Review of MIUI 12 - a large-scale firmware update for Xiaomi

Fun fact, but the first Xiaomi product was not a smartphone at all, but the MIUI launcher. The company introduced its shell for Android 10 years ago and has been actively developing it all this time. The pinnacle of evolution was MIUI 12, which has already arrived on some Xiaomi models. We have installed the update on POCO F2 Pro and are ready to share our impressions.

Appearance

The icons in the new version of the shell are the same as in MIUI 11. It may even seem that everything remains the same, but this feeling disappears as soon as you start interacting with the system.

The main innovations are hidden in the animation, which has become much more varied and smoother. For the sake of this, it is worth taking a smartphone with a high refresh rate of the screen - unfortunately, on the POCO F2 Pro, you can evaluate the work of designers only at 60 Hz.

The new animation engine calculates all the effects - from rounding corners to blurring the background. Many elements use gyroscope data, such as the charge indicator in the system settings.

MIUI 12 also learned to immediately determine the position of the smartphone - applications are immediately launched in the desired orientation without twitching animation, as it was before.

The fonts have also changed: they are now larger and more distinct. There is a dynamic setting: the color of the text and its contrast in relation to the background varies at different times of the day to reduce eye strain.

Super wallpaper

The main feature in MIUI 12 is super wallpapers with dynamic animation. There are two options to choose from - with Earth and Mars. Their number may increase in the future.

Super wallpaper automatically adjusts to the screen: in the locked state, they show the whole planet, when you press the power button, they zoom in, and when unlocked, we find ourselves on the surface of a celestial body. Elon Musk would love that. You can even choose the location where you will land each time you unlock. Thus, Cape Kamenjak in Croatia, Chinese rice terraces and Greenland are accessible from terrestrial places.

Desktop

The system received a traditional Android desktop with widgets, folders and program shortcuts. Swipe up opens a list of all apps, or you can replace it with the Google search screen.

The desktop settings are the same: you can choose a wallpaper, a grid of shortcuts (4 × 5 or 4 × 6), filling an empty space and animation of scrolling tables.

Curtain and control center

The developers clearly spied some of the ideas in iOS. So, the notification curtain and the control center are now separated and called up by swipes on the left and right sides of the screen, respectively. Such a change has been brewing for a long time: the jumble of icons and pop-ups was illogical. If the delimitation seems unfamiliar, you can return to the traditional Android All-in-One Heap view.

The control center also got animations and large quick access icons. Again, it resembles iOS. But if the solution is good, then why not borrow it.

Multitasking

The list of running applications is still grouped in pairs; when the memory is cleared, the last program remains open. Here you can also enable multi-window mode: the screen is divided into two customizable parts, each of which has its own application open.

Also, with a long press on the preview, you can prohibit the unloading of the program and bring it to the floating window. If you move it to a corner of the screen, it collapses into a thumbnail.

The system does not support more than one floating window, but this limitation makes sense on a smartphone. Otherwise, it would be possible to litter a small screen with program thumbnails and finally get confused in them.

Branded applications

The stock programs have also been updated to match the new interface. The text has become smaller, and it is finally unified (before that the fonts could differ from section to section), the animation and infographics were redrawn.

Nevertheless, the main problem of MIUI remained unresolved: there are still a lot of ads in the firmware. Opening a system application, for example "Music", you run the risk of stumbling upon an advertising banner for some service that in no way relates to music. Such integrations can be found even if you disable them in the settings.

Security

In MIUI 12, you can set a password login for any installed application. This is done in the "Application Protection" section of the "Security" service.

But the main thing is the new option "Second space". With the help of virtualization, another operating system is created in which you can work with all installed programs, regardless of the main OS.

Switching between spaces is available from the "Go" shortcut on the desktop. With the removal of the second space, all data in it is erased, but before that, the smartphone will offer to transfer them to the main OS.

Other features

An important improvement is adaptive dark mode. The system has learned to repaint third-party applications in black, even if they do not support such a design by default. For example, you can add dark mode to the official Facebook client and not wait for the developers to finalize the corresponding option.

By the way, after activating the dark mode, the design of super wallpapers also changes: the locations on the working screen are immersed in the night.

Sports features have also been added, such as sleep monitoring with snoring tracking. Also, new movement trackers monitor daily activity and provide infographics - all this will take no more than 1% of the charge.

Finally, in the "Themes" application, all MIUI design options for the last 10 years are available, but now their resolution has been adapted for modern smartphones. So those who want to feel nostalgic will not see a mess of pixels.

Outcomes

MIUI 12 retained the style of the interface, while making it better in many aspects. Animations and services have become more beautiful, the control center is more convenient, the dark mode has learned to work with all applications. In general, the update is really worthwhile, although the problem with advertising in it has not been solved.

An updated version of MIUI will be available for the following devices:

Xiaomi: Mi 10, Mi Note 10, Mi Note 10 Pro, Mi 8 Lite.
POCO: F2 Pro and Pocophone F1.
Redmi: Note 9, Note 9 Pro, Note 8 Pro, Note 8, Note 7, Note 6 Pro, Note 5, 9, 8, 8A, 8A Pro, 7, 7A, 6A, 6, 6 Pro, S2.