Not so slim and light anymore. The Xiaomi 12 Lite, with its new design, positions itself as a mid-range smartphone with a new-and-improved 108 MP main camera and an upgraded front-facing camera. Despite other upgrades, there are still some trade-offs being made. Find out more in notebookcheck.net's review below.

Xiaomi has given its Lite model a new design that is closer to its Redmi sub-brand than to its own 12 Series. Under the hood, however, not much has changed; Xiaomi is relying on the same chipset and a similar storage configuration as before. The display also has the same size and resolution, although it now comes with a higher refresh rate than before. The battery capacity has been bumped up slightly, and the camera setup gets the most comprehensive update, which, altogether, doesn't represent an improvement across the board from last year's model.

Buy it now from Smartphone Shop Xiaomi 12 Lite

Case - three possible colors for the Xiaomi 12 Lite
The Xiaomi 12 Lite is available in Black, Lite Green and Lite Pink. Our review unit is Black, which sometimes shimmers slightly blue depending on the lighting.

This Xiaomi smartphone has grown in every direction since last year, especially when it comes to its weight, which is 15 g heavier than before. This change can't really be attributed to the battery, which has only grown by 50 mAh; it is the camera, rather, that is the most likely culprit here, as it now sticks out an additional 2.8 mm (0.11") from the case, more than its predecessor's 1.8 mm (0.04"). Despite the plastic back, the smartphone has a good finish that looks high-quality and feels great. Gaps are both tight and even throughout the device, and the display-to-surface area ratio (88%) looks great.

The card tray can fit two nanoSIM cards. Additionally, the Xiaomi 12 Lite is protected from damaging amounts of dust and water by an IP53 rating.

Software - a Xiaomi smartphone with Android 12 and MIUI 13.

The Xiaomi 12 Lite comes with Google Android 12 and the Xiaomi's own MIUI 13 user interface. According to various internet sources the smartphone will receive two major software upgrades and three years of security patches, but Xiaomi Germany has confirmed to us that there is no update commitment for this model. At the time of this review, the latest patch is from the 1st of August 2022, which is up-to-date.

The MIUI user interface proved to have very restrictive energy management in our test. Apps in the background were often closed or notifications not displayed. 

The 12 Lite is anything but reserved when it comes to third-party apps that come installed on the device, but these can all be manually uninstalled.
Communications und GPS - 5G and Wi-Fi 6 for the Xiaomi 12 Lite
For mobile Internet access, the Xiaomi 12 Lite supports all modern communication standards, including Sub-6GHz 5G.

Review by www.notebookcheck.net