To deviate a bit on a lot of the midrange and flagship devices we’ve been checking out as of late, we’re going to put the spotlight on some affordable devices — one of which is Xiaomi’s latest offering for their entry-level series, the Redmi 12C.
Portrayed as a capable and performing budget-friendly device, we put Xiaomi’s latest budget offering, the Redmi 12C, to its paces and see how it fares for everyday use as a daily driver. Is it worth it? Should you consider it? These are some of the things we’ll answer in this review.
Geek-stethic
To start off this review, let’s start with its build and frame. The Redmi 12C is protected by its exterior made of a polycarbonate finish. There are ridges all over its body that definitely helps with the grip. Safe to say that it won’t slip out of your hand or your pocket that easily. It has a unibody curved back with flat edges that gives a better handleability on the device. Last notable thing you can see is that it has a rear fingerprint sensor placed right beside its small camera bump.
It definitely feels lightweight, coming in just 192 grams, despite its size of 168.76 x 76.41 x 8.77mm. The one we have right now is the Ocean Blue colorway, but it also offers other variants such as Graphite Gray , Mint Green, and Lavander Purple.
In the front, we have a wide 6.71” HD+ display that offers more screen real estate. The bezels on the side are thin enough and do not take much screen space. We also have a small water drop notch for the front camera.
Binge-Watching Factor
To talk more in depth about its screen, the Redmi 12C offers good quality visuals. Its new-and-improved 6.71” HD+ display shows clear colors and a wide screen real estate in its 20:6:9 aspect ratio. It might not be the sharpest and it could be better in bringing out the black in the visuals, but definitely good enough to binge watch your favorite shows. It definitely feels immersive considering it’s bigger screen size. It does fare well enough while under the sun as long as it’s at max brightness. Overall, visuals are great especially considering its price tag.
In terms of speakers, it does its job quite well. Listening to different kinds of music genres, it sounds well and loud enough for you to enjoy music. What I think they can improve on is adding more bass and ooomph. In small confined spaces, you can definitely hear your audio. However, it struggles a little in wide open spaces, so I would suggest hooking in earphones to its audio jack located at the top of the device.
Gaming Prowess
The Redmi 12C runs on an almost 2-year old SoC, the MediaTek Helio G85 processor, along with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. We’ve had experience with the Helio G85 already, and it comes to no surprise that can run a handful of today’s most-played mobile games smoothly.
For Mobile Legends, it’s definitely capable of running in under medium-settings, experiencing little to no lags nor frame drops. At high-settings, there’s a small drop in framerate but not noticeable enough to ruin your game.
For Call of Duty: Mobile, a more demanding title, it can perform in low-to-medium settings with ease.
And for my personal favorite game for benchmarking– Survivor.io– it’s more than capable to run it at medium-to-high settings, but it does struggle once the mobs come in so I would suggest to go for medium and to turn on Reduced VFX.
We do have to note that the Redmi 12C is an entry-level offering from the brand, meaning, don’t expect absolutely stellar gameplay ala high mid-range to flagship levels. Yes, there may be times when you will experience input lag, but it’s doesn’t last too long to completely render gaming impossible.
We also found out that if you plan to charge your phone while playing, you may want to avoid doing so as the phone will barely keep any juice right after. The 10W charging isn’t fast enough to compensate for the energy drain of gaming.
Screen is also capped at 60Hz so you cannot run some of your favorite mobile games at 90-120Hz or games that require you to run at those frame rates.
So, yes, you could technically still game with the Redmi 12C, just temper your expectations, it is an entry-level phone at that.
Geek Photoshoot Capabilities
In terms of photography, the Redmi 12C is equipped with 50MP f/1.8 main camera and a 5MP f/2.2 front camera.
Starting off in wide-detail shots, it shows good colors and good contrasts. If you have good lighting, it can definitely capture images in great detail (bottom right). However, once subjects are exposed to too much light with a bright background, these tend to fade out into complete whites without much detail.
Another sample shot with a lighted subject. Light reflects out and still was able to produce a good shot, but lacking in color for the most part.
Here, we see that it captured the subject with great color detail– given with just the right amount of lighting. The greens from the leaves are distinct enough from the yellow and white, providing rich and vivid colors to see the dots and veins.
