Xiaomi 12S Ultra presented: A camera revolution?
from Jacob Kluge 
on July 28, 2022, 21:06 pm | Write a comment
In addition to the Xiaomi 12s and 12s Pro, the manufacturer introduced another smartphone, the Xiaomi 12s Ultra. You can find out what this has to offer in the following lines.
Last year's Xiaomi mi 11 ultra was one of the best smartphones of the last year. Now there is a successor, the Xiaomi 12s Ultra, which offers, among other things, a 1-inch camera sensor and the new Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1.
Really Ultra?
What really characterizes a smartphone that bears the name "Ultra"? For Xiaomi it seems to be the maximum performance and camera performance. The brand new Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is the first manufacturer to be installed. Unlike the 8 Gen 1, this is manufactured by TSMC and not by Samsung and should therefore bring advantages in terms of efficiency and heat development. A very welcome upgrade considering the last two generations of Xiaomi's flagships overheated quickly. The SoC is supported by either 8 or 12 GB of RAM and 256 or 512 GB of internal UFS 3.1 storage.
The second point that distinguishes the Xiaomi 12s Ultra is the camera. For the first time, the manufacturer has installed a 989-inch camera sensor with the Sony IMX1. This is the first time that 1-inch sensors have been used in smartphones, because even though the Sony Xperia Pro-i already had such a large sensor, it came from a compact camera. In addition, Xiaomi has installed two other sensors. A 48 megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera with autofocus and 2.2 aperture, and a 48 megapixel periscope camera that enables 5x lossless zoom. Both sensors are the IMX586, which was also used as an ultra-wide-angle and zoom camera in the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra. As with the Xiaomi 12s and 12s Pro, the camera of the 12s Ultra has also been further optimized in collaboration with Leica.
But apart from that, the Xiaomi 12s Ultra has a lot to offer. The ceramic case has been replaced with vegan leather. The weight was reduced from 234 to 225 grams. A welcome change in my opinion. Furthermore, the 12s Ultra offers a high-resolution 120 Hz LTPO OLED display, an X-axis vibration motor and stereo speakers, which were created in cooperation with Harman & Kardon.
But for me personally, the Xiaomi 12s Ultra is not an Ultra. Because what does that even mean? Well, for me it means that you use the best possible thing that the manufacturer has to offer and in my opinion that is not the case here. So you still use USB-C 2.0, offer a maximum of 1.080p video recordings on the front camera and do not use the 12 watt fast charge technology used in the Xiaomi 120s Pro, but let the 4.860 mAh battery charge with "only" 67 watts. And if even a 400 euro cheap Redmi Note 11 Pro+ can be charged with 120 watts, why not the Ultra?
What I mean to say is that the Xiaomi 12s Ultra is definitely not a bad smartphone, but at the end of the day it's just a Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra with a new SoC, new main camera and leather back. For this small upgrade, customers currently have to pay a hefty 550 euros extra.