Will the OnePlus 12R be the perfect flagship killer out there?
The OnePlus R series is one of the best offerings in the budget flagship segment of the market. It bridges the gap between the flagship OnePlus series and the budget Nord series, thus providing almost all the flagship specifications present in the flagship OnePlus number series, making a value-for-money proposition.
Last year's OnePlus 11R (Review) was a solid budget flagship from OnePlus as it packed some of the best specifications for the price, so with the OnePlus 12R there are a lot of expectations. The OnePlus 12 (Review) launched this year is a solid offering as it gets all the top-notch flagship specifications for its price. The OnePlus 12R, on the other hand, is trying its best to remain at the top spot just like its elder sibling.
The OnePlus 12R comes with last year's flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset and almost all the features on the OnePlus 12. So can the OnePlus 12R set the bar high for OnePlus just like its predecessor and is it worth buying out there?
Let's find out in the full review.
OnePlus 12R Design:
The OnePlus 12R comes with a similar build and design philosophy to its predecessor i.e. OnePlus 11R with the circular camera module placed on the squarish module at the back. The circular camera module houses the triple cameras with an LED flashlight just placed outside the circular camera module. The camera bump is slightly raised, but the circular module is smaller than the OnePlus 12.
In terms of protection, the back of the smartphone is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 which is good. There are two different colours to choose from - Cool Blue and Iron Gray where if you select the Cool Blue variant, you get a smooth glossy finish that catches a lot of fingerprints whereas if you choose the Gray variant, you get a shimmery glitter-like frosted finish that looks premium and provides a solid grip while holding in hands.
The back of the smartphone now gets an IP64 rating which means it can easily survive water splashes. Around the sides, the OnePlus 12R is slimmer at 8.8mm and this time, there is an aluminium frame that surrounds the whole smartphone which is a good upgrade over the polycarbonate frame on the OnePlus 11R.
It houses the volume buttons with a power button on the right side whereas the left side houses the signature alert slider to control between three different profiles - Mute, Vibrate and Sound. On the top, there is a secondary noise-cancelling microphone, an IR Blaster, and a secondary speaker setup. At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C, a primary microphone, a loudspeaker grille, and a dual SIM card slot.
There is neither a 3.5mm headphone jack nor a microSD card slot for storage expansion. The smartphone weighs around 207 grams which is slightly heavier. At the front, there is a single punch hole present in the display to the centre at the top. Around the display, you get very minimum bezels all around. Like its elder sibling, the OnePlus 12R also has a curved display that looks premium.
OnePlus 12R Display:
The OnePlus 12R sports a larger 6.78-inch 1.5K(1264x2780 pixels) AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 19.8:9. Since it is a 10-bit AMOLED display, you get great colour reproduction and viewing angles. Since it is an LTPO display, the display refreshes between 1Hz and 120Hz depending on the content in the display.
Now talking about the refresh rate, the display has two different settings to choose from - Standard and High where if you switch to Standard mode, it provides a 60Hz refresh rate whereas switching to High Mode, the display switches between 30Hz, 45Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz, and 120Hz accordingly. There is also another option of setting an App-specific refresh rate where you can set which applications can be tuned for different refresh rates.
Just like the OnePlus 12, this display on the OnePlus 12R can reach a peak brightness of 4500nits which is great but the fact is that very few pixels in the display exhibit 4500nits of brightness whereas the usual brightness hovers around 1600nits while viewing the contents in HDR whereas, under direct sunlight, you get brightness of around 1000nits.
The display of the OnePlus 12R has three different settings to choose from - Vivid, Natural, and Pro modes where you have two different modes - Cinematic and Brilliant. Turning on the Vivid or Pro mode provides saturated colours whereas switching to Natural mode provides off-white colours on the display but they have more of a natural look.
There is also a temperature slider where you can set the display to a warmer or cooler tone. The OnePlus 12R has an optical in-display fingerprint scanner which works accurately and is faster. The display of the OnePlus 12R is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2. The display has support for HDR10+ so you can view HDR content on YouTube.
Also, there is Widevine L1, so you stream HDR content on OTT platforms like Netflix, Prime, etc. Just like the OnePlus 12, there is the support for Aquatouch which ensures that the display can be used if there are splashes of water present on it which provides benefits during rainy days. Overall the display is great for multimedia consumption.
