Xiaomi x Leica Strategic Partnership in Xiaomi 12S Series Imaging Technology

On 4th July 2022, Xiaomi officially announced the launch of its new Xiaomi 12S Series “co-engineered with Leica”, marking the start of Xiaomi x Leica strategic partnership in Xiaomi 12S Series imaging technology. Xiaomi and Leica Camera announce long-term strategic cooperation through an earlier announcement prior to the launch of its Xiaomi 12S Series “co-engineered with Leica”. For photography, smartphone photography, filmmakers, content creators and technology geeks, the new Xiaomi 12S Series would definitely be of great interest to you.

The entire Xiaomi 12S series features different imaging systems jointly developed by Xiaomi and Leica, containing Leica Summicron lenses, and they support Leica imaging profiles, giving and empowering individual content creators, photographers etc, to express their creativity, while retaining the authentic style of Leica imagery.

Authentic Leica Imagery, Leica Imaging Profiles

Xiaomi and Leica have jointly created a new standard for smartphone photography in this new era of mobile photography. By combining Leica’s in-depth understanding of optics, imaging processing, image quality, and Xiaomi’s rich experience in smartphone computing photography, Xiaomi 12S Series, that is “co-engineered with Leica” offers unprecedented smartphone image quality and colours that adhere to Leica’s signature look and feel.

Xiaomi and Leica have co-developed sophisticated optical lenses, pushing imaging technology to new limits. Xiaomi 12S Ultra, the top smartphone model utilises Leica’s world-class optical design capabilities in its lens system while adhering to their stringent optical quality testing standards and implementing Xiaomi’s expertise in miniaturising components to ensure ultra-high resolution, ultra-high light sensitivity, reduced dispersion and lower flare.

Xiaomi 12S Ultra primary camera adopts an 8P aspheric lens. In photography, flare, ghosting, and chromatic aberration are common issues, the camera module of Xiaomi 12S Ultra also adds anti-glare lens coating, edge ink coating, cyclic coating, cyclic olefin copolymer material, and infrared light filter with spin coating technology. Together, these features offer a clearer overall picture that is consistent across the lens.

In addition to the advanced optical design, Xiaomi 12S Series “co-engineered with Leica” also utilises Leica imaging profiles. They have inherited Leica’s century-old image aesthetic and reproducing Leica’s tone and aesthetics with the aid of cutting-edge algorithms. For the end user, this means access to two photographic styles: The “Leica Authentic Look” and “Leica Vibrant Look”, both offering enhanced creative freedom to the photographer.

• The “Leica Authentic Look” pursues a natural imagery for which Leica is known. By retaining light and shadow contrast, it adds a sense of three-dimensional depth to photos, with the characteristic excellence of Leica’s time-proven light and shadow aesthetics. 
• The “Leica Vibrant Look” features input by both Xiaomi and Leica. Combining Xiaomi’s experience in smartphone photography with Leica’s leading aesthetic, photographers can strive to capture the emotion of the moment, symbolizing Leica’s exploration in the smartphone photography space.

Xiaomi 12S Series “co-engineered with Leica” brings authentic “Leica Image Look” to a smartphone.

Professional wide-angle camera with a super-large 1″ sensor

Xiaomi 12S Ultra is equipped with Sony’s IMX989 1″ sensor, implementing a Quad-Bayer pixel array with individual pixel sizes reaching 1.6μm. After pixel binning, this reaches 3.2μm, reducing noise, extending dynamic range, increasing light captured, and achieving overall better imagery in low-light conditions. This sets a new precedent in smartphone cameras, approaching traditional cameras in terms of hardware specifications. 

Xiaomi 12S Ultra is the first Android device to support Dolby Vision HDR video recording and playback. Dolby Vision enhances your videos with vivid colors, sharper contrast ratio, and richer details, providing you with vibrant and refined image quality. Xiaomi 12S Ultra uses HyperOIS for ultra-stable performance, offering continuous compensation for movement during video recording. HyperOIS utilizes the gap between two frames to drive the OIS motor to its original position, giving each frame a full effective range of stabilization.

