Xiaomi 12X Review: Affordable Compact flagship!

Right now, this one is relatively cheaper. It is priced at 77, 000 rupees here in nepal, for the 256 gb variant which converts to some 600 but, as you guys might know, such small smartphones dont sell very well, which is why there arent enough options in the market, especially in this sub 600 price Segment, but some people like me, for instance, i still prefer such pocket friendly phones, mostly for their handy design. So as soon as xiaomi announced the 12x, i bought it for myself, as i havent got to play around with such a small android phone in quite a long time and after using it for a week or so. It goes without saying that the best thing about this phone is its design. I mean, i cannot recall the last time i had this much fun, just holding a phone in my hands, even when im walking down the street i feel like holding on to it. Instead of keeping it in my pocket, everything from its curved design to weight and dimensions feels as perfect as it can be, at least for me, the build material is premium all around and that camera module looks quite attractive as well. I guess the only thing keeping the xiaomi 12 xs design from being a complete package is that it lacks any form of ipv rating, so this monsoon season, i might have to carry a clear bag with me. Every time im headed out to safeguard this phone.

Just in case up front, the xiaomi 12x has a record breaking display, along with the xiaomi 12. This is the only other smartphone in the market with 12 bit color dip right now, which means that this screen can play true dolby vision, content, since they are mastered at up to 12 bit, but for some reason, my unit of the xiaomi 12x struggles with playing Hdr videos, as you can see, be it on youtube or netflix. Hdr videos look way dimmer with low contrast on the xiaomi 12x, so yeah. This is something that xiaomi needs to fix with a future update. Okay, moving on browsing through this 120hz amoled screen is a buttery smooth experience. I wish it had a second gen ltpo panel, like the more expensive xiaomi 12 pro to save power, though, since this display can switch between 60 90 and 120 hertz. Only the outdoor visibility is absolutely no trouble here and it can get very dim too. As you can see, this display has curves on the side as well, but i didnt face any accidental touches, although you will notice dark edges here when viewing bright content and, unlike other cheaper redmi ni devices, xiaomi has also included an optical industry, fingerprint reader on the Xiaomi 12x as well, which is super, responsive and easy to reach and oh by the way it can also measure your heart rate levels cross, checking it with the xiaomi watch s1 active that ive recently started testing.

I found their readings to be pretty similar, but because the feature is hidden so deep inside the settings, i rarely remember using it in terms of audio the stereo speakers on this phone. Sound amazing, the stereo separation is nice. It gets plenty loud and the overall audio sounds substantially rich to deliver a great listening experience. I havent faced any issue with call quality on the xiaomi 12x either, and it supports carrier aggregation too, but whats disappointing is that xiaomi has gone with a virtual proximity sensor on the entire 12 series. I dont know if this is just another cost cutting measure, but this sure does not feel flagship like if you ask me – and i also found its haptic feedback to be weaker than expected. As a result, the typing experience here is not as enjoyable as i would have liked, despite the phones fluid for 80hz dot sampling rate. Okay lets talk about its performance now powering the xiaomi 12x is the snapdragon 870 chip, which you know is still a very reliable processor matter of fact. It is widely regarded as the best flagship mobile chip of last year, even surpassing the snapdragon 8, thanks to its excellent balance of power and efficiency. So, needless to say, the xiaomi 12x has handled my everyday performance, just fine and it can toggle through multiple apps at a time like nothing. But one thing that i dont understand is why it still runs on the two year old android 11, based on miui 13.

