Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro 5G REVIEW – The good, the bad and the decent!

The global premiere of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro was not that long ago, and today I’m going to share the important things that you need to know about this phone.

Design, buttons, ports

I really like that the design here is a little bit boxier. The back, the front, and also the frame at the side, are all flat. So, this is something that I prefer – actually not having a curved screen, but having a flat screen.
At the back we have glass, at the front we also have glass, but in the front, we have the Gorilla Glass 5 and the side frame of the phone is plastic. One of the things that I don’t like here about the design is that the black version has a very glossy back, and this glossy thing attracts so many fingerprints that it is very difficult to clean afterward, and also it attracts very much dust particles and pocket lint, of course.

The thing here is that you need to use a case and luckily there is a case provided in the package. Otherwise, the phone feels very nice in the hand, and the materials feel very good also. I like the overall look of it, I like how stealthy it is, and I like that the camera system is not that eye-attracting, so everything here is smooth.

At the bottom, we have the USB Type-C port that you are going to use for charging and data transfer. Also, you have one of the two stereo speakers and there you can find the SIM tray as well.
At the top, we can find the IR blaster that you can use to control your TV, your AC, your audio system, or something like this. Everything that works with the remote control basically. You can find one of the side noise muting microphones, you can find the other stereo speaker and the 3.5mm jack, which 3.5mm jack with no hassle at all can power up my DT880s from Beyerdynamic, and I have to say that these headphones are not that easy to be powered, but this phone can do it.
The audio quality is not amazing, but you have the option to use the 3.5mm jack even with headphones that are a little bit harsher to be powered.
On the right side, we have the volume rocker and also, we have the power button, which power button serves as a fingerprint reader. From my experience, the fingerprint reader here works very well. It unlocks the phone almost instantly and I didn’t find any issues at all, even with a little bit of a wetter finger, I had no problems.

The other option for unlocking the phone is with your face data, but you must know that the fingerprint reader here is the more secure option, so here because you don’t have an IR in the front camera – face recognition is not the best.

Screen and speakers

At the front, we have a 6.67″ AMOLED screen, which has a very nice refresh rate of up to 120Hz, which can be set constantly to 120Hz, or it can be set to dynamic, so the phone will change the refresh rate depending on the things that you are doing on it.
The resolution is 1080p with a maximum brightness of 900 nits. The thing that I must mention here is that you can also enjoy some HDR content that you can watch on YouTube, Netflix, or wherever you are watching it, as it supports HDR, so this won’t be an issue at all.

So basically, for watching video content on social media, for watching video content on TikTok, on Instagram, on YouTube and Netflix for example, and HBO Max, I have to say that the experience was flawless.
I didn’t have any issues display-wise. Everything was great, but my only complaint is that the color reproduction of the Note 12 Pro is not that good, and this can be expected from a phone in the middle class, as this phone is not that expensive, and you cannot basically have everything inside it. If you are not that picky about the color accuracy of the screen, I think that you are going to like it.

The stereo speakers that are included with the Redmi Note 12 Pro are okay but they are not perfect, and I wasn’t expecting even to get perfect speakers in such a phone. Anyways… they are loud enough, and you have a little bit of a rich sound, but nothing special, you just have some stereo speakers that are going to do the job well.

Camera hardware and tests

One of the main improvements compared to last year is that here we have the iMac 766 sensor with optical image stabilization, and I think that overall, the main sensor of the phone is a really good one, and most people are going to like the photo results that you are going to achieve with it.
You have an 8-megapixel ultra-wide sensor, and you have a 2-megapixel macro sensor that I really don’t want to discuss.

In terms of the selfie camera, you have a 16-megapixel selfie camera, which produces very nice images, it also can record very nice videos, but the videos are only limited to 1080p.
In terms of video quality, if you are going to film some vlogs or something like this, I can recommend you shoot only with the main camera sensor, because not only it has optical image stabilization, but it is the only one that can record 4K, and the image quality of this sensor is pretty good.

