OnePlus 12 Review: Stellar Performance, Competitive Camera

OnePlus 12 Review: TechLekh Verdict

The OnePlus 12 is a solid phone with powerful performance, a polished camera experience, and an amazing display.

The OnePlus 12 is an impressive device from OnePlus, but it falls short when compared to high-end rivals.

The lack of an IP68 rating, AI features, and the less-than-impressive video quality are the only limiting factors in an otherwise impressive flagship device.

The OnePlus 12 is the OnePlus’s latest flagship posied to compete against high-end competitors like Samsung. By undercutting the pricing of expensive flagship rivals, OnePlus aims to attract consumers seeking premium smartphone experiences at a more accessible price point.

OnePlus 12 price in Nepal is Rs. 1,39,999 (16/512GB). The phone also comes with one-time screen breakage insurance for one year.

OnePlus 12 is the refined version of the OnePlus 11. It boasts an upgraded chipset, a 4500 nits peak display brightness, and 100W wired fast charging. Can it compete against the likes of Samsung S24 Ultra? Let’s find out!

I’m Anmol Shrestha, and this is my OnePlus 12 review.

ALSO READ: OnePlus Mobile Price in Nepal (July 2024 Updated)

OnePlus 12 Review

Iconic OnePlus Design

• 164.3 x 75.8 x 9.15 mm
• 220 g
• IP68 dust/water resistant

OnePlus 12 closely resembles its predecessor, the OnePlus 11. It is a refined version of the OnePlus 11 and it is a job well done.

OnePlus introduced a unique camera module that takes inspiration from luxury watches, evolving its inception with the OnePlus 10 Pro and refining it with each iteration.

Impressively, this design sets it apart from the rest of the flagships. The circular camera module with ridges around the camera block, the Hasselblad logo, and a clean satin finish – exude a luxury feel. However, the Gorilla Glass 5 protection on the rear glass doesn’t feel luxurious by today’s standards.

Ergonomically, the OnePlus 12 feels slippery due to the combination of a curved screen and a curved rear panel, making it somewhat uncomfortable to hold.

OnePlus 12 takes all the good bits of the OnePlus 11 and pushes OnePlus’s timeless design a step further.

The front of the OnePlus 12 is covered with Gorilla Glass Victus 2, offering reassurance typical of flagship phones. The bezels are adequately thin, fitting for a flagship phone. Unfortunately, it only gets an IP65 rating – a step back from 12’s flagship aspirations. This rating signifies protection against low-pressure water jets from all directions.

The OnePlus 12 uses an optical under-display fingerprint reader – placed perfectly so you don’t have to adjust your finger or grip position. It is easy to use and the fingerprint reader works flawlessly.

Consistent with the OnePlus lineup, the alert slider is present on the left side of the phone. It’s clicky and has left a positive impression. So do the power key and volume rocker on the right side of the phone.

On the bottom, there’s a dual sim slot, a microphone, a USB-C port, and a speaker grille. Up top, there is a mic and an opening for the top speaker. Also, there’s an IR blaster – one we hadn’t seen on a flagship OnePlus.

Impressive Performance

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (4 nm)
• Octa-core (1×3.3 GHz Cortex-X4 & 3×3.2 GHz Cortex-A720 & 2×3.0 GHz Cortex-A720 & 2×2.3 GHz Cortex-A520)
• Adreno 750
• 512GB 16GB RAM, UFS 4.0

The OnePlus 12 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 like most 2024 flagship phones.

The phone is available in several memory configurations but the international version will only come in 12GB/256GB and 16GB/512GB version. In Nepal you do not get the 12GB variant, the 16/512GB is the sole variant available in Nepal. Either way, the RAM is LPDDR5X and the storage is UFS 4.0.

ColorOS and its spin-offs have a High-Performance mode in the battery settings, which allows the CPU to run at its peak with a high thermal threshold and high battery drain. The difference between Normal mode and High-Performance mode can be seen in single-core tests such as GeekBench and in turn the overall score in compound benchmarks (ANTUTU). The GPU isn’t affected by these settings though.

