Redmi Note 12 Turbo: First Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 smartphone

13/4/2023

Having teased it on their Weibo for some time now, Xiaomi has officially launched the Redmi Note 12 Turbo in China.

It’s the very first smartphone to be powered by the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 processor, and is widely expected to debut later this year globally under the Poco brand.

The star of the show with the Redmi Note 12 Turbo very much is its new Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 processor. The chip had only been released by Qualcomm earlier this month, and it’s a major improvement over its predecessor Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 as well as the extremely popular Snapdragon 778G. In fact, the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2, built on TSMC’s 4nm process, shares an identical CPU core layout as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 from last year albeit at lower clock speeds. The Redmi Note 12 Turbo will also come with up to 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 1TB of UFS 3.1 storage.

The Redmi Note 12 Turbo isn’t too shabby elsewhere either, with a 6.67-inch, FHD+ OLED display capable of pushing 1,000nits of peak brightness. While not an LTPO panel, the Redmi Note 12 Turbo is still able to switch between 30Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz and 120Hz refresh rates, along with a touch sampling rate of 240Hz. The screen is also rated for 12-bit colour, covers the DCI-P3 colour gamut, packs 1920Hz high frequency PWM dimming and has support for HDR10+ too.

In the camera department, the Redmi Note 12 Turbo has a main 64MP camera with OIS flanked by an 8MP ultrawide camera and a 2MP macro lens. Up front meanwhile you’ll find a 16MP camera for all your selfie needs. Keeping the lights on is a 5,000mAh battery with 67W fast charging. There’s stereo speakers too, along with a 3.5mm audio jack, an in-display fingerprint sensor and support for 5G, NFC, WiFi 6e and Bluetooth 5.3. It measures 7.9mm thick and weighs 181g, and will be available in blue, black and white colourways.

There will also be a special Harry Potter edition of the Redmi Note 12 Turbo. Available for just the version with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, it comes with a custom Harry Potter design and logo on the back, complete with a special box that has more Harry Potter-themed accessories such as your letter of acceptance to Hogwarts, a custom case and a special SIM card ejector tool.

The Redmi Note 12 Turbo will start at CNY1,999 (~S$386.53) for the base model with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, rising to CNY2,199 (~S$425.20) for 12GB of RAM. The option with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage meanwhile costs CNY2,399 (~S$463.87) and the top spec Redmi Note 12 Turbo with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage is priced at CNY2,799 (~S$541.22).