Xiaomi’s most exciting phone launch in years just got the wind taken out of its sails
The big smartphone launch of yesterday was the brand newXiaomi 12S seriesthat tweaks the formula of the company’s flagship smartphone range and offers significant improvements to the camera system on its top-end model. Now, a new statement from the company has made it clear that these phones won’t be on sale anywhere outside the company’s home country of China.
We had expected the phone to be limited in availability, but often Xiaomi sells its handsets in markets such as India and Europe. That’s almost always the case with flagship smartphone series such as this, but the Xiaomi 12S, 12S Pro, and 12S Ultra are exclusive to China.
“Xiaomi will offer Xiaomi 12S Series exclusively in Mainland China,” a spokesperson for the company said, as noted byEngadget’s Richard Lai(viaAndroid Headlines). “Our Strategic Partnership in Imaging Technology will have long-term impacts beyond the scope of this series, into Xiaomi’s international markets.” That suggests it’ll likely be the Xiaomi 13 series when we first see the company’s new camera technology go on sale outside China.
The Xiaomi 12 series was revealed at the end of 2021, so we’d expect a similar timing for the Xiaomi 13 series. That statement from Xiaomi suggests those phones will feature similar technology to the 12S series, and we’d expect them to be on sale in other markets worldwide. As ever with Xiaomi products, we wouldn’t expect them to go on sale in the United States.
The new Xiaomi 12S Ultra features a 1-inch 50.3MP Sony IMX989 sensor that the company claims will offer improved low light performance and other improvements. The phone also features the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, a 6.73-inch 1440 x 3200 AMOLED display, and a 4,680mAh battery.
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