OnePlus 12R Performance:
The OnePlus 12R is powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset which was used in last year's flagship OnePlus 11 (Review). This chipset is very strong as it provides great performance in all activities whether it is playing games, switching between different applications, scrolling through webpages, etc. So the smartphone would not feel slow and can handle everything without breaking a sweat.
In BGMI, the smartphone ran smoothly at HDR graphics and Ultra frame rates without much frame drops. Even at Smooth graphics with 90fps frame rates, the gameplay was very smooth. After longer hours of gaming i.e. 3-4 hours, the smartphone does feel slightly warmer, especially around the camera module. OnePlus has equipped a vapour cooling system to dissipate heat but still, it does feel slightly warmer.
In the CPU throttling test, the smartphone could achieve around 80-85 per cent of the sustained performance with very minimal throttling present when the High-Performance Mode is turned on. Without the High-Performance Mode, the smartphone provides a sustained performance of around 70-75 per cent with some throttling present.
In terms of benchmarks, the scores came out good but the scores are slightly lesser compared to the scores on other smartphones having the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset as OnePlus has underclocked the chipset to prevent thermal throttling or overheating. But with the High Performance Mode turned on, the scores come out slightly higher.
In terms of network connectivity, you get good carrier aggregation and there is support for up to 15 bands of 5G. The OnePlus 12R is available in two different variants - 8GB RAM with 128GB storage and another 16GB RAM with 256GB storage both of which have RAM of LPDDR5 configuration and storage speeds of UFS 3.1. Initially, OnePlus had made a mistake by saying that the 16GB RAM variant has UFS 4.0 speeds but later it was seen to have UFS 3.1 speeds.
OnePlus 12R Software:
The OnePlus 12R runs on the latest OxygenOS 14 based on Android 14 out of the box. The look and feel is almost similar to that of the OxygenOS 13 or even the ColorOS 14. You do get a lot of customizations in terms of changing the icon shape and size, colour, font size, different lock screen animations (design for Always-On Display), fingerprint animations, etc.
Even in the Always-On Display with the OxygenOS 14, you get a new AOD style called the "Go Green AOD" which shows the carbon emissions on our planet. Compared to the OxygenOS 13, there are a couple of newer features like Auto Pixelate 2.0, File Dock, Smart Cutout in the gallery application, etc. The File Dock feature lets you crop text, images, videos, etc. and use it as a GIF in different applications.
There is the Fluid Cloud which works similarly to Dynamic Island on the Apple iPhones. Auto Pixelate 2.0 lets you pixelate/blur sensitive information like debit/credit card numbers or any contact information for privacy in the gallery which is great. Other than that there is no bloatware present and when it comes to software updates, it will receive another three years of AndroidOS updates and four years of security patches.
OnePlus 12R Cameras:
The OnePlus 12R has a similar camera setup as that of its predecessor i.e. OnePlus 11 which includes a 50MP f/1.8 Sony IMX890 sensor for the primary camera with support for OIS, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera. On the front, the smartphone gets a 16MP f/2.4 camera for selfies.
The images from the main camera come out with excellent details and the dynamic range is wide enough. The colours look punchier and have a higher contrast level with no oversharpening in the background. Even the noise is very low but in HDR images, there is some overprocessing that takes place in the background but still, you get a good amount of details and less noise.
At night, the images from the primary camera come out with sharper details and a wider dynamic range. The exposure is well handled even in the darkest situations where there is almost no light as the auto white balance and the Night Mode trigger automatically when you are taking an image in the dark. There is almost no noise in the background which is really good and the colours do look punchier also.
Since the OnePlus 12R misses out on a telephoto camera, you can use the main camera for 2x or 5x digital zoom and the results using the 2x zoom came out with sharper details and the colours are well saturated with less noise present in the background. Similar is the situation even in the night but if you go around 5x zoom, then the details look slightly softer and the noise is on the higher side in the background.
The 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of details and colours look saturated in the background. However, still,, the colours do not match exactly as that of the images from the main camera. When you move towards the edges of the image taken there is some distortion that takes place and you get some noise in the background.
