In total, across a sixteen-hour day, starting at 7am and finishing at 11pm, through a combination of messaging, watching video, an hour of GPS and listening to music on Bluetooth earphones, I hit 20% by 8pm and needed a small recharge to make it a bit later. For many people, this will then likely be a most-of-the-day smartphone, not making it into a second without a top-up. This is a respectable showing if not quite the best available.

Other than that, the app is the usual Xiaomi mish-mash of modes, some of which you may use, many of which you will not. It doesn’t get in the way of taking photos, and for the most part, is intuitive. There’s an optional AI mode for all of these cameras, but I found that it tended to make landscape shots look a little false, with punched up colours and brightness. I generally left it off. Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro 5G review: Verdict Similarly, the 16MP selfie camera struggles with exposure and tends to wash colours out somewhat, but it does an adequate job. It feels pretty smooth in the hand, though if you’ve spent any amount of time with a flagship phone, or even a snappier mid-ranger such as the Pixel 6a or the Realme GT Neo 3T, you’ll be able to tell the difference. There are more tiny pauses here and there, while apps take a little longer to load up and switch between. Or at least, I did with that main sensor. The 8MP ultrawide is just as weak as before, failing to match the detail, tone and contrast of the main sensor. Ditto the 2MP macro, which is utterly pointless.There’s been precious little change on the front of the Redmi Note 12 Pro 5G, even since the days of the Redmi Note 10 Pro 5G. Video is generally decent, with good detail and a restrained but pleasing colour rendition and maxes out at 4K@30fps. The audio recorded is a little choppy however, which harms the experience. Performance What may be more of a deterrent for the general population is Xiaomi’s approach to software design. Xiaomi’s approach to software is ‘keep adding’, whether it’s new features, ways to access the same thing, ways to split simple interactions and more, Xiaomi gives a host of options, many that most people will never access.

Not that it’s any great shakes. Xiaomi phones tend to struggle with this looping video test, and the Note 12 Pro 5G drops a whopping five hours short of the OnePlus Nord 2T with its smaller battery. Even the Poco X5 Pro 5G, which is a fellow Xiaomi product, lasted an hour longer. Xiaomi’s solution, for the moment it seems, is to invent categories to test the water and see if people will come. The Redmi Note 12 Pro 5G is part of an attempt to reach the kind of consumer who doesn’t want to spend too much, who doesn’t want to sacrifice quality, and who is a ‘Pro’ of nebulous definition. I don’t know what this theoretical Pro does, but they need 5G and a high megapixel count to achieve it. The 16MP (f/2.5) selfie camera isn’t any great shakes. Detail is reasonable, but it really struggles in high dynamic range situations. It’s also maddening to see Xiaomi continuing to leave its horrible Beautify effects on by default, which turns human skin into something hauntingly artificial. There’s a somewhat surprising difference to the Redmi Note 11 Pro Plus in the form of a lower claimed peak brightness in high brightness mode (HBM) of 900cd/m², rather than the 1,200cd/m² of the Note 11 Pro Plus. With yet another year-on-year price bump over last year’s model, we feel we have to point out that the Note Pro line doesn’t quite stand out as loudly and proudly as it used to. However, the latest model remains a very strong contender for the money.At up to 900 nits of brightness, it was mostly able to combat bright sunshine, with the caveat being that testing took place in the UK, not noted for challenging sunny conditions.