Redmi 12 review: Incredibly good budget phone

Xiaomi earlier in the week unveiled the brand new budget phone Redmi 12 in India.

The company is offering the device in two variants— 4GB RAM + 128GB storage and 6GB RAM + 128GB storage— for Rs 9,999 and Rs 10,499, respectively.

I had the opportunity to test the device for more than a week, long before the launch. Here're my thoughts on the latest budget phone from Xiaomi.

Build quality, design, and display Since the very beginning (2014), Xiaomi after entering the Indian market, has been consistently offering affordable Redmi branded phones with superior build quality in India. And, this is why it has been the go-to brand for customers looking for phones under Rs 15,000.

Even now with the latest Redmi 12, Xiaomi has not compromised a bit. The latest phone boasts premium build quality. It has a solid rail around the edges with a metallic finish and on the back, it has a glass back. Also, on the front, it has Cornning's Gorilla Glass 3 shield, and on top, the company has pre-fitted another layer of screen guard, which ensures the display is well protected against scratches, which usually happen during falls and sometimes when rubbed against small articles kept closely in the pocket.

The phone's solid flat rail design with curved corners and slim unibody design help fingers to hold onto the device with a better grip. Even if you have buttery fingers and tend to drop things, the company has ensured the phone is protected against water and accidental falls too.

With the IP53 certification, the Redmi 12 can sustain accidental water splashes and moderate rainwater splashes for a few minutes outdoors.

Add to that, Xiaomi offers a silicone-based transparent back case cover that protects the device from physical damage due to accidental drops.

Value-added aspects such as these make the Redmi 12 a compelling buy for the salaried class. There is hardly any other brand that offers all these safety features in their phones under Rs 12,000.

The Redmi 12 also boasts a solid speaker at the base, which can fill up any regular room of the house with music. Even at max volume, the audio quality is really good.

At the base, you will also find a Type-C port along with a mic. Whereas, at the top, the company has incorporated a 3.5mm audio jack and an IR(Infrared) blaster, which comes in handy to control smart gadgets and TV at home.

On the left, you find the hybrid dual-SIM slots. There you can insert primary nano SIM and in the second slot, you have to choose between secondary SIM and microSD. if you want extra storage, you have to let go second SIM.

On the right side, there is a volume rocker at the top and a power button which also houses the fingerprint sensor. Unlike, the in-display sensor, the physical sensor works flawlessly with fewer false rejection issues.

Our review unit is pastel blue. The sky blue model looks really good in the sunlight, but moonstone silver is said to be the best among the lot. The other variant offered by the company is jade black.

As far as the display is concerned, the Redmi 12 boasts a 6.79-inch full HD+ IPS LCD panel. It supports a 90Hz refresh rate and up to 550 units of peak brightness. This is just good enough to consume videos and read on the web outdoors under a shade. But, if under direct sunlight, you will have to struggle a bit.

The display is also SGS certified and this means there is less leakage of blue light, which is harmful to eyes in the long term.

Performance The Redmi 12 houses MediaTek's reliable Helio G88 octa-core processor (2.0GHz Cortex-A75 x 2 cores + 1.8GHz Cortex-A55 x 6 cores) with ARM Mali-G52 MC2 GPU. As noted earlier, the device is being offered in two configurations-- 4GB RAM + 128GB storage and 6GB RAM + 128GB storage. Our review unit is a top-end model and I extend the Virtual RAM to max to get 12GB RAM (6GB+ 6GB). You just have to go the Settings >> Additional Settings >> scroll down to find Memory extension >> You will get three options-- 2GB/4GB/6GB.

The device worked smoothly while performing day-to-day tasks such as opening apps, watching videos on apps, messaging, browsing social media platforms, and reading news on websites. It doesn't easily get warmed up even if you stream content for long hours.

It can easily handle regular games such as Candycrush, Angry Birds, and other similar popular games as such, but for obvious reasons, it is not made for top-end graphics-rich games that need more powerful hardware. To an extent, the Redmi 12 5G version which comes with Snapdragon 4 gen 2 chipset would work better.

Redmi 12 runs Android 13-based MIUI 14 OS. It is one of the most feature-rich user interfaces in the industry. It offers numerous options to customize the themes, wallpaper and also with the new Mi dialer app that support a call recording feature too.

With a 5,000mAh cell capacity, Redmi 12 consistently delivered one and half days of battery life. I used for consuming multimedia content for a minimum of four hours and browse the Internet for the latest news and scroll through social media apps for several hours. I occasionally spent some time playing games, but not top-end titles, as it is not made to deliver as good as those phones costing Rs 16,000 and above.

The company is offering a 22.5W charger with the retail box, but it should be noted that the charging speed is capped at 18W.

The Redmi 12 4G model supports dual-band Wi-Fi (2.5Ghz & 5GHz) and also Bluetooth 5.0, which promises stable wireless connectivity.

Photography The Redmi 12 4G boasts a triple camera module— 50MP main + 8MP ultra-wide angle sensor + 2MP macro with LED flash on the back.

In the bright sunlight, the Redmi 12 does a pretty good job of getting vibrant and color-rich photos of the subject without doing any extreme processing. It doesn't make colours warmer than what we see in other phones in this price segment.

I am actually more impressed with Portrait mode. Be it a human face or flowers, the camera is good at splitting the background and foreground of the subject and creating a natural-looking bokeh effect.

In the wide-angle mode, the phone does good too. It manages to accommodate a wide area of the landscape into the frame. Even the normal 1X mode too is decent. But, 5X digital zoom is not that good. You won't see the grainy pixels on the compact screen of the phone, but when see the same photo on a big desktop, the photos don't look as nice as we thought.

Even in the night mode, it is a hit-and-miss, as the phone, for obvious reasons, doesn't absorb light much, as I expected it to. The resultant photo comes with a lot of noise. However, with LED flash on, it can take pretty good ones. But, again you have to be patient as the autofocus will be slow and need a steady hand to get the perfect shot.

Having said that, both night mode and digital zoom modes are on par with any other phones in the budget segment.

On the front, it houses 8MP (f/2.0, 1.12 um pixel size). It takes pretty decent selfies in the natural light outdoors. But, it kind of struggles indoors with less light. Rest assured, it performs great under well-lit conditions.

Also, it offers some great tools and filters to enhance the photo quality. Yes, it comes with a superficial tool to smoothen the skin on the face. Also, the users can also readjust the bokeh effect after taking the photo too. Users can play with the editor to scribble coloured doodles and write texts to have a fun conversation with friends and family members.

Also read | Nekograms+, Samba de Amigo: Party-To-Go and more coming soon to Apple Arcade

Final thoughts Lately, the build quality of phones under Rs 15,000 has been not that great compared to a few years ago. It is attributed to high inflation and currency depreciation around the world and to cut costs, companies have been forced cut corners like using cheaper materials to keep the costs of building budget phones under check.

But, Xiaomi, as said earlier since its debut in 2014, is the lone brand to quality products at low prices. The new Redmi 12 series continues the legacy. I don't think there is any recognizable brand in this segment, which is offering a premium glass-protected back cover and solid mid-frame in addition to IP53 water-splash-resistant rating. This is just such a valuable addition to a budget phone buyer.

It may not be a great phone for gaming, but for all other aspects, it is a bang for the money.

The Redmi 12 is best suited for regular people of all ages old and young who use phones for communication purposes be it messaging on WhatsApp or scrolling endlessly on social media platforms or binge watch TV series and movies on OTT apps.

It offers really long battery life; it works smoothly with any day-to-day activities and the camera hardware is decent for its asking price.

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