Xiaomi 12S and Xiaomi 12S Pro feature Sony’s IMX707 as their primary sensor, which incorporates both a large sensor size and large pixels, at 1/1.28” and 2 and 2.44μm after pixel binning. With the support of Xiaomi AI Image Solution and Xiaomi ProFocus, these sensors achieve fast startup, capture, and continuous capturing. These devices support an industry-leading 30fps ultra-fast burst mode, and exceptional low-light photography capabilities. Further, they also implement All-scene snapshot in their cameras, making it easier to capture the decisive moment.

Xiaomi 12S Series “co-engineered with Leica” has also been designed to be more photographer-friendly in post-production. The entire series supports 10-bit RAW format 3.

One smartphone, two Xiaomi Surge chips

Xiaomi 12S Ultra “co-engineered with Leica” is the first flagship model to be equipped with two proprietary Xiaomi Surge chips, Xiaomi Surge P1 fast-charging chipset and Xiaomi Surge G1 battery management chipset, offering great improvements in battery management and overall user experience.

Xiaomi 12S Ultra supports 67W wired fast charging, 50W wireless fast charging and 10W reverse wireless charging. At the core of the Xiaomi Surge Battery Management System, is a 4,860mAh single-cell silicon-oxygen anode battery and Xiaomi Surge P1 fast-charging chipset, which also supports up to a 16A output current with 96.8% conversion efficiency. Furthermore, Xiaomi Surge G1 battery management chipset offers a slew of battery management algorithms, embedding self-developed battery management algorithms to protect the working safety of the battery and monitor the discharge load to accurately predict the available battery life of the device. Xiaomi 12S Ultra also supports adaptive charging toprevent the battery from overcharging thereby increasing the number of charge cycles by 25%.

Xiaomi 12S Pro features Xiaomi Surge P1 fast-charging chipset, 120W wired charging, 50W wireless charging, and a 4,600mAh single-cell battery, while the Xiaomi 12S offers 67W wired charging, 50W wireless charging, and a 4,500mAh battery.

calibrated by Adobe Labs, with color correction metadata embedded in the files. When using Adobe Lightroom to open photos shot on Xiaomi 12S Series, Adobe Camera RAW software will automatically optimize photos based on metadata, providing professional photographers with a good starting point for post-production.

Flagship Performance, Flagship Display

As Xiaomi’s latest flagship, Xiaomi 12S Series “co-engineered with Leica” is powered by the all-new Snapdragon® 8+ Gen 1 Mobile Platform, built on the TSMC 4nm process. Compared to Snapdragon® 8 Gen 1, the core area of Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is 21% smaller, with both the CPU and GPU receiving a 10% improvement in performance and a 30% improvement in energy efficiency. This not only significantlyreduces the standby power consumption of Xiaomi 12S Series, but also allows for lower heat emission and power consumption under high-load computing scenarios.

Xiaomi 12S Ultra is equipped with a whole new heat dissipation system, similar to the biological mechanism leaves on a plant may use to absorb water. This three-dimensional cooling pump is ingeniously designed with a series of channels, which use a capillary network to actively pump cooling liquid condensed at the side opposite of warm areas, greatly improving efficiency and increasing the thermal conductivity of a single unit by 100%, compared with traditional VC heat dissipation systems.

Xiaomi 12S Ultra and Xiaomi 12S Pro feature a 6.73″AMOLED color display with E5 luminescent material that deliver a professional level of detail, brightness and color performance, in addition to a peak brightness of 1500 nits, 2K resolution, P3 color gamut, and 1-120Hz AdaptiveSync Pro. Xiaomi 12S is slightly more compact at just 6.28”, and also supports P3 color gamut display, HDR10+, and 120Hz AdaptiveSync.

Also announced were Xiaomi 12 Pro Dimensity Edition, Xiaomi Book Pro 16, Xiaomi Book Pro 14, Xiaomi Smart Band 7 Pro, and Xiaomi Home WiFi.

Xiaomi 12S Ultra Technical Specifications

* Information and pictures courtesy of Xiaomi and APRW *