I filmed a vlog from Athens from the premiere of the phone, and I have to say that I really enjoyed how this sensor was working. The ultra-wide sensor in the right condition is doing okay, but only 1080p, and the front camera is also limited to 1080p.

Hardware and performance

About the hardware… The Redmi Note series was always on the good side, and here we have no exception. We have the MediaTek Dimensity 1080, which is a really capable CPU in my opinion, from the games that I have been playing with it. I have to say that this is a very solid performer, and not one of the hottest, which is a very nice thing.
If you are going to play for more than 30 minutes, or more than an hour, you don’t want your phone to burn a hose into your hands, so this processor won’t do such a thing. It is a very nicely cooled one, and I like that fact. In addition, we have 8GB of memory, and you can go with 128GB of internal storage, or 256GB.

In terms of the performance from the day-to-day job to the gaming, I cannot say anything bad about this phone. The MediaTek Dimensity chip here that is included is very well performing, as I said already, and even in gaming, as I’m playing Call of Duty Mobile, I didn’t have any stutters, I didn’t have any lags, I didn’t have any issues at all.
The only issues that I had were actually in the software, and it was when I was scrolling through the menus, when I was scrolling through the settings, I recognized here and there some stutter, some lagging, and this is not something that is hardware related.
The hardware here is capable enough, I think that the main issue here is the software optimization to the hardware, and I think that Xiaomi has some things to do with the software, because it glitches sometimes, and there are also some things that I don’t enjoy very much.

Software

And as we are talking about the software, straight out of the box this phone comes with Android 12, and it also comes with MiUI 14, and from my experience, from my side of view, the MiUI 14 is a really nice-looking shell, it is a very Apple-ish looking shell. This is something that I enjoy, because all the menus, all the interfaces, they are very user friendly, they are very nicely made, they are pleasing to the eye, you have also many things that you can adjust in the phone, you can adjust wallpapers, themes, icons, you can also change the always-on screens, and I think that visually the shell itself is very nicely made, but as I said, the optimization is not one of the best.

I had some issues here and there with scrolling through the menus, with scrolling through the settings menus, and I feel a little bit of a stutter from time to time. And as I told you before, it is not hardware related in my opinion, because heavy load tasks are absolutely well executed, but some of the easiest tasks are not that much – These are mainly in the system, in the Xiaomi system, so in my opinion, this is the issue.

Battery and charging

Last but not least is the battery, as in this thin phone, we have 5000 milliamps of battery, so this one can hold you with no problem for the day and maybe a day and something. And when you need to charge it, you can do it with the provided power brick that is in the box, and it is actually a 67-watt wire charger, so I think it is a decent one.
The battery life that I had with this phone was absolutely expected, I got more than a day when using this phone, and keep in mind that I’m playing Call of Duty, so the battery life is more than great with this one.

The final verdict

In conclusion, I can say that the Redmi Note 12 Pro is a very nice upgrade compared to last year’s Redmi Note 11 Pro, which is a little bit of a downgrade compared to the 10 Pro, but the 12 Pro is a nice one. You have a very nice main camera with optical image stabilization, you have a very nice-looking screen, with a high refresh rate, you also have stereo speakers, you have a 3.5-millimeter jack for all the nostalgic people that want to use their wired headphones, or for the people that prefer a good sound. So, you can go with the 3.5-millimeter jack. One of the things that I enjoy very much is the IR blaster because I can control almost every kind of electronics that I have at home. The design is very sleek and very boxy, I like how it looks, I like how it feels in the hand, and I think that for this price, the phone is okay. The things that you must keep in mind, as I mentioned earlier in the review, is that the glossy back is absolutely devastatingly dirty when you’re using it without the provided transparent case, and the other thing is that the front protective film of the phone is not good. These are my main complaints, as the other things can be softly adjusted with updates, for example, the glitches that I’m having in the menu from time to time. But yes, I think that this phone is good for the price, and I can easily recommend it. Thank you for watching this video. If you like it, if you find it useful, smash that thumbs-up button, subscribe to the channel, and don’t forget to ring the bell icon so you can receive notifications for my upcoming reviews, and I’ll see you in the next one.