The Xiaomi 12 series (Xiaomi 12 Pro, 12, and 12X) debuted in a China-only launch at the tail end of last year before making its way to international markets in March 2022. Rumors of a new member of the series, the Xiaomi 12 Ultra, have been making the rounds, and some early leaks have attempted to give us an idea of what to expect. Now some imagery of the phone's back panel has surfaced, and it looks considerably different from the rest of the lineup.
Our first pic was shared on Weibo (via Slashleaks), and looking at the image, the camera bump takes the shape of a huge circular module sitting on top of the raised, square upper third of the device. That massive cut in the middle looks like it could house the primary sensor, a chonktastic 1/1.1-inch lens alleged to be the Sony Exmor IMX800.
The rest of the module presents a head-scratcher, though. We can see seven more cutouts, which is definitely up there for a mainstream smartphone. Two of those will likely house a telephoto and an ultra-wide lens like the Xiaomi 12 Pro, but the company could throw in another zoom option for good measure — like Samsung does with its Ultra devices. There should also be a cutout (most likely the cylindrical one on the right) for the dual LED flashlight, leaving four more unaccounted for. While a sensor of some sort (ToF?) could take up at least one more slot, that still leaves a few more to account for.
Another report from the Chinese website IT House (via IT Home) suggests that the Xiaomi 12 could make full use of all seven cutouts — it even managed to find cases with the exact holes. According to that info, the camera package will include a 50MP main camera, a 48MP ultra-wide, a 48MP periscope telephoto lens, lidar sensors, and more. Meanwhile, the display will supposedly house a 48MP selfie shooter. And on top of all of this we could see a lens that supports 120X zoom. Interestingly, the report suggests that Xiaomi might tread a path similar to Vivo or Oppo, releasing an in-house image signal processor called the Surging C2 chip.
While camera leaks about the Xiaomi 12 Ultra have been rampant, many of the other details of this hardware have been much more up in the air. This report suggests the Ultra could get a 6.73-inch AMOLED screen with a 3200×1440 resolution and adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz that goes as low as 1Hz due to LTPO 2.0 technology. In addition, the phone will likely be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen1+ chip manufactured by TSMC, rather than Samsung.
While specific dates are tough to come by, the Xiaomi 12 Ultra might launch in June or July. Considering all the uncertainty we're dealing with right now, it should be very interesting to see what shape the phone takes when it finally arrives.