OnePlus launched its most expected OnePlus 12R smartphone in India last month along with the OnePlus 12. It has several upgrades from last year’s 11R such as better LTPO display, faster SoC, and bigger battery while retaining the camera. Is this worth the price? Let us dive into the review and find out.
Box Contents
- OnePlus (16GB+256GB) in Cool Blue colour
- 100W SUPERVOOC charger
- USB Type-C Cable
- Protective case
- SIM ejector
- Quick Start Guide and Warranty Information
Display, Hardware and Design
The OnePlus 12R features a 6.78-inch (2780×1264 pixels) 1.5K AMOLED display with 1-120Hz refresh rate LTPO 4.0 display, which is better than the adaptive display present in the OnePlus 11R.
The phone has 450 PPI pixel density, same as the 11R. The display is bright since it has up to 4500 nits peak brightness, which works for HDR, and the global maximum brightness has also increased to 1600 nits, spread across 8192 separate levels. It offers good colour output since it has 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, and the sunlight legibility is good as well.
You can select from vivid, Natural and Pro screen colour modes. I am also a fan of nature tone display feature, which adjusts the display based on the ambient lighting conditions.
The phone has a 2160Hz high-frequency dimming technology. In dark environments (brightness below 90 nits) where DC dimming can’t work, the phone will automatically switch to 2160Hz PWM dimming mode to maintain accurate colors on display with a more comfortable eye experience, said the company. The phone has Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection.
The phone also has HDR 10 support, which works for YouTube, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, and Dolby Vision works for Netflix. You can enable video color boost from display settings, which increases the colors in select apps. There is also image sharpener option.
The phone doesn’t have a notification LED, but this has an always-on-display that shows contextual info and notifications all day or as per schedule. There is also music playback option in the always-on-display with the Spotify integration, and there is also Zomato and Swiggy integration to show order details on your lock screen.
The phone has ultra narrow bezels side bezels, making it compact to hold. It has strong vibration motor.
The phone has a tiny punch-hole that houses a 16-megapixel camera. Above the display, there is an earpiece on the top edge that doubles up as a secondary speaker. It has an in-display fingerprint scanner.
Coming to the button placements and ports, the power button is present on the right side along with the volume rockers. The alert slider has been moved to the left side. This is for new integrated antenna for an enhanced antenna performance for gaming, said the company.
You can also see the antenna bands, since this has a metal frame, which feels premium compared to the 11R. This has more than 20% aluminium, from the aluminium alloy frame to the magnesium aluminium alloy internals, compared to the 11R, says OnePlus.
The Dual SIM slot, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the loudspeaker grill are present on the bottom. The secondary microphone is on the top, along with a speaker vent and an IR blaster.
Cool Blue color that we have has a glossy finish with a light, fresh appearance. You can see the fingerprint on the phone.
It also comes in Iron Gray that has a matte feel to give a sophisticated and strong feeling, says the company. The company will launch OnePlus 12R Genshin Impact edition later this month.
The phone is just 8.8mm thick and weighs 207 grams, even though it packs a huge, 5500mAh battery. It also has IP64 for dust and splash resistance.
Camera
- 50MP rear camera with 1/1.56″ Sony IMX890 sensor, f/1.8 aperture, OIS
- 8MP 120° ultra-wide camera with Sony IMX355 sensor, f/2.2 aperture
- 2MP macro camera with Howe OV02B sensor, f/2.4 aperture, LED flash
- 16MP front-facing camera with Samsung S5K3P9 sensor, f/2.4 aperture
The camera UI in the OxygenOS 14 is familiar. There is Pro mode, Panorma, Macro, Flim, Slo-mo, Time-Lapse, Dual-View video, text scanner, starry mode and tilt-shift. The rear camera offers 12.5MP output after pixel binning, and the front camera images are 16MP in size.
Daylight shots came out well, thanks to the 50MP sensor, and the dynamic range is better with auto HDR. 2X is good, but as you zoom in you lose details even though you get up to 20X zoom. The portrait mode is decent and the 2MP macro camera is useless, so it is recommended to use 2X with the normal camera.
Low light shots are good with a lot of details and less noise. The night mode is useful, but it takes a few seconds to process. There is also a tripod mode. The 16MP front camera also does a good job in daylight. The bokeh shots are good, and the edge detection is decent.
Check out the camera samples.
It can record videos in up to 4K 60 fps, slow motion 1080p at 120fps, and the front camera can record 1080p 30fps videos. Ultra-wide camera shooting and Portrait video mode video with the main camera are limited to 1080p, 30 fps.
There is OIS and EIS which does decent job. There is ultra-steady mode which is limited to 1080p 60fps.
Software, UI and Apps
It runs Android 14 based OxygenOS 14 out of the box. It has Android security patch for December 2023. The phone will get 3 Android updates and 4 years of security updates, similar to 11R. OxygenOS 14 offers Trinity Engine with HyperTouch, HyperBoost and HyperRender. There is a new GO Green feature, promoting climate change awareness.
