This new Xiaomi flagship gets a Leica camera with a 1-inch sensor

Xiaomi is not resting on its laurels when it comes to its smartphones. It's been barely six months since Xiaomi announced its last flagship, but now it has a new one with its new partner. Xiaomi partners with Leica to launch its new 12S series. Its most distinctive point, which you really won't miss, is that massive 1-inch, 50.3-megapixel Sony IMX989 sensor. You get a pixel size of 1.6um, doubling to 3.2um via pixel binning for improved colour accuracy and low light performance. Unlike the Sony Xperia Pro-I, it uses the entire portion of the 1-inch sensor.

Xiaomi took part in developing this sensor with Sony, with the two companies splitting the US$15 million cost evenly. But they won't have exclusive rights to the sensor. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said it'll be made available to his local competitors after the launch to "promote the advancement of mobile imaging together."

Leica's contribution to the Xiaomi 12S Ultra's cameras includes a "Leica Summicron 1:1.9-4.1 / 13-120 ASPH camera system" covering all three rear cameras. The 50.3-megapixel is joined by two 48-megapixel Sony IMX586 sensors that serve as ultra-wide and periscopic cameras. The massive camera island gets some coating magic from Leica to help minimize glare and improve lens image consistency. To jazz it up, it even gets a 23K gold rim. In front, there's a 32-megapixel selfie camera with an unspecified RGBW sensor. 

Leica is also providing filters that you can play around with. There's the Leica Authentic Look for natural-looking photos and the Leica Vibrant Look that Xiaomi combines vibrancy and authenticity. We're guessing it looks a bit more like your typical smartphone images.

You can record Dolby Vision HDR video up to 4K@60fps. It also supports Dolby Vision HDR video playback, making it the first Android device with this capability. It has motor-based HyperOIS for stable footage, 10-bit RAW format support calibrated by Adobe Labs, and colour correction metadata embedded in the files for easier post-production in apps like Adobe Lightroom.

Xiaomi equips the 12S Ultra with two proprietary Surge chips: a Surge P1 for fast-charging and a Surge G1 for battery management. This phone supports 67W wired charging, 50W wireless charging, and 10W reverse charging for its 4,860mAh single-cell silicon-oxygen anode battery. This phone also supports adaptive charging, which Xiaomi claims increases charge cycles by 25 percent.

When it comes to cooling, Xiaomi equips the Xiaomi 12S Ultra with a "three dimensional cooling pump" it claims improves thermal conductivity significantly compared to vapour cooling modules.

The Xiaomi 12S Ultra has a 6.73-inch Samsung E5 AMOLED LTPO 2.0 display with a peak brightness of up to 1,500 nits, a 1-120Hz AdaptiveSync Pro refresh rate, P3 colour gamut and native 10-bit colour depth support. It also has Harman Kardon speakers with Dolby Atmos audio, IP68 rating, up to 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and up to 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. This phone is wrapped in vegan leather and comes in Classic Black and Verdant Green. It launched first in China with pricing starting at 5,999 yuan (approx. CA$1,162).

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