Xiaomi 12S Ultra presented: A camera revolution?
from Jacob Kluge 
on July 28, 2022, 21:06 pm | Write a comment
Alongside the Xiaomi 12s and 12s Pro the manufacturer presented another smartphone with 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. The manufacturer installed a 989-inch camera sensor for the first time with the Sony IMX1. This marks the premiere of 1-inch sensors in smartphones, because even if the Sony Xperia Pro-i had such a large sensor, it came from a compact camera. In addition, Xiaomi installs two more sensors. A 48 megapixel ultra wide-angle camera with autofocus and 2.2 aperture, as well as a 48 megapixel periscope camera that enables a 5x lossless zoom. Both sensors are the IMX586, which is 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 was also further optimized in cooperation 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, to me it means using the best the manufacturer has to offer and I don't think that's the case here. They still rely on USB-C 2.0, offer a maximum of 1.080p video recordings with the front camera and don't rely on the one in the Xiaomi 12s Pro The 120 watt fast charge technology used, but allows the 4.860 mAh battery to be "only" charged with 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.
