Redmi Note 12 5G Review: A Value Proposition That Carries The Legacy Forward
The Redmi Note 12 is the cheapest smartphone in this year's Note series. The phone was launched alongside the Redmi Note 12 Pro and Note 12 Pro+ in India. We've already reviewed the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ and now it's time to take a look at the vanilla Redmi Note 12 5G to see if it's worth it. The phone is one of the first in the country with a Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 SoC. The phone also features a 120Hz refresh rate display, a powerful 5000mAh battery, a 48MP triple rear camera and more. Here is my review of the Redmi Note 12 5G after some usage.
Judgment
The Redmi Note 12 5G has a lot to offer. The phone has an attractive design followed by excellent performance, excellent battery life, a clear display and great daytime photos. The software is also good, but I wish it wasn't outdated.
Low level
- Redmi Note 12 5G follows the same design language as its big brother Redmi Note 12 Pro+. The phone has a curved back with a frosted polycarbonate glass on top that feels good in the hand. The glass is not resistant to smudges and fingerprints, but it hides them well. Further, the Redmi smartphone is available in Matte Black, Mystique Blue and Frosted Green colors. They sent me a dull green tester and it immediately won my heart. The color is soft and attractive. In addition, the glossy camera island on the matte back gives the phone a nice contrasting look.
- Redmi Note 12 5G weighs 188 grams. This, along with the thin bezels, makes the phone comfortable to hold when watching a movie or game for a long time. The phone has a side-mounted fingerprint reader located just below the volume buttons on the right panel. In terms of I/O, the USB Type-C port is at the bottom near the speaker grill, while the top edge of the phone houses an IR blaster and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The SIM tray with hybrid microSD card slot is on the right side. In addition, the device is IP53 rated against small splashes and dust.
- The Redmi Note 12 5G features a 6.7-inch FHD+ (1080p) AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and 1200 nits of brightness. This is a good screen for viewing and enjoying content or playing games indoors and outdoors. Color science is accurate and viewing angles are impressive. The phone also allows users to change the colors of the screen to their liking. Since there's no HDR, the phone's sunlight readability isn't as impressive, but content is still readable. The display is Widevine L1 certified and can stream Full HD content from Netflix, Hotstar and other streaming platforms. As for the display's refresh rate, it's locked at 60Hz by default, but can be boosted to 120Hz for smooth motion and animations. The phone lacks an auto mode that can intelligently change the refresh rate between 60Hz and 120Hz depending on the content being played on the screen. It would save battery.
- Talking about the battery, the Redmi Note 12 is equipped with a 5000 mAh battery that can last up to a day on a single charge. In the PC Mark battery test, the phone delivered an impressive 16 hours and 21 minutes. Battery life is likely to decrease when using the 120Hz refresh rate and 5G together. However, the Redmi smartphone comes with 33W fast charging, which takes just over an hour to charge the device from 0 to 100%. So the phone runs MIUI 13 based on Android 12. It's a shame not to see the latest version of Android 13 on a smartphone. At the time of this writing, I have also seen a Redmi device on the November security patch. In both cases, the performance remains unchanged and no virus can be installed. The software also has the ability to remove some system apps and replace them with Google apps. While this is a good custom Android skin, I wish MIUI 13 also had blur effects and more app launch animations.
- The Redmi Note 12 5G is powered by a mid-range Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 processor paired with 4GB/6GB RAM and 128GB of user-expandable storage. The chipset's performance drops to 92 percent of peak performance at 20 threads for half an hour, according to the CPU Throttling test. In Geekbench and AnTuTu, the phone scored a multi-core score of 1991 and 366146 points respectively. While these synthetic scores look good for a mid-range smartphone, PUBG New State has seen the phone crash several times. I had to set the graphics to medium to run the game on the device. However, the phone captured almost everything effortlessly. There was no problem with multitasking with many programs running in the background. The fingerprint scanner mounted on the side of the phone also worked very well. It was accurate and unlocked the device in no time.
- The Redmi Note 12 5G has a triple rear camera setup consisting of a 48MP main sensor, an 8MP ultra-wide angle sensor and a 2MP macro sensor. The 48MP sensor saves images at 12MP by default, but the camera app also has an option for a high-resolution 48MP mode. Daytime sensor images are acceptable. Images have plenty of detail and colors generally appear to be accurate. However, the camera for some reason showed a red rose with a pink tint. Tried enabling/disabling HDR, same result. As for the 8MP ultra-wide sensor, it produces good images when the sun is out, with plenty of detail around the center of the frame. However, the angular detail of the ultra-wide sensor could be much better. The 2MP macro sensor is average at best. I didn't find the sensor very useful, as getting a good close-up shot of the subject would require very steady hands.
- For selfies and video calls, the Redmi Note 12 5G uses a 13-megapixel punch-hole camera. The camera comes with options like beauty modes, filters and HDR. Selfies have accurate skin tones and good facial detail. The front and rear cameras can capture excellent portrait shots with sharp outlines of the subject in focus and a natural depth of field effect between foreground and background. In any case, the photos of the Redmi Note 12 5G in low light and indoors are not that impressive, but the results are usable. The camera, especially the main 48MP sensor, didn't take long to focus and process shots. In addition, the colors were close to real. Night mode is also available in this camera which helps in reducing the grain or noise in the clicked images to some extent in low light conditions.
- Redmi Note 12 5G is equipped with a bottom mono speaker, which is very good. The phone supports SA and NSA bands including N1, N3, N5, N8, N41, N77 and N78 in India and offers dual SIM 5G readiness. This means that the Redmi Note 12 5G can work with both Airtel 5G and Jio 5G SIM cards at the same time.
Final decision
Redmi Note 12 5G is not cheap. The base 4GB RAM + 128GB storage variant of the phone retails for Rs 17,999 in India, which is 25% more expensive than its predecessor Redmi Note 11. This puts the phone in comparison to other modern smartphones like the OPPO A78 ( review ) and Realme. 10 Pro 5G ( test ), which costs Rs 18,999 and runs the latest Android 13 operating system. Better main camera than the Redmi smartphone.
Overall, the Redmi Note 12 5G is the best smartphone you can get at this price point. Aside from some low-light shooting glitches and software glitches, there's not much to complain about here. The phone offers almost everything, be it design, display, performance or battery life. To sweeten the deal further, Redmi is offering a discount of Rs 1,500 with an ICICI Bank Card and an additional discount of Rs 1,000 as a bonus when exchanging old Redmi and Mi smartphones. When these deals are combined, it effectively brings the price of the Redmi Note 12 5G smartphone down to Rs 15,499.
Editor's Rating: 3.5 / 5
strengths
- beautiful display
- Good performance and battery life
- Excellent design and build quality
- Beautiful photo during the day
disadvantages
- It comes with Android 12 and an outdated security patch.
- virus
- Low light shooting could be better
Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Competitors
