OnePlus 12 5G review: Incremental, but meaningful upgrade

OnePlus recently launched OnePlus 12, the company's first premium phone of the year in India.

It has powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 silicon, promising faster performance, improved thermal dissipation with a large Vapour Chamber, and longer battery life.

I used the OnePlus 12 for a little over a week and here are my thoughts on the latest OnePlus flagship phone.

Design, build quality, and display

OnePlus 12 retains the predecessor's design elements. It has a beautiful curved display on the front. On the back, it has a large unique camera module. This time, the company has engraved just 'H' as the Hasselblad branding. The previous iteration had the full name written on it, which kind of ruined the minimalistic look.

The rest of the rear side has a sparkling shiny panel with a matte finish. Our review unit is Silky Black. It's almost impossible to stain the phone's back panel with fingerprint smudges. Kudos to the OnPlus engineers. The company also offers Emerald Green and it is even better. It has a gorgeous marble stone-like finish. Currently, there is no rival brand that can make such good looks as the beautiful OnePlus 12 green model.

. Design-wise, one noticeable change we see in the latest model is that the trademark alert slider is moved to the left side. The three-position alert slider lets the user switch between silent, ring, and vibration modes.

The right side now is home to the volume rocker and just below it, the company has incorporated the power button.

However, on the downside, the SIM tray is too close to the microphone at the base. Be very careful while using the SIM ejector tool to remove the SIM tray.

. Besides premium build quality, the new phone comes with Corning's Gorilla Glass Victus 2 shield, which can protect the display from scratches. Also, it features an IP65 rating, meaning it can survive accidental water splashes and even moderate rains. Add to that the screen is optimised to support wet fingers to take touch inputs. This is a first for any OnePlus phone.

. OnePlus 12 flaunts a fantastic 6.82-inch Quad HD+ curved AMOLED display. It supports up to 4,500 nits peak brightness, pixel density of 510 ppi (pixels per inch), and also comes with a proprietary Display P1 chip.

It should be noted that the device's display is a bit larger compared to the predecessor (6.7-inch), but can easily be operated single-handedly without much hassle.

It is bright and great for consuming multimedia content. All colours on motion pictures come off rich on the screen, which comes in handy when viewing outdoors.

. At night, there is eye comfort mode. It offers two options-- smart and custom-- for consumers personalise the colour temperature to control the intensity of blue light, the major cause of eye strain. With this feature on, it helps eyes stay strain-free during binge-watching movies or TV series at night and once done with it, user will be able to sleep faster.

The optical in-screen fingerprint sensor works amazingly fast with a lower false rejection rate.

. Performance

Inside, OnePlus 12 houses 4nm class Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Qualcomm's latest and most powerful processor to date. It is backed by Adreno 750 GPU and a Dual Cryo-velocity Vapor Chamber of 9140mm², the largest we have seen on a OnePlus phone. It promises 3X better thermal performance compared to the previous model.

In this particular aspect, it lived up to the hype in terms of efficient heat dissipation. I played the Asphalt 9: Legends for more than half hour, the device barely got warmed up.

. And, if you put the cover case, you'll never notice any change in temperature on the back.

In India, the company is offering two configuration options-- 12GB RAM(LPDDR5X) + 256GB storage(UFS 4.0), and 16GB (LPDDR5X) RAM + 512GB storage(UFS 4.0). Our review unit is the latter.

It boasts OnePlus Trinity Engine, the term used for hardware and software optimisation. It promises full utilisation of CPU, RAM and ROM, and is capable of intelligently allocating the smartphone's internal resources to achieve enhanced performance, extended battery life, and long-term smooth experience. The company also claims that the phone is capable of allowing the six most used apps to work in the background for up to 72 hours and users can switch between smoothly and start exactly at the point, where they left when moving to another app.

. We have seen other phones in a bid to control the fast draining of the battery, usually kill the most active apps (working in the background) such as social media platforms. Sometimes when you are watching a video on Facebook and get a phone call, the former gets refreshed. When the user returns after attending the phone call, to Facebook, the user will not be able to find the same video and he/she has to look for it again.

This issue won't arise in OnePlus 12. During the entire week, the phone worked smoothly, and also apps remained active in the background without getting refreshed.