For close up shots with a plain white background, it captures the subject with good detail and even gives some blur to my hand for more depth. It might not be the sharpest, but I would commend it for its great detail.
We also tested it with better lighted subjects and here’s the result:
For night shots and shots with barely dim lights, the Redmi 12C struggles quite a bit. While sure, you will be able to reveal photos with good enough clarity and picture detail like the example here. The end result is still a grainy mess if you don’t have a tripod with you.
For the shot below, I only had my monitor as the main light source, and in doing so, casted the subject’s face in shadow. What’s impressive, perhaps, is the phone’s ability to use the light and open up the subject even more. Sure, it may not be the best quality , but the fact that it was able to give so much more detail that what I was actually seeing is what impressed me.
As for selfies, its 5MP front-facing camera is decent enough to capture selfies with adequate detail as long as you have ample lighting.
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- UnGeek Managing partner checking the selfie cam
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- UnGeek Managing partner checking the selfie cam
In terms of its video recording capabilities, the device can only capture up to 1080P 30fps. It’s standard and nothing to really rave about.
Overall, the Redmi 12C, while being an entry-level offering, does offer adequate photo-shooting capabilities, being able to render good enough image and video quality as long as you have huge amounts of light. While the phone has a night mode, the lack of any huge OIS or EIS stabilization makes it hard to fully maximize the feature.
Everyday Reliability
Let’s start off with its battery. Packed with a whopping 5000 mAh battery, this can definitely last you through a whole day. The Helio G85 processor is not that demanding enough to eat through your battery while idle or your common apps so a full charge can definitely last for a day or maybe longer, especially given the price point. My main qualm with it, however, is its charging speed. Its 10W Fast Charging speed is not the fastest around and may be limited due to its Micro-USB charging port.
In terms of the overall experience with the UI, it feels serviceable enough. Running on MIUI 13, apps open fast enough and games are responsive enough with inputs. However, running through social media apps might feel a bit sluggish as it only has a 60Hz refresh rate. As for running multiple apps at once, you may be able to do this without much slowdown but only to a degree. The device starts to feel a bit slow once you start opening heavy apps or playing videos. With a LPDDR4X 4GB RAM and 128GB storage space, you’re only able to run multiple low to medium requirement apps at once.
Face Unlock Recognition also works well and has good loading time. As for the rear fingerprint sensor, it’s placed well enough to be reachable for your finger –despite the awkward position (near the camera module).
Lastly, should you run out of storage, whether for your games, photos, or anything that takes space, good thing the Redmi 12C has expandable storage up to 1TB via SD card so you can add even more files.
Final Geek Lifestyle Verdict
If you’re on a budget, the Redmi 12C is definitely a capable device to be your next daily driver. With its workhorse SoC, Helio G85 processor, 6.71” HD Display, 5000 mAh battery, expandable storage, and new-and-improved 50MP camera, this device performs bigger for its price point.
The SRP for Redmi 12C starts at Php 5,499 for the 3GB/32GB variant, PHP 6499 for the 4GB/ 64GB variant, PHP 7499 for the 4GB/128GB variant (the one we reviewed), and goes all the way up to PHP 8,999 for the 6GB/ 128GB variant which is an online exclusive.
During the month of March, those who ordered the Redmi 12C will be getting various freebies depending on the variant of your choosing such as Bluetooth speakers worth Php 599 to a Redmi Buds 3.
Available in Graphite Grey, Ocean Blue, Mint Green, and Lavender Purple.
Follow Xiaomi Philippines for more on the Xiaomi Redmi 12C.
Xiaomi Redmi 12C Specs:
- MediaTek Helio G85 (12nm)
- Mali-G52 MC2
- 3/4/6GB RAM
- 6.71-inch HD (720×1650) display, 60Hz refresh rate
- 32/64/128GB storage
- 50MP f/1.8 main + Auxiliary lens3
- 5MP f/2.2 wide front camera, 1080p 30fps video recording
- 3G, LTE
- 3.5mm headjack, WiFi 802802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.1, GPS, rear mounted fingerprint scanner, Micro-USB
- 5000mAh battery with 10W Fast charge support
- Android 12 on MIUI 13
- Graphite Grey, Ocean Blue, Mint Green, and Lavender Purple
- PHP 5499/ PHP 6499/ PHP 7499/ PHP 8999