Instead of the latest android 12. and unlike the xiaomi 12 and 12 pro, the company does not guarantee three years of os and four years of security updates on this phone either. I guess it could get two generations of major os updates at best, but even that means that the xiaomi 12x will not see beyond android 13.. The bloatware situation here is almost embarrassing too, despite xiaomis claims of minimal bloatware apps on the miui 13, the xiaomi 12x ships with a bunch of those weird mini games, which is not the case with the more expensive entries in this lineup. By the way on to the gaming side of things, this phone can deliver a stable, 60fps gameplay on all popular titles like pubg call of duty and asphalt 9 with little to no flame drops at the highest settings. Surprisingly, its cooling system also does a good enough job in those games by keeping the temperatures in check to some extent, but to prevent overheating. Xiaomi is clearly throttling the performance of 120 fps ready games like critical ops and make arena by limiting them to just 60 fps. I think its a pretty understandable move, considering the phones, small form factor that houses such a powerful snapdragon 870 processor. Still in all, the xiaomi 12x does heat up quite fast when playing games in impact at the highest graphics, with the 60 fps option enabled after just 10 minutes into the game, i recorded its cpu and battery temperatures at 49 and 42 degree celsius and as far As gameplay goes, i was getting a steady 43 fps on average, but there were noticeable starters every now and then, whereas the game would dip to as low as 27 fps under heavy attack sequences and such, but when youre not pushing the phone to its limits under Resource hungry games, it really does not heat up that much.

I recently shot an entire vlog from the xiaomi 12x illumini, which is one of the hottest regions in nepal, and we were pleasantly surprised with how well it handled the heat Music. The xiaomi 12x comes with a triple camera setup, led by a 50 megapixel sony, mx 766 sensor with ois alongside a 13 megapixel ultravide and a 5 megapixel telephoto camera as expected from a xiaomi phone. It prefers warm saturated colors over whats natural. So if you prefer vibrant and colorful images with nice details, i am sure that you will like what this phone offers, but its ultra wide angle. Shots are a different story altogether, along with inferior details, the photos turn out hazy and have worse dynamic range. Most of the time compared to the primary images – and maybe xiaomi – should not have placed the ultra wide angle camera this low, since i often ended up with photos like this, where my index finger accidentally sneaks into the frame. I am not that impressed with its portrait. Shots either it fails to maintain a proper skin tone and the images have this unnatural background, bokeh and a dynamic range most of the time, and this goes for the selfies as well as for your standard nighttime photos. They are pretty muddy despite the onboard ois, but with night mode turned on the camera delivers much sharper results with superior hdr processing. When it comes to videos, it can even record 8k 24 fps videos, but whats.

Even more amazing here is how it shoots fairly stable videos across all the resolutions, even though the 12x relies entirely on eis and a bit of cropping in magic to achieve that said result, but i dont really mind that. However, this is yet another xiaomi flagship that cannot record 4k selfie videos and its 1080p selfie videos, as you can see, has quite bad exposure control above everything else. Lastly, talking about its battery life xiaomi has included a fairly big 4500mah battery. Then what you will find on other compact phones like say the galaxy s22 or the asus 8c, but in my usage it struggled to last me through the day on multiple occasions, with just five, maybe six hours of screen on time. If im being generous, i found myself plugging it into the charger. More often than ever, plus its overnight battery drain is a bit excessive, as well, with around a five to eight percent charge lost on average, you do get a 67 watt fast charger inside the box, which fully charges this battery under 45 minutes. But, unlike other entries in the xiaomi 12 series, this one does not do wireless charging. Okay lets wrap up this review now, in spite of its mesmerizing design that is to die, for i am afraid i cannot recommend this phone that easily. I wanted to like this phone so bad, but above all my biggest issue with the xiaomi 12x is that it somehow does not feel like a confident standalone foot.

Instead, it has hints of the classic marketing technique where a company intentionally makes a good product. Look less appealing to sell something that is more expensive going by xiaomis recommended retail pricing. The 12 and 12 x are just hundred dollars apart for that added cost youre getting the latest flagship processor that will age a lot better. The newest software, with guaranteed, updates, uh wireless charging and a few other touch ups and all this could easily be worth the extra money to some people. Yet if that does not apply to you and youre, just looking for a compact, yet capable android phone, then the xiaomi 12x is still a decent buy, especially for the nerds out there, because, despite the whole android 11 and onshore future update situation, maybe installing a custom Rom is what you have in mind. After all, it is powered by a qualcomm processor, which means higher chances of custom room development so guys that was it for the full review of the xiaomi 12x. I am also coming up with a review of the xiaomi 12 and a bunch of other smartphones pretty soon.