OnePlus 12 did come out slightly ahead of the S24 Ultra in ANTUTU 10 but it gets smoked by the Ultra in GeekBench 6 and 3DMark GPU benchmarks.

Gaming

OnePlus 12 is a cool customer when it comes to gaming performance. Though it has middling benchmark scores among flagship phones, it does better in gaming performance

PUBG Mobile can be played in high frame rate settings at the lowest graphics configuration. So, I played PUBG Mobile at “Extreme+ (90 fps)” frame rate and “Smooth” graphics configuration. In 25 minutes of gameplay, OnePlus 12 managed an average fps of 87.9 – impressive for a non-gaming phone.

OnePlus 12 offers gaming performance on par with a gaming phone.

To further explore OnePlus 12’s gaming capability I played Genshin Impact at the Highest graphics and 60fps frame limit configuration. In 30 minutes of gameplay, the OnePlus 12 managed an average fps of 59.2 – taking me by surprise once again.

After an hour of gaming, the OnePlus 12 did not feel uncomfortably hot either. It was warm around the camera module but that’s expected. To stack it up against the big boy’s, the OnePlus 12’s gaming performance is better and cooler than the Samsung S24 Ultra.

Competitive Camera

• Rear Camera: 50 MP, f/1.6, 23mm (wide), OIS
  • 64 MP, f/2.6, 70mm (periscope telephoto), 3x optical zoom
  • 48 MP, f/2.2, 14mm, ultrawide

• Front Camera: 12 MP, f/2.2, 26mm (wide)

The circular rear camera housing has three cameras – a 50MP main, a 48MP ultrawide, and a 64MP telephoto for 3x optical zoom.

The primary camera uses the LYT-808 sensor, the ultrawide camera uses Sony IMX581 and the telephoto camera is a 64MP OmniVision OV64B. The front camera is based on a 64MP Sony IMX 615 sensor.

Main Camera

The main camera captures impressive photos in daylight with excellent detail and a natural look. The color profile is closer to real life, and the photos do not have an over-processed look.

However, the OnePlus 12 tends to crank up the exposure slightly, giving the photos an overexposed look in daylight.

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In low-light situations, the main camera does a great job of handling highlights and light sources. The level of detail is praiseworthy, but the color leans towards warmer tones. The Night mode increases brightness but alters the color tone and increases warmth. I prefer using Auto mode over the Night mode on the OnePlus 12.

Ultrawide Camera

OnePlus 12’s ultrawide camera performs well but it is not excellent. The level of detail is decent, and the grain is minimal. The dynamic range is good, and exposure is generally well-balanced.

At night, the photos will show noticeable graininess along the edges. Similarly, the ultrawide photos are softer in low-light conditions.

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3X Telephoto Camera

The 3x telephoto camera performs well. The camera produces sharp, detailed images with a wide dynamic range and natural colors.

The 6X zoom shots are decent with sufficient sharpness. Ofcourse, it won’t have as much detail as dedicated shooters, but it is more than usable under good lighting.

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Portraits

The OnePlus 12 captures portraits at three zoom levels: 1x, 2x, and 3x. The portraits are pleasing with good background blur and nearly perfect edge detection. The 3x portraits look better than 1x portraits, offering much more natural background blur.

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Impressive Front Camera

Moving on to selfies, the 32MP sensor captures crisp selfies with plenty of detail. The skin tone appears natural and the color is somewhat soft.

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Videos

• 4k@60fps
• 8K@24fps

The OnePlus 12 can capture videos up to 8K resolution at 24fps with the main camera. Additionally, it supports 4K resolution at 60fps across all the cameras, excluding the front camera. The selfie camera is only capable of capturing 4K videos at 30fps.

The video quality of the OnePlus 12 is good but not excellent. The detail is good on the main camera but falls short compared to the leading competitors. Similarly, the ultrawide and telephoto camera’s output are decent too. The dynamic range is good on all cameras, although the main camera tends to overexpose.

OnePlus has done a commendable job achieving effective stabilization.

