Design and build
There are two xiaomi redmi note 12s right now the 5G capable version and the 4G one today we’ll be talking about the 4G model it’s overall a very similar phone but without the 5G chipset the main camera is also a little bit different here both phones are made of plastic but the redmi note 12 5G brings a curved design while the 4G version has a flat back the back panel has a smooth frosted finish which doesn’t smudge up easily the sharp edge and flat frame lend a bit of grip and the phone is pretty lightweight in the hand for its size and even though it’s a budget device the redmi note 12 brings ip53 rated Ingress Protection.
Screen specs and features
The display here is pretty well specked for the price tag it’s a 6.57 inch AMOLED with a 1080p resolution and a 120hz refresh rate the display looks good you get deep blacks and nice sharpness and the color accuracy can be decent there’s no HDR video support but in a world where many budget phones have LCD screens getting a 120hz AMOLED is pretty impressive that high refresh rate mixer swiping and scrolling extra smooth it won’t dial down to a lower refresh rate when idling to save energy though when it comes to Max brightness.
Single bottom-firing speaker test, headphone jack
The redmi note 12 does a good job we measured 470 nits with a manual slider and this can boost up to 740 nits in auto mode unlike last year’s redmi note 11s neither of the redmi note 12 models have stereo speakers you get a headphone jack and a single speaker here the speaker has good loudness and the sound quality is okay you can wake up and unlock the redmi Note 12 with a side mounted fingerprint reader built into the power button.
Storage options
You can get the phone with 64 or 128 gigs of storage and that is expandable through MicroSD the interface of the redmi note 12 is xiaomi’s latest MIUI 14 running on top of Android 13.
Android 13 and UI, Snadragon 685 performance
it’s a bit more responsive than previous versions thanks to behind the scenes optimizations there should be a suite of new features included with MIUI 14 but we haven’t gotten those yet maybe with a software update as it is the UI is similar to what we’ve seen before on xiaomi phones including the vertical recent apps menu you also get access to a sidebar on the home screen where you can keep shortcuts.
The redmi note 12 4G brings a new chipset a Snapdragon 685 built on a six nanometer process it’s quite similar to the Snapdragon 680 we’ve seen in previous mid-rangers but with higher CPU clock speeds as a result the phone does a decent job in CPU benchmarks especially considering the price tag however the results in graphics tests leave more to be desired overall the redmi note 12 4G isn’t a gaming phone but is adequate for your everyday tasks especially .
Battery endurance and charging test
The budget just like the previous model the redmi note 12 4G has a 5 000 milliamp hour battery battery life is good here with an overall endurance rating of 117 hours in our tests there are options out there with even better scores though the phone supports 33 watt charging and the speed is decent we were able to charge from 0 to 55 percent in half an hour.
Camera specs, Daylight photo quality, Low-light photo quality
The cameras like I mentioned a major difference between this phone and the 5G version is that this one packs a different 50 megapixel main Cam that main cam is paired with two other cameras which are the same across the two models an 8 megapixel Ultra wide and a 2 megapixel macro camera during the day the main cam captures photos which are quite decent for the price tag there’s enough sharpness and detail natural looking colors and plenty of contrast the high contrast can lead to Dark Shadows in challenging scenes though also there is visible noise and graininess in the photos if you look up close portraits for the main cam are pretty good with well-exposed subjects and convincing bokeh as long as the background isn’t too complex the ultra webcam produces Lively looking photos with Pleasant colors and contrast their overall soft and noisy though two megapixel close-ups from the macro cam aren’t great there’s not much detail low contrast and dull colors in low light conditions the quality from the main cam is unimpressive but mostly what you’d expect from a phone in this price range the photos are a bit soft with washed out colors and Port dynamic range turning on the dedicated night mode produces slightly brighter photos and restores some of the detail it also fixes the clipped highlights and brightens up the Shadows however the images remain soft with dull colors no surprise the ultra wide camera doesn’t do a good job at night the photos are very soft and noisy and dynamic range is limited there’s no night mode available here .
Selfies, Video quality
Selfies from the 13 megapixel front-facing camera also leave more to be desired if the lighting conditions aren’t perfect the images often come out soft noisy and blurry the redmi note 12 can record video and only up to 1080p resolution the footage from the main cam is soft with narrow dynamic range at least the colors look decent the ultrawide cameras videos are even softer with washed out colors clipped highlights and Dark Shadows.
Conclusion
The xiaomi redmi note 12 4G probably the nicest feature here is the 120hz AMOLED display you also get good battery life and IP rated design and an adequate chipset we’re not sure why xiaomi cut the stereo speakers this year and the camera quality is mostly unimpressive but if you’re shopping around in this price range the 4G version of the redmi note 12 is worth.Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 4G review