The File Dock feature enables collection, analysis, and sharing of global information through the Dock or other applications simply by making gestures. Notes 2.0 offers more convenient, enriched, and intelligent editing capabilities. The Smart Cutout feature is also able to accurately recognize and extract the subject from complex backgrounds, or background that shares a similar color scheme with the subject, or in group photos.
Apart from the usual set of realme apps and Google apps, it comes with several pre-loaded apps such as Spotify and Netflix. These apps can be uninstalled, but come back once the phone is reset. The IR remote app is useful.
Out of 16GB LPDD4X RAM, you get 14.83GB of usable RAM, and about 9GB of RAM is free when default apps are running in the background. It also has DRE or dynamic RAM expansion feature, which uses the built-in storage as RAM. This has up to 12GB of additional RAM expansion. Out of 256GB UFS 4.0 storage, you get about 218GB of free storage.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
It has an in-display fingerprint sensor that unlocks the phone quickly, but it is not as fast as a physical fingerprint sensor. You can add up to 5 fingerprints. You can also use the fingerprint for app local and payments in apps.
Furthermore, you can change the fingerprint animation and also disable it, and also enable quick launch option to launch apps directly from the lockscreen by holding the fingerprint. The phone also has face unlock feature.
Music and Multimedia
YouTube Music is the default Music Player. It has have Dolby Atmos which works with headset and has customizable Smart, Movie, Game and Music modes. It doesn’t have FM Radio support. Audio through the stereo speakers is good without any distortion even in full volume. Audio through earphones is good as well.
This has Widevine L1, so that you can play HD content on Netflix and other streaming apps. It supports HDR content on YouTube, and Netflix. There is also Dolby Vision for Netflix.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
The OnePlus 12R has support for n1/n2/n3/n5/n7/n8/n12/n20/n28/n38/n40/n41/n66/n77/n78 Network Bands in India. It has 4G Wi-Fi and VoLTE, with support for Carrier Aggregation on 4G. Other connectivity options include Wi-Fi 7 802.11 be (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.3, GPS / GLONASS / Beidou. It has OTG support, and NFC support. Moving on, the call quality is good, and we did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume was loud.
The OnePlus 12R’s body SAR is 0.824W/Kg and head SAR is at 1.187/Kg, which is well under the limit of 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g) in India.
Performance and Benchmarks
This is one of the first phones with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform in the price range in India. It has a new 1 + 4 + 3 microarchitecture that uses 1 x Kryo Prime Arm Cortex-X3-based CPU at up to 3.2GHz, 4 x Kryo Performance CPUs that has 2 x A710-based and 2 x A715-based CPUs at up to 2.8GHz and 4x Kryo Efficiency A510-based CPUs at up to 2GHz.
It is fabricated using the TSMC 4nm Process Technology, same as Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. It promises 35% performance improvements and 40% improved power efficiency. The phone has two vapour chambers – one large and one small. The small chamber absorbs heat directly from its source, such as the chipset, and evenly distributes the heat across the
small chamber.
The larger vapour chamber then absorbs the heat and lets it dissipate rapidly and cool down into liquid. Together these vapour chambers have a total area of 9140mm², more than 76% bigger than the OnePlus 11R.
We did not face any issues or frame drops in the graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact. It reached maximum 41º in our testing indoors in Wi-Fi, but this might vary outdoors in 5G.
Check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 5500mAh (typical) battery, which is slightly bigger than the 5500mAh battery in the 11R. It can easily last for a day with heavy use and for 2 days with typical use.
I got close to 7 hours of screen on time with 1 and half days of use, mostly on Wi-Fi, and occasional 5G use in 120Hz. Since the phone has support for 100W SuperVOOC fast charging, it can charge from up to 100% in less than half an hour. There are smart charging, option to stop charging at 80%, and the smart rapid charging can charge the device faster if the battery is too low.
Conclusion
At a starting price of Rs. 39,999, the OnePlus 12R is still a value king and a good successor to the OnePlus 11R that ticks almost all the boxes. Wish the company had launched 8GB + 256GB model since the price gap between the 8GB + 128GB and the 16GB + 256GB is huge. Even though there is an upgrade in the display, SoC, and the battery, the camera set up remains the same.
Pricing and availability
The OnePlus 12R is priced at Rs. 39,999 for the 8GB + 128GB model and the 16GB + 256GB model costs Rs. 45,999.
It will go on sale from today, February 6th from Amazon.in, OnePlus online store and OnePlus experience stores offline with several launch offers.
Alternatives
There is no direct competition with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 in the price range. The older Nothing Phone (2) is a good competition since it is cheaper during sale. We can expect the upcoming iQOO Neo9 Pro with the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC to be cheaper than this.
Pros
- 1.5K AMOLED 120Hz LTPO display is brilliant
- Smooth performance and good gaming performance
- Good main camera
- Solid build with metal frame
- Long battery life with 120W fast charging
Cons
- No telephoto camera
- Average video quality and stabilization
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