Xiaomi have announced their first internationally available flagship phone since it rebranded and dropped the “Mi” from the ranges name last year. The Xiaomi 12 Pro is their top-of-the-line device, designed specifically for taking on smartphone titans such as Samsung when it comes to performance for price.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the same chip you’ll find in many other flagship phones released this year, meaning its packing plenty of power. Customers get the choice of 8GB or 12GB of memory, alongside 256GB of storage.
The display is a curved 6.73-inch 120hz 1440p LTPO OLED panel with an extremely sharp picture. All of this is powered by a 4,600mAh battery that is capable of charging up to 120W wired, 50W wireless and 10W reverse wireless.
The cameras are also hugely impressive, made up of three 50MP sensors, and a 32MB selfie camera that supports advanced beauty portrait mode.
As fantastic as the top of the line Xiaomi device sounds, with comparable specs to Samsung’s S22+, it may not be as worth buying for Aussies as it seems at first glance.
For starters, getting your hands on one of these may be quite difficult in Australia, as they aren’t sold directly to the Aussie market. Those after the Xiaomi 12 Pro will have to go through an online distributor such as Kogan, and the resulting phone may have issues on local networks, even though Xiaomi phones are reportedly not region locked.
Furthermore, the price difference between the Xiaomi 12 Pro and the S22+, even with the top spec 8GB / 256GB option selected, is not much. The Chinese smartphone is priced at $1,499 AUD on Kogan, while Samsung sells their device for $1,649 AUD. For an extra $150, you’re getting a phone from a brand known for topping the market in quality.
However, it isn’t worth completely ignoring the Xiaomi 12 Pro as objectively, it has slightly better specs. You end up with a bigger battery that charges faster, higher resolution cameras (mostly), an extra 2GB of memory and a bigger and sharper screen.
So, if you’re happy to go through an online retailer to get one, the Xiaomi is a great contender for your next top of the line smartphone.
