Xiaomi 12 Pro review: ultra-fast-charging Android phone

It certainly looks the part. The 6.73in OLED screen is super bright, vibrant and pin-sharp with a 120Hz refresh rate to keep everything smooth. The sides curve to a metal frame and a smooth frosted glass back with a protruding camera lump in the top left corner. The 12 Pro a large phone but feels great, is slightly lighter than some rivals and comparatively easy to grip.

The 12 Pro has the same top Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip as the Oppo Find X5 Pro, OnePlus 10 Pro and most high-end Android phones launched in 2022 and performs similarly, capable of handling demanding tasks and games with aplomb.

The battery life is a bit short compared with rivals. The 12 Pro lasted only 30 hours between charges, while most phones last at least 35 hours. That included about two hours on 5G and having actively using the screen for about four hours for mostly light tasks such as messaging, browsing, music and taking a couple of photos.

Xiaomi rates the battery for at least 800 full-charge cycles while maintaining at least 80% of its original capacity and can be replaced for about £12 plus labour.

Xiaomi does not publish environmental impact assessments or offer trade-in or recycling schemes in the UK. The phone is not made of recycled materials.

It is highly customisable with options to change the way it looks and operates beyond what most rivals offer, from making it look and work like an iPhone to the more traditional Android way. But it took some digging through menus and tweaking settings to get it to work to my liking, after which it was fairly fast and attractive.

The phone has three 50-megapixel cameras on the back and a very capable 32MP selfie camera, which produces detailed photos but defaults to some degree of artificial skin-smoothing unless you turn it off manually.

The main camera is the best of the bunch, producing sharp, well-detailed images with excellent colour balance and exposure, even in high-contrast scenes. Low-light performance is strong and video is excellent too. But the ultra-wide and 2x telephoto cameras are also good with consistent colour and exposure as you switch between the three cameras. The 2x zoom is weak compared with rivals, however, which often have 3, 5 or even 10x optical zooms. Extending beyond 2x with digital zoom quickly becomes full of artefacts.

The Xiaomi 12 Pro costs £1,049.

For comparison, the Google Pixel 6 Pro costs £849, the OnePlus 10 Pro costs £799, the Samsung Galaxy S21+ costs £949, the Oppo Find X5 Pro costs £1,049, the Galaxy S21 Ultra costs £1,149 and the iPhone 13 Pro Max costs £1,049.

It certainly looks the part, feels great, performs well and has the fastest charging currently available. The camera is pretty good too but lacks extended optical zoom, limited only to 2x magnification where others offer 3x or 4x for the same price.