The Xiaomi 12S series is launching next week and it is their first flagship smartphone series with Leica co-engineered cameras. Under the hood, the new Xiaomi 12S series will be powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processors.
The new era of mobile photography is here.
— Xiaomi (@Xiaomi) June 28, 2022
Everything will be unveiled at 19:00 (GMT+8) on July 4th, 2022. #Xiaomi12SSeriesLaunch pic.twitter.com/nteecJfIYV
The new flagship devices will be unveiled in China at 7:00pm on Monday, 4th July 2022. Xiaomi has dropped a couple of teasers on its Weibo page and they have confirmed there will be a total of 3 smartphone models. This includes the Xiaomi 12S which is their compact flagship offering, followed by the Xiaomi 12S Pro and the Xiaomi 12S Ultra. The Ultra model will be the main highlight and it is seen as the successor to last year’s Mi 11 Ultra.
In terms of design, the Xiaomi 12S and 12S Pro seem to be a minor refresh of the current Xiaomi 12 series. As seen in the teaser image below, the Xiaomi 12S retains the same minimalistic design and even the camera bump remains unchanged. The only noticeable difference is the “LEICA” stamp on the camera bump next to the dual-LED flash.
Both the Xiaomi 12S and Xiaomi 12S Pro will be utilising a 1/1.28″ Sony IMX707 50MP sensor for its main camera and this is the same sensor used on the current Xiaomi 12 Pro. Meanwhile, the Xiaomi 12S Ultra aims to be a groundbreaking mobile photography device with a 1″ Sony IMX989 50MP sensor. That’s a huge sensor and you can see how it compares to others including the iPhone 13 Pro Max below.
Besides Xiaomi, there are already other smartphones with 1″ image sensors such as Sony’s Xperia Pro-I. There’s also the Sharp Aquos R6, which was also rehashed as a Leica smartphone.
Being a flagship smartphone series, you can expect Xiaomi to offer AMOLED displays with high refresh rate along with ultra-fast wired and wireless charging. Word has it that Xiaomi may also release a Dimensity 9000 variant for the Xiaomi 12S Pro but we reckon that this could be limited to China market.
All details shall be revealed next week and hopefully, we don’t have to wait too long for the Xiaomi 12S series to launch in Malaysia. The current Xiaomi 12 was launched globally in March 2022, which is about 3 months after its China debut back in December 2021. With the upgraded hardware, we expect a price increase for the new flagship series. The current Xiaomi 12 is priced at RM2,999 in Malaysia, while the Xiaomi 12 Pro is priced from RM3,899.
[ SOURCE 2 3, IMAGE SOURCE ]
