In addition to the Xiaomi 12 Ultra, the company also appears to be working on the Xiaomi 12S, and many of its specs have now shown up online.
Xiaomi may have not one, but two phones with Leica cameras coming in the near future, and the specs for one of them have now surfaced online. After Huawei ended its partnership with Leica, fellow Chinese brand and rival, Xiaomi, became the German camera company’s new best friend. The two companies plan to release a phone as early as July 2022.
Xiaomi’s upcoming smartphones will expand the Xiaomi 12 series of smartphones which already has three models. They are the Xiaomi 12, the Xiaomi 12 Pro, and the Xiaomi 12X, all of which were announced in December 2021. The new models are expected to be the Xiaomi 12 Ultra and the Xiaomi 12S, although some rumors also suggest an Xiaomi 12 Lite and Xiaomi 12S Pro might be on the way as well.
The Xiaomi 12S has now made its way to Geekbench as the “Xiaomi 2206123SC”. The benchmark result reveals the phone runs Android 12, has 12GB of RAM, and is powered by the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset. In addition to these specs, Abhishek Yadav (@yabhishekhd) revealed more specifications along with an image of the phone. Even though this image originally came to light a few weeks ago, it does show the rear of the phone and its triple-camera array, including clear “Leica” branding on the camera island.
A Mid-Cycle Xiaomi Refresh?
The specs revealed in the tweet mention the phone will have an OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate but there is no mention of the size or resolution. It was also revealed that the Xiaomi 12S will have a 50MP main camera and will support 67W fast charging support. If these specs sound familiar, that’s because they are identical to the Xiaomi 12 which launched in December 2021. The flagship also has a 120Hz refresh rate, 12GB of RAM, a 50MP main camera, and support for 67W fast wired charging.
It wouldn’t be far-fetched to suggest the upcoming Xiaomi 12S is a mid-cycle refresh of the Xiaomi 12, albeit with a more powerful processor and Leica camera technology. For reference, Xiaomi is not new to refreshing its flagships mid-cycle. The Mi 5s released in 2016 was a refined variant of the Mi 5, while the 2021 Mi 10s was a refined variant of the Mi 10 from 2020. It has been six months since the Xiaomi 12 was launched, so it isn’t too early for it to get a successor.
At the moment, it is not yet known whether the Xiaomi 12S will launch alongside the Xiaomi 12 Ultra, which is scheduled for July, but there is a possibility of that happening. Either way, and knowing how Xiaomi tends to operate, it may decide to make one of these devices exclusive to China.