Regarding stabilization, both the main camera and ultrawide camera have almost no walking shake. Furthermore, I didn’t notice focus hunting on all three camera sensors. The telephoto lens footage feels jittery but it’s not that bad. Overall, the video quality of the OnePlus 12 is pretty good.

Top-Notch Display

• 6.8 inches LTPO AMOLED
• 1440 x 3168 pixels
• 120Hz refresh rate
• 1600 nits (HBM)

Oneplus 12 has an upgraded 6.82-inch display with a resolution of 1440×3168 pixels. It is an LTPO panel that can refresh between 1-120Hz.

It has 2160 PWM dimming and it supports Dolby Vision as well along with HDR10+.

Color & Brightness

The display panel of the OnePlus 12 supports 1B colors and offers good color reproduction. The OnePlus 12 offers three screen color modes: Natural, Pro, and Vivid. In a direct comparison with the S24 Ultra, the OnePlus 12’s color profile is commendable, but the Samsung S24 Ultra’s display appears sharper with superior contrast.

Good AMOLED panel but far from best in the industry.

I compared the display of the OnePlus 12 with the S24 Ultra, and the S24 Ultra performed better. Additionally, OnePlus boasts a peak brightness of 4500 nits, but it rarely reaches that level except under ProXDR processing in bright sunlight.

The S24 Ultra and OnePlus 12 appear similar in normal color processing, but the S24 Ultra delivers superior HDR processing. HDR videos display better contrast and color on the S24 Ultra. Moreover, in direct sunlight, the OnePlus 12 cannot compete with the S24 Ultra’s less reflective Gorilla Armor. The S24 Ultra’s display offers significantly better visibility and color production under direct sunlight, possibly enhanced by Samsung’s Vision Booster technology.

Refresh Rate

The OnePlus 12’s 120Hz display feels smooth and responsive, which is expected from a flagship phone. While it can technically drop to as low as 10Hz, it typically operates at higher rates.

The screen refresh rate modes available on the OnePlus 12 include Auto Select, Standard, and High. In Auto Select mode, the screen refresh rate adjusts dynamically based on the displayed content. For static or specific frame rate content, the refresh rate will automatically adjust to either 10Hz, 30Hz, or 60Hz, depending on the content. The Standard mode sets the refresh rate to 60Hz, while the High mode maintains a constant refresh rate of 120Hz.

Battery and Speaker

• 5400 mAh
• 100W wired charging

OnePlus 12 packs a 5400 mAh battery, a generous increase from OnePlus 11’s 5000 mAh battery.

During extended gaming sessions lasting over 2 hours, I achieved approximately 3 hours and 28 minutes of screen-on time. Likewise, I got around 6 hours of screen time in normal usage.

For charging, the OnePlus 12 supports 100W charging. However, it doesn’t ship with a charger in Nepal. Using the 100W charger, the phone charges from 0 to 100% in just 24 mins.

The OnePlus 12 has a dual speaker setup. The bottom-firing speaker is the main one and the secondary speaker fires through the earpiece slit and another opening at the top. The sound output is good, it is loud but feels slightly muffled. The sound quality of the S24 Ultra is better than that of the OnePlus 12.

OxygenOS

• Android 14
• OxygenOS 14

In terms of software, OnePlus 12 runs on Android 14 with Oxygen OS. You can expect to get 4 major OS upgrades and 5 years of security patches.

Is is really OxygenOS? Or is it just ColorOS.

OxygenOS used to have a distinct character that consumers loved about the old OnePlus. However, that characteristic is now merely an afterthought. Whether it’s RelameUI, OxygenOS, or ColorOS, the experience is almost indistinguishable.

Some original OnePlus features include custom clock faces for the Always-on display with a signature red accent and OnePlus Sans font.

The customization options are extensive. You can change various icon packs, quick toggle icon shapes, UI accent colors, and enable/disable Edge Lighting. Additionally, ColorOS features like screen-on/Screen-off gestures and Smart Sidebar have been carried over.

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So, this is my OnePlus 12 review. What do you think about the phone? If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments!