Just six months after its previous flagship debut, Xiaomi has announced three new smartphones that look familiar, marking the start of its partnership with Leica. The new 12S Series will use MIUI 13 based on Android 12 and will allegedly include Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, which is more efficient. The three phones in the series are as follows: 12S, 12S Ultra and 12S Pro.
The 12S Ultra will have a 1-inch 50.3 megapixel Sony IMX989 main sensor. That means a decent pixel size of 1.6um and then doubled to 3.2um via pixel binning for increased color accuracy and low-light performance. And unlike the Sony Xperia Pro-I, the Xiaomi 12S Ultra apparently uses its entire 1-inch sensor.
According to CEO Lei Jun, Xiaomi was also involved in the development process of Sony IMX989, and the $15 million expense was shared between the two companies. However, Lei says this sensor will not be exclusive to Xiaomi and will be used by competitors after the release of the 12S Ultra “to jointly support the advancement of mobile imaging”.
Leica, on the other hand, brings the “Leica Summicron 1:1.0-4.1/13-120 ASPH camera system”, which covers all three rear cameras, to the Xiaomi 12S Ultra. These three cameras consist of a 50.3-megapixel main camera (23mm, f/1.9), a 48-megapixel ultra-wide camera (13mm, f/2.2) and a 48-megapixel periscopic camera (120mm, f/4.1).
The front of the phone has a 32-megapixel selfie camera. Most of these cameras are capable of Dolby Vision HDR video recording (up to 4K@60fps) and playback, making the 12S Ultra the first Android device to feature these features.
The rest of the Xiaomi 12S Ultra also carries the standard high-end phone features. It features a 6.73-inch Samsung E5 AMOLED panel (3,200×1,440, 522ppi; LTPO 2.0), brightness up to 1500 nits, 1-120Hz AdaptiveSync Pro refresh rate, native 10-bit color depth and P3 color gamut . It also has IP68 water resistance. Features such as 12GB LPDDR5 RAM, up to 512GB UFS 3.1 storage continue to maintain the top quality of this phone.
The Xiaomi 12S Pro shares the same 6.73-inch screen and Surge P1 fast charging chipset as the 12S Ultra, but supports 120W wired charging for its smaller 4,600mAh battery. It lacks 10W reverse charging. It has a 1/1.28-inch, 50-megapixel Sony IMX707 main sensor, a variant of the IMX700 previously found in Huawei’s Mate 40 Pro series. It still offers a decent pixel size of 1.22um (or 2.44um after pixel binning) and matches the resolution of its ultra-wide camera (14mm) and telephoto camera (50mm). All of these have been put together by Leica.
The base model, the Xiaomi 12S, has the same main camera as the 12S Pro and the same fast charging capabilities as the 12S Ultra. But it’s smaller with a 6.28-inch screen. Also, its battery is limited to 4,500mAh.
The Xiaomi 12S Series is currently available for pre-order in China and will go on sale on July 6. The 12S Ultra starts at around $900 and goes up to $1,000, while the 12S Pro costs between $700 and $880, and the basic 12S is between $600 and $780.
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