Also, the phone delivers good on long battery life too. It comes with 5,400mAh, eight per cent more capacity than the predecessor (5,000mAh). It can easily run for one and a half days under normal usage. With super fast 100W SuperVOOC charging capability, the device can power up from zero to 100 per cent in under 30 minutes.

. After a long gap, the company is bringing back wireless charging on OnePlus 12. It supports 50W AirVOOC charging tech. It can fully charge the device in under one hour.

The device runs Android 14-based OxygenOS. It is clean and has a handful of third-party apps and there is no worry of shortage of space, as the base model comes with 256GB. One can install all their favourite apps and take thousands of photos and videos without any anxiety of running out of space any time soon.

Also, OnePlus is promising four years of Android OS update and an additional year of security software support. This is more than enough to build loyalty among the customers. Google Pixel 8 and Samsung Galaxy S24 series, which are promised to seven years of update, makes very little sense. Four years or older phones with outdated hardware are unlikely to support any new game-changing features that may come with new software updates.

. With Wi-Fi 7, the new phone is future-ready and can support up to 40Gbps wireless internet speed. It also supports Bluetooth 5.3, which offers a more secure wireless connection with accessories such as TWS earphones.

Photography

OnePlus 12 boasts Hasselblad camera system-- main 50MP (with 1/1.4-inch Sony LYT-808 sensor, f/1.6, OIS: Optical Image Stabilisation) + 48MP ultra-wide (1/2-inch Sony IMX581 sensor, f/2.2, 3.5cm macro) + 64MP periscope telephoto (with 1/2-inch Omnivision OV64B, f/2.6, OIS, 3x optical zoom, 6x in-sensor zoom, up to 120x digital zoom) with LED flash on the back. It supports up to 8k 24 fps (frames per second) video recording.

. It takes brilliant photos in the sunlight. The images with subjects like flowers look beautiful thanks to colour boost from the native camera app. The details are nicely captured.

. Even the portrait mode photos are amazing. The phone does a fine job with a bokeh effect in the background with great effort to ensure it looks natural.

. With ultra wide-angle mode, the phone does a fine job of covering the vast area of the landscape into the frame with fine details.

. Even the Zoom capabilities of the OnePlus 12 are great up to 10X; but, beyond the 10X, noise begins to accumulate in the photos. You can see the changes in the slideshow below.

. Also, OnePlus 12 manages to balance the light from the street lamps and keep the darkness of the night sky, to make it a perfect night mode photo.

. On the front, it features a 32MP camera with a Sony IMX615 sensor, ƒ/2.4, and supports up to 4k at 30 fps video recording. It takes fantastic selfies in all light conditions.

. The native camera comes with a ton of tools to customise the appearance of the human face with options to adjust various aspects such as jawline, cheeks, skin colour tone and more.

. The video recording too is amazingly good with stability thanks to gyro-EIS (Electronics Image Stabilisation). The main camera on the back can capture 8K videos at 24 frames per second (fps), 4K at 30/60fps, full HD 1080p at 30/60/240/480fps with Auto HDR, and Dolby Vision.

. The front camera can record high-quality 4K videos at 30 fps. It does well during video streaming for virtual conferences provided the device is connected to a stable Wi-Fi router.

. Final thoughts

In 2023, OnePlus 11 series came with big changes both in terms of design and internal hardware to deliver incredible smooth performance.

This year, OnePlus though retains the refreshing design elements of its predecessor, it has incorporated meaningful upgrades to the OnePlus 12 with amazing camera improvements. It also delivers lag-free performance and offers a long-lasting battery life.

And, it has superfast 50W wire-less charging capability, which is such a valuable addition to the user experience.

With IP65 certification, the OnePlus device is protected against water splashes and ensures, it serves the customer for a long time.

OnePlus 12 comes in two configurations-- 12GB RAM + 256GB storage, and 16GB RAM + 512GB storage-- for Rs 64,999 and Rs 69,999, respectively.

. Who should buy OnePlus 12?

Those with OnePlus 11 need not upgrade to this new model. But, others with older OnePlus phones can go for the OnePlus 12.

And, those with other branded phones who are looking for value-for-money premium Android phone, OnePlus 12 is best option.

.OnePlus 11 5G: Long-term review. Get the latest news on new launches, gadget reviews, apps, cybersecurity, and more on personal technology only on DH Tech .

OnePlus 12 5G review: Incremental, but meaningful upgrade

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