Redmi Note 12 Pro Review – Brilliant Mid-Range Phone

Redmi is back with another all-rounder mid-range phone which focuses on performance with good battery life. There was a time when the Note series was focused on budget buyers. However, things have changed now and the latest Note 12 Pro isn’t a budget option.

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro 5G is launched in India in three storage variants. The base variant costs Rs. 24,999 for 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. The top variant with 8GB RAM costs Rs. 26,999 for 128GB storage and Rs. 27,999 for 256GB storage.

The phone is available in three different colour options: Glacier Blue, Onyx Black and Stardust Purple. You can buy the phone directly from Mi.com and other online platforms like Amazon and Flipkart as well as select offline stores.

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The Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro 5G packs the following items inside the box:

• Handset
• 67 W Charger
• USB Type-C Cable
• Sim Eject Tool
• Protective Case
• Quick Start Guide
• Warranty Card

Before we talk in detail about the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like:

• Display: 6.67 inches AMOLED
• Chipset: MediaTek Dimensity 1080
• RAM & ROM: 6GB RAM 128GB Storage, 8GB RAM 128 GB Storage, 8GB RAM 256 GB Storage
• Software: Android v12
• Rear camera: 50MP + 8MP + 2MP
• Selfie camera: 16MP
• Battery: 5000 mAh
• Weight: 187 grams
• Dimensions: 163 x 76.03 x 7.98 mm

The Redmi Note 12 Pro comes in a fresh looking design and sleek profile. The phone comes in three different colour options: Glacier Blue, Onyx Black and Stardust Purple. I have the blue variant with me for the review.

The phone comes with a glass back with a matte finish which keeps the fingerprints away. The frame is made of plastic and feels solid in the hand. The phone is quite sleek at 7.98 mm thickness and also lightweight, weighing just about 187 grams.

The blue variant looks very simple and clean which is up to my liking however the purple variant will surely catch some eyes from far.

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The back of the phone has a glossy rectangular camera island on the top which houses three lenses and an LED flash. It protrudes a bit so yes the phone will wobble if you place it on a flat surface. You also get a subtle Redmi 5G branding on the bottom left.

The phone comes with an IP53 rating to protect it from dust and water to some extent. There is no sort of Gorilla Glass Protection on the back so I would suggest you to better use a case with it.

Coming over to buttons and ports, the right side has the power button along with volume rockers while the left side is clean. The top side has the secondary speaker, secondary mic, 3.5mm audio jack and IR blaster. Lastly, the bottom side holds the primary speaker, primary mic, type-C port and SIM card slot.

The Redmi Note 12 Pro has a decent 50MP triple camera setup. The other two lenses include an 8MP ultra-wide lens and 2MP macro sensor. The front side has a 16MP selfie camera housed indie the punch-hole cutout.

The 50MP main camera manages to take some nice shots in daylight conditions. The images were well-detailed and sharp. The dynamic range was nice and the colours looked close to natural.

Low-light shots were nice thanks to OIS. There’s a dedicated night mode which helps to take better low light shots by brightening up the scene.

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The 8MP ultra-wide shots were fine. The details were there but the images were not as sharp as those taken with the main camera. The colour shift was noticeable as well. The 2MP lens is just poor. No details and the images were not usable unless taken in bright lighting conditions.

Coming over to the front, the 16MP lens captures good selfies. The details were good and the selfies were sharp when taken in daylight. The skin tones also looked natural. Low-light selfies were not very good.

You get multiple camera modes to take some creative shots like Photo Mode, 50MP Mode, Night Mode, Portrait Mode, Pro Mode, VLOG, Xiaomi Pro-cut and more. The phone can record 4K video at 30fps using the main camera while the front camera can record 1080p videos at 60fps.

The Redmi Note 12 Pro has a big 5000mAh battery which is pretty much the norm now. It offers a good battery backup which means you can get more than a day of backup if you are a light user. A heavy user can still get a full day of backup.

I got about 6 hours of screen on time which is decent for this capacity. My usage involved playing some games, watching series, taking pictures and making calls. However, the battery life will largely depend on your usage and the refresh rate.