Similarly, at night, the 8MP ultrawide camera does a decent job in terms of details which do look sharper but the dynamic range is not wide enough. The noise is definitely slightly on the higher side but the colours do look accurate without any kind of oversharpening. However, the camera cannot produce the details in shadows and exposure is not so well handled as on the primary camera.
There is a 2MP macro camera which is just there to make up for the numbers as the details from it look average and the dynamic range is just average. The colours do look washed out and there is a large amount of noise captured in the image. In terms of portraits, the images do have sharper details and excellent dynamic range with almost less noise in the background.
The edge detection is perfect and so is the background blur which can be adjusted also after clicking the image. The colours look punchier and noise is barely present in the portraits which is really good. On the front, there is a 16MP camera for selfies and the selfies come out with sharper details and have a good dynamic range with less noise in the background.
The skin tones look accurate without any oversharpening in the background but still, the white balance and contrast come out to be average. In terms of portrait selfies, the edge detection is good and the details look good. In terms of videos, the primary camera can record 4K videos at 60fps and the details in the videos look sharper with good dynamic range and less noise in the background.
There is the Ultra Steady Mode which works really well in 1080p videos at 60fps and the videos come out very smooth with no noise in the background. The colours look well saturated and the white balance along with contrast is handled very well. The videos from the ultrawide camera are restricted to 1080p at 30fps which comes out with average details but does have good dynamic range.
The noise is slightly present on the higher side but the colours look accurate. Unlike the OnePlus 12 which supports 4K recording from the front camera, the selfie camera on the OnePlus 12R is restricted to 1080p videos at 30fps which comes out with good details but some highlights look blown out in the background and dynamic range comes to be average. However, the noise is lower as the EIS works very well.
OnePlus 12R Battery Life:
The OnePlus 12R sports a larger 5500mAh battery which is the highest capacity battery in any OnePlus smartphone to date. With normal usage that includes streaming social media, scrolling through webpages, playing games casually for around an hour or two, taking images using the camera, etc. the smartphone easily lasts for two and half days with some battery left.
With heavy usage that includes playing games for 3-4 hours continuously, running benchmarks, rendering videos, etc. the smartphone lasts for a day and a half which is really very good. The standard screen-on time came out around 5-5.5 hours with heavy usage and around 8.5-9 hours of standard screen-on time which is just best in class.
In terms of charging, the OnePlus 12R is equipped with a 100W SuperVOOC charger that charges the smartphone from 0 to 100 per cent in around 35-40 minutes which is very fast but you do miss out on the wireless charging capability like the OnePlus 12 which may not be a nig concern since this is a budget flagship from OnePlus. Overall the battery life and charging speeds are excellent.
OnePlus 12R Audio Quality:
The OnePlus 12R sports a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds adequately loud and clear thus providing a balanced sound output from both the top as well as the bottom speaker. The sound output is clear and does not feel distorted even at the highest volume settings. There is support for Dolby Atmos for enhanced sound output. You do miss out on a 3.5mm headphone jack though.
Verdict:
The OnePlus 12R is a great smartphone that brings the best of everything considering its specifications for its price. You get a solid build and design, a great AMOLED display along with a set of stereo speakers for multi-media consumption, great performance and gaming with a powerful chipset, a good set of cameras, an amazing battery life with support for fast charging, and a solid software experience.
However, there are some areas where things could have been better for the OnePlus 12R. OnePlus has not tweaked the camera setup on its smartphone as it brings a similar camera setup as on the OnePlus 11R and also the images and videos from the ultrawide camera in low light and the videos from the front camera could have been better and further need some improvement.
OnePlus has also skipped the telephoto camera which could have better sense. It could have been better if OnePlus had gone with a USB Type-C to Type-C charger for support for faster PD charging. The USB port at the bottom supports only USB 2.0 speeds instead of the UFS 3.1 speeds.
Though the performance is good daily, when it comes to gaming, there are slight frame drops noticed while playing games in the highest graphics settings and also the back does feel warmer at times. But other than these things, the OnePlus 12R is a solid smartphone as it brings quite a few improvements over its predecessor i.e. OnePlus 11R and also seems like a mini version of the OnePlus 12.
The OnePlus 12R is a solid product from OnePlus which still continues to carry the title of the flagship killer.
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