloaded on the Redmi Note 12 Pro+, and we had been solely in a position to play Dead Trigger 2 and Sky Force Reloaded at 120FPS in default and 120Hz modes for the reason that different two remained capped at 60FPS, regardless of which mode you chose.

It’s additionally price mentioning that at no level did we see the display screen refresh at 30Hz, which it ought to have once we performed some 30FPS movies and had been static content material on the display screen, which is bizarre since Xiaomi does promote 30Hz assist for the panel. Some optimizations to the HRR implementation can be appreciated.

Software and Performance

The Redmi Note 12 Pro+ is powered by the Dimensity 1080 SoC and comes with as much as 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB of UFS 2.2 storage. The one we obtained is the top-end mannequin, and no matter which configuration you go along with, the telephone boots Android 12-based MIUI 13 out of the field. Ours got here with MIUI 13.0.2 Global Stable ROM with November 2022 Android safety patch and is presently operating MIUI 13.0.6 with February 2023 safety patch. The smartphone additionally comes pre-installed with third-party apps, however most of them could be uninstalled if you happen to want to.

Xiaomi guarantees 4 years of quarterly safety patches and two years of software program updates. If the latter has you considering that your Note 12 Pro+ will obtain updates until Android 15, you might be mistaken, since it would solely get Android 13 and Android 14, as it is a model behind at this level. And seeing how developer previews of Android 14 are already out, the Chinese telephone maker ought to have launched the secure Android 13 for the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ already.

The software program expertise you get on the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ is much like what you get on different Redmi smartphones operating Android 12 and MIUI 13. However, there have been a couple of bugs that hampered the person expertise, one in every of them being the telephone’s incapability to stay latched to the 5G community in India. It saved falling again to 4G and solely locked to 5G once more after a restart. Fortunately, this was fastened with the MIUI 13.0.6 replace.

The total efficiency of the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ was clean and snappy. However, we nonetheless have points with LinkedIn and Disney+ Hotstar’s apps. The telephone stutters more often than not when utilizing the previous, and with the latter, it is the telephone’s brightness slider that lags when adjusting the brightness in full-screen mode. We did not have this subject with YouTube and Amazon Prime Video.

The Redmi Note 12 Pro+ dealt with the video games we talked about above effectively and remained cool sufficient even after an hour of heavy gaming. However, it did get heat shortly on the 5G community when streaming movies in comparison with the 4G community.

Camera and Battery

The Redmi Note 12 Pro+ comes with 4 cameras – a 16MP selfie shooter on the entrance, with a 200MP main digicam (ISOCELL HPX) on the rear, joined by 8MP ultrawide and 2MP macro items. The selfie digicam contained in the centered punch gap has f/2.5 aperture and may document movies in as much as 1080p decision at 60FPS.

The 200MP digicam, alternatively, has f/1.7 aperture and OIS for photographs and movies. It can shoot movies in 1080p at as much as 60 FPS and in 4K at 30 FPS. It may also seize 10-bit RAW photographs. However, the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ would not include the Clone characteristic we have seen on different Redmi smartphones, together with the Redmi K50i, and there is presently no indication will probably be added by way of a software program replace since Xiaomi instructed us “it’s majorly due to the hardware capabilities of the processor.”

The Redmi Note 12 Pro+’s 8MP ultrawide digicam has a 120° FOV and f/2.2 aperture, whereas the 2MP macro digicam has an f/2.4 aperture. We took some photographs from the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ in the course of the day and evening which you could see under since we’re leaving the detailed evaluation for our in-depth review.

Here are some daylight photographs.

12.5MP • 12.5MP • 50MP • 200MP

And listed below are some nighttime photographs.

12.5MP photographs

The Redmi Note 12 Pro+ packs a 4,980mAh battery that helps 120W HyperCharge, which is a primary for a Redmi machine. However, it would not include 120W charging enabled out of the field. You have to show it on by heading to the telephone’s Settings > Battery > Battery > Boost charging velocity menu. But observe that the telephone will warmth up extra with enhance charging enabled.

Our normal battery exams aren’t but full, however anecdotally talking, the smartphone simply lasted us by way of a day on a single cost in 120Hz mode with 5G cellular information and Wi-Fi hotspot enabled. The utilization consisted of internet looking, streaming 1080p YouTube movies, utilizing social media apps, and at the least half an hour of enjoying resource-intensive video games. On the 4G community, it had higher endurance.

(*12*)

Once the battery is out of juice, you should use the bundled 120W adapter for charging, marketed to fill the Redmi Note 12 Pro+’s cell from 2% to 100% in 19 minutes with enhance charging enabled.

In our testing, the Redmi Note 12 Pro+’s battery went from 1% to 34% in 5 minutes, 50% in 9 minutes, 55% in 10 minutes, 75% in quarter-hour, 91% in 20 minutes, and 100% in 24 minutes.

With enhance charging disabled, it went from 1% to 32% in 5 minutes, 50% in 10 minutes, 66% in quarter-hour, 87% in 20 minutes, and 100% in 29 minutes.

We ran these charging exams in India with the 5G cellular information turned on and the display screen turned off, and it is for sure that your mileage will doubtless differ relying in your utilization and ambient temperature. Over at our HQ in Europe, the Redmi 12 Pro+ expectedly charged sooner. How quick? You’ll discover that out in our in-depth review.

Conclusion

Xiaomi continues to extend the value of the Redmi Note lineup with the Redmi Note 12 Pro+, and the corporate instructed us that is as a result of it would not wish to compromise on something simply to maintain the lineup as inexpensive because it was earlier than. In Europe, the Redmi Note 12 Pro+’s base mannequin with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage is priced at €500 ($540/INR44,400), whereas in India, it prices INR29,999 ($365/€340).

The Redmi Note 12 Pro+ is called a successor to final 12 months’s Note 11 Pro+. However, in India, it truly comes to exchange the the Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge for the reason that model will not launch any 12i collection smartphones within the nation to succeed final 12 months’s 11i lineup. To add additional confusionthe 11i HyperCharge is called the Note 11 Pro+ in different international locations, and there is additionally a Note 11 Pro+ in India, which has completely different specs.

Xiaomi mentioned beginning with the Redmi Note 12 collection, it goals to streamline the lineup so here is hoping there will not be over a dozen completely different fashions within the Note 12 collection like we had within the Note 11 lineup.

Circling again to the Redmi Note 12 Pro+, we should say it is a good telephone total having a quick efficiency, premium design with an IP53 ranking, good battery life, and tremendous quick charging. The smartphone nonetheless runs Android 12, and it was launched with a couple of bugs, though a few of them have been squashed with software program updates.

But we’ll have to run the remainder of the exams earlier than we resolve if the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ is definitely worth the premium over its predecessor. Stay tuned for our in-depth review to search out that out!