Xiaomi 12S Ultra announced with massive 1-inch sensor and Leica cameras

Tyler Lee
2 years ago

These days, the performance of most smartphones are starting to look quite similar, and so are its displays where 120Hz refresh rates are becoming the norm. So to differentiate their phones from the competition, companies are paying increased attention to the cameras on their mobile devices.

In fact, if there was one smartphone that has the potential to be the best smartphone camera in today’s market, it could be the newly-announced Xiaomi 12S Ultra. The company started to tease the launch of the handset last month, and it looks like it’s finally here with some pretty killer camera specs.

For starters, the phone will feature the use of Sony’s brand new IMX989 sensor. This is a 1-inch sensor, making it bigger than most other smartphones in the market today. It will also feature cameras that are part of Xiaomi’s partnership with Leica, so combine that and on paper we should be seeing some pretty impressive photos taken by the device.

Other cameras accompanying the handset include a 128-degree ultrawide that uses a Sony IMX586 sensor, and a 120x periscope telephoto camera, and last but not least, there is an additional 32MP RGBW selfie camera on the front.

Other specs of the phone also include a 6.73-inch AMOLED display with a 3200×1440 resolution and a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate. It will support Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10, and HLG standards, and will also offer a peak brightness of 1,500 nits. Powering the phone will be Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 and it will also feature IP68 certification for water-resistance.

It will also come with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. Xiaomi has also equipped the phone with speakers tuned by Harman Kardon, and packed a 4,860mAh battery. Oddly enough the charging speeds offered are 67W wired, and 50W wireless. We would have expected faster charging speeds but we suppose it’s not too bad.

The Xiaomi 12S Ultra will be priced starting at CNY5,999, which is roughly $895. Unfortunately, for now Xiaomi only plans to release the phone in China, so don’t get your hopes up at seeing it launch internationally.