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I used the phone at a 120Hz refresh rate; you can lower it down to 60Hz and get better battery life. No matter how you use it, you will get a solid full-day battery life from it.

The phone comes with 67W fast charging support and good thing that Redmi still provides the charger in the box. The 67W charger takes about an hour to fully charge the phone from 0 to 100 per cent.

A quick charge of 17 minutes juices the battery level to around 50 per cent. Fast enough to charge the phone before going out somewhere. There is no support for wireless charging which could have been a nice add-on.

The Redmi Note 12 Pro features a stunning Full HD+ 6.67-inch AMOLED display which is the same as we see on the Pro Plus variant. There is no change at all. You get the same 120Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 900 nits.

The display gets plenty bright for both indoor and outdoor use. Also, the screen is quite responsive and smooth for everyday usage. Scrolling through my Twitter feed was a very pleasant experience. You can set the refresh rate to automatically switch between 30Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz, and 120Hz depending on the app.

Talking about quality, the display is vibrant and the colours look punchy. The details on the screen are clear and crisp with deep blacks. The bezels are also quite thin on the sides which offers an immersive viewing experience.

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The colour scheme is set to vivid by default which was good for me. You can change that in the settings as per your taste. It supports HDR 10+ so you can watch HDR content on YouTube and Netflix. You also get Widevine L1 certification so you can steam high-quality content on OTT platforms.

I watched a couple of episodes of Reacher on Prime Videos and my viewing experience was pretty nice. Playing games on this screen is also very enjoyable. Lastly, the screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5.

The Redmi Note 12 Pro is powered by the same SoC as its bigger brother to offer powerful performance at a lower price. It features a MediaTek Dimensity 1080 chipset which is paired with up to 8GB LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB UFS2.2 internal storage.

Talking about day to day activities, the phone glides through them easily. I did some Instagram scrolling, took pictures and make calls. Everything was smooth and I did not face any issues. Nagivtaging through the UI and switching between apps was also seamless. There was no kind of lags or shutters.

The Dimensity 1080 is powerful enough to handle your everyday tasks. You also get the RAM expansion feature like any other Redmi phone which adds up to an extra 5GB RAM using internal storage.

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If we talk about gaming, the Redmi Note 12 Pro is good for casual gaming. You can play graphic intensive games on it but have to adjust the graphic settings on medium for an enjoyable experience. I tried a couple of heavy games like Call of Duty Mobile and Apex Legends Mobile.

Both the games ran well on medium to high settings. However, there were minor frame drops and shutters every now and then while playing the battle royal. I had to lower the settings to get smoother gameplay.

The phone gets a nice upgraded vapour chamber cooling system to dissipate heat however the phone still gets warm after just 30 minutes of gameplay. But don’t worry, it doesn’t hamper the gaming experience.

The Redmi Note 12 Pro runs on MIUI 13 custom skin which is based on Android 12. A new phone with an old Android version, doesn’t look very nice but ok. The MIUI 13 comes loaded with features and customisation options.

Overall there is nothing much new about the UI. It’s pretty much the same as earlier. The UI feels simple and smooth while navigating. You can customise the theme, icon size, text size and more from the settings.

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The phone comes loaded with third-party apps like Snapchat, Netflix, Spotify, Zilli, ShareMe, Prime Videos and more. The good thing is you can uninstall all of these from the settings manually.

It would have been better if the phone came running on the latest Android 13 like its competitor Realme 10 Pro Plus. Anyways the brand has promised two years of major updates and four years of security updates which will take the phone to Android 14.

The Redmi Note 12 Pro comes with a stereo speaker setup. The audio quality is pretty good and was loud enough for watching videos and playing games. Redmi has also given the 3.5mm audio jack for wired earphone users.

The phone comes with 5G connectivity and support for 10 5G bands. These include: n1, n3, n5, n8, n28a, n38, n40, n41, n77, and n78. Other connectivity options include: Wifi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS and lastly NFC. You also get the IR blaster on the top.

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The Redmi Note 12 Pro comes with a side-mounted fingerprint scanner which is fast at unlocking the phone. An in-display fingerprint scanner would have been better at this price but the physical one is also fine. You can also unlock the phone using the face unlock feature.