Xiaomi Redmi 12 smartphone review – A flexible camera system for under US$200

A wide-angle lens isn’t always standard on cheap mid-range devices, and yet the Xiaomi Redmi 12 also features a macro camera in addition to this. Although, the system doesn’t switch to these automatically and you have to select macro mode in order to use this lens. Images taken with this  are quite low-quality and the wide-angle camera takes quite dark images with low detail levels. A hybrid zoom between the wide-angle and main lenses is available.

The main 50-megapixel camera relies on a Samsung Isocell JN1 as a sensor, which can often be found in cheaper smartphones. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 5G, for example, also features this main camera sensor and in total, has a very similar camera setup.

Photos taken on our test device appear a little lifeless and don’t show much dynamic in blight and dark areas. Thankfully, the pictures are sharp and have quite good levels of detail. Even in low light conditions, the phone takes decent photos and in totally dark conditions, you can still recognize a few details.

Videos can be recorded with a maximum of 5 megapixels and at 30 fps. The autofocus can be a little slow, but it doesn’t ever pump and its lighting adjustment also works well.

The front-facing camera has a resolution of 5 megapixels and at first glance, it takes good selfies which still show one or two details in darker areas, too. If you enlarge the images, then they quickly start to become very grainy.