The latest Redmi phone can be fully charged in nine minutes | Engadget

Over the years, we’ve seen smartphone charging speeds go from an already impressive 30 minutes down to 15 minutes, but apparently that’s still too slow for Xiaomi. In the new Redmi Note 12 series that was launched today, one model stood out called “Redmi Note 12 Discovery Edition” with a whopping 210W HyperCharge. This feature is controlled by three 100W fast charging chips that fully charge the phone’s 4,300mAh battery in just 9 minutes. To put things into perspective, both the earlier 120W HyperCharge and Oppo’s 150W SuperVOOC take 15 minutes to charge a 4500mAh battery.

The Redmi Note 12 Discovery Edition also sees the debut of the mid-range MediaTek Dimensity 1080 processor and is complemented by a 6.67-inch OLED screen (2400 x 1080, 120 Hz), a 200 MP main camera (Samsung’s all-new HPX sensor; with OIS ) , an 8MP ultra-wide camera, a 2MP macro camera and a 16MP selfie camera. You will also find dual SIM card slots, dual speakers, 3.5mm headphone jack, side-mounted fingerprint sensor, NFC and an infrared blaster on this Android 12 device.

As for RAM and storage, this model only comes with one combination: 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM and 256GB of UFS 2.2 storage. Unlike last year’s Redmi Note 11 Pro+, it lacks microSD expansion, which may be a deterrent for those considering an upgrade. Still, it’s not bad for 2,399 yuan or $330.

Despite the name, the Redmi Note 12 Discovery Edition is actually based on the Redmi Note 12 Pro+, with the main difference being less charging power (120W) but a bigger battery (5000mAh). This model starts at 2,199 yuan, or about $304, which comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage; or you can pay 2,399 yuan or about $331 to increase the RAM up to 12GB.

Then there’s also the smaller but similar-looking Redmi Note 12 Pro, which swaps the 200MP main camera for a 50MP one (using Sony’s IMX766 sensor) and only uses 67W charging for the same 5,000mAh battery. That starts at 1,699 yuan, or about $235, which gets you 6GB of RAM with 128GB of storage; and you can max out at 12GB of RAM with 256GB of storage for 2,199 yuan or about $304 – interestingly, the same as the starting price of the Pro+.

Xiaomi

Last but not least, the Redmi Note 12 is positioned as an affordable smartphone, starting at 1,199 yuan or about $166. It contains a Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 chipset, a slightly lower quality OLED display of the same size (mainly lower brightness and contrast, as well as the lack of HDR support), less powerful cameras (48MP main, 2MP depth sensor and 8MP front), weaker charging power (33W ) and just a mono speaker. As for variants, it starts from 4GB of RAM with 128GB of storage, all the way up to 8GB with 256GB (1,699 yuan or about $235; the same as the base price of the Note 12 Pro).

As with recent Redmi phones, there’s a good chance these new models will hit international markets later, so we’ll be watching for more updates.