After a busy week of announcements from Xiaomi, the Chinese tech conglomerate has announced the launch of the Xiaomi 12 Lite in South Africa. The Lite follows on from the original Xiaomi 12, though with watere down tech specs on the inside. The Lite was designed to feel like a flagship model without making your wallet sing.
Looking pretty good
There are two colours available – Lite Green and Black (thank you for having normal colour names). If your smartphone colour is that impportant to you and you’re after another colour, then the Lite isn’t for you.
The colours surround a light 173g gram body, as thin as 7.29mm, covered by a 6.55in AMOLED display. The Lite supports HDR and Dolby Vision to really make the colours and screen pop. It’s got a refresh rate of 120Hz, with a touch-sampling rate of 240Hz to keep everything as smooth as can be.
On the inside
The processor running the Lite is a Snapdragon 778G, which delivers the 5G connectivity that’s slowly becoming the standard in South Africa. Since it’s built on a 6nm process, the octa-core SoC is able to keep the performance and battery life at their optimums. There’s 8GB of RAM shoved in there and 256GB of storage.
Battery-wise, the Lite is no slouch. It’s fitted with a 4,300mAh battery, partnered with 67W turbocharging.
Xiaomi claims the Lite can fully charge in only 41 minutes (take that Eskom). As every smartphone manufacturer does these days, Xiaomi has employed ‘AdaptiveCharge’ to learn users’ charge routines so charging is spread out and finishes when you need it to.
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Finally, we arrive at the camera, one of the leading features of the Xiaomi 12 Lite. On the back, there’s a triple-camera setup housing a 108MP camera, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera, and a 2MP macro camera. The front boasts a 32MP selfie camera, surrounded by plenty of additional features to help make you look your best.
Lastly, and perhaps least important is the inclusion of stereo speakers and Dolby Atmos spatial audio technology. Dolby Atmos is lovely, though listening to music straight from a phone is just not how it’s done. We’d rather just stick to headphones, although there’s no 3.5mm jack on this one.
Pricing and availability in SA
The Xiaomi 12 Lite is already available in South Africa and retails for a price of R10,000. It’s available at most of South Africa’s regular retailers and from Xiaomi’s site directly. There’s a deal tucked away with the 12 Lite going for R11,000, bundled with a Xiaomi TV Stick. There’s a bag too.