Xiaomi 12 is launching on 28 Dec, its first flagship phone with Snapdragon 8 Gen 1

Before 2021 comes to an end, Xiaomi will be ending the year with a bang by introducing its new Xiaomi 12 flagship smartphone series. The upcoming device is their first smartphone to run on Qualcomm’s new top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip, which will succeed the Snapdragon 888+.

As shared on Weibo, the Xiaomi 12 will be launched on the 28th of December 2021 at 7:30pm Beijing time. According to Xiaomi, there will be two models – the Xiaomi 12 which offers flagship performance in a smaller size and the Xiaomi 12 Pro which has all the bells and whistles.

Looking at the design, both Xiaomi 12 and 12 Pro appear to feature a dual-curved display with a punch-hole selfie camera at the top. The right side of the Xiaomi 12 (smaller model) appears to come with a regular power button which is an indication that the device is likely to offer an in-display fingerprint sensor, rather than a side-mounted unit.

There’s no indication of the screen size but we are hoping that the Xiaomi 12 could be the compact Android flagship that competes directly with the iPhone 13 mini. If you’re looking for a smaller Android phone with flagship specs, the current viable options are the 6.1″ Sony Xperia 5 III or the 5.9″ Asus Zenfone 8.

The rest of the specs are unknown but it is safe to assume that both models will be running on the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip which is based on a 4nm process. The new flagship chip has a single Cortex-X2 prime core clocked at 3.0GHz, three performance Cortex-A710 cores clocked at 2.5GHz, and four efficiency Cortex-A510 cores clocked at 1.8GHz.

[ SOURCE ]

Editor’s Note: Title has been updated as the Xiaomi 12 is not the first to launch with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Motorola has launched the Edge X30 with the new chip in China last week.

Related reading

• Meet the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, Qualcomm’s latest flagship mobile processor
• Qualcomm aiming to release new CPUs for PCs to rival Apple Silicon by 2023
• This is the Razer handheld console, built using Qualcomm’s new gaming processor