Alright, here’s the OnePlus 12R. It comes with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, but there are some decisions that OnePlus made for the 12R that I think is just weird. So, let’s get into the review.
Design
So, when we unboxed the phone – the first thing that stood out to me is the design. It looks… very similar to the OnePlus 11’s design. The camera cutout shape is the same, and I think the camera bump size is the same too. But instead of having a black circle, it has whatever color of the phone has. In my case, the Cool Blue color.
The phone’s shape is also very similar to the OnePlus 11 as it has curved edges. Both the back glass and the screen curve into the phone’s frame, making it look extra premium. If you like this kind of design, then good.
Screen
Now, the screen. It’s a 6.78-inch OLED screen with up to 120Hz refresh rate, pretty typical – but the resolution is at 2780×1264 pixels. It’s an in-between of 1080p and 1440p and I have no idea why they opted for this resolution.
Still, this screen looks absolutely amazing and from our colorimeter – it reports 99.92% sRGB and 98.44% of DCI-P3 color gamut coverage while having a maximum ΔE of 2.5. However, the average ΔE is very low – so I presume that value of 2.5 is an outlier.
The maximum brightness though, is only at around 1200 nits. Yeah, we don’t know how they got the 4500 nits number that they published on their website. If we check the footnote, it says this calculation is based on their own lab data. They don’t even want to publish their testing methodology for us to verify their claims.
So realistically speaking, 1200 nits is what we get and honestly speaking, it’s still plentiful even for bright sunny days outside. So, no worries there.
Performance
Now, in terms of performance – our unit of the OnePlus 12R is equipped with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM which is excessive, and Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset.
I have to confess – there are certain aspects of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 that are just plain better than the 8 Gen 3. Case in point – the sustained gaming performance. While we’re playing games on the OnePlus 12R, we’re seeing lower overall temperatures and also better sustained performance, hence a stable FPS even though it’s not that high.
Genshin Impact on this phone ran very good as it is at 60fps and sometimes drop to around 48-ish fps. Another game that is highly demanding is the CarX Street and it was also super smooth.
I personally prefer the 8 Gen 2 more because it can sustain performance over a longer period of time and even when it does thermal throttle, it doesn’t have such a huge FPS drop. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 might be newer, but newer isn’t exactly better as the gaming performance is great but not sustainable. When the 8 Gen 3 throttles, the FPS fluctuates way too much and it’s just jarring.
Battery life
But, when we’re not gaming, that’s where the 8 Gen 3 shines the brightest. You see, at lower power consumptions, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is much more efficient than the 8 Gen 2. While this phone is touted to be using a 5,500mAh battery, it’s not.
The OnePlus 12R is actually only using a 2750mAh battery in dual-cell configuration at 7.82V. That means, in truth, this phone has an equivalent 5,500mAh, but in truth this phone has a 21.51Wh battery capacity. To know what’s the difference between mAh and Wh, watch our video here. It’s very important as many phones are transitioning to dual-cell batteries.
Anyway, that 21.51Wh battery can last for nearly 16 hours. We need to deduct 30 minutes from this because I set the screen to timeout in 30 minutes.
Still, 16 hours of battery life in our standardized battery life test is amazing. I expected nothing less from OnePlus and I’m pleased.
Charging speed
However, the charging speed. Okay, let’s take a step back. When I saw the box of this phone, I immediately said “oh, there’s no charger included”. I’m fine if the charger is not included in Apple or Samsung phones since they use USB-PD PPS charging standard – and I have a super fantastic Ugreen 300W USB-PD PPS charger that I use to charge the ROG Ally and also my phones and laptops at full speed.
The problem with the OnePlus – no, with all phone brands except Apple and Samsung is that they’re using a proprietary charging standard. All of these marketing points in their website is useless unless we use OnePlus’s own charger and cable. And they don’t support USB-PD PPS.
And since the OnePlus 12R has no charger included, I can only test the charging speed with my Ugreen 300W charger. Because this phone doesn’t support USB-PD standard, this phone can only take in a measly 17.45W maximum. That means it needs like 75 minutes to charge from 15% to completion.
At least the battery temperature is very low?
Software
And the software – I’ve always liked OxygenOS more since it’s the clean version of ColorOS but it doesn’t seem to be as clean as what I remember. You see, when we launch a game now and drag in that game sidebar, it has a bunch of the “top-up discount” there and I can’t remove it.
I also can’t help but to feel this is a bit sketchy since there’s literally no name of the service shown. I had to dig for this info and I found out that this service is provided by SEAGM.
Probably OnePlus earns some affiliate money for purchases made through this menu, but I can’t confirm it.
It seems like the Shelf is also operating in a slightly different way now. It’s behaving like it’s a separate app when I drag down from the home screen, because when I hit the multitask button… there’s the Shelf and I can dismiss it.
I mean, this could be a software bug – but I still want to point this out.
Other than that, the overall experience of OxygenOS is still as amazing as ever – and still love this more than ColorOS. OnePlus is also promising 4 years of Android upgrades and 4 years of security patches too.
Oh by the way, the OnePlus 12R also has the alert slider at the left side and we have a total of 3 levels to select from.
Camera
My one problem with this phone is actually the cameras. With such a big camera bump that looks like the OnePlus 11, I expected similar camera performance, but no. The telephoto camera has been replaced by a 2MP fixed focus macro camera, whereby the ultrawide angle camera is now downgraded to an 8MP sensor…
But specs aside, the pictures coming out of this phone is… mediocre at best. The main camera, even though it is using the exact same camera sensor and lens as the OnePlus 11, does not share the same color science. I mean, these pictures taken by the OnePlus 12R are just very dull. Both indoor and outdoor shots just look… meh.
To have a look at all the pictures taken with the OnePlus 12R, watch our video at the top of this reivew.
A few more things to mention
And a few more things to mention about the OnePlus 12R. It comes with a USB 2.0 port at the bottom – and that also means no display output via this port, which is to be expected.
It has a dual SIM card slot but there is no microSD card slot and no audio jack as well, which is also to be expected.
It does, however, have an IR blaster at the top.
Should you buy the OnePlus 12R?
Now, the price of the OnePlus 12R is at RM3,199. I’d say the price is okay as OnePlus does offer their signature features like the alert slider. It also has a higher-than-usual resolution but is still below 1440p, while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 still offers an amazing gaming experience. Combined with the larger 21.51Wh battery, this phone can last you through a day or maybe two on a single charge. And 4 years of software updates means it can last us for a long time.
What’s lackluster about the OnePlus 12R is the cameras. Like what you saw earlier, they’re just not that good. While some people might say not having a charger in the box is also a problem – I’d say that’s not the main issue. The main issue is that OnePlus phones can only take in 17.5W via USB-PD.
If OnePlus supports up to at least 45W of USB-PD, I’d actually support OnePlus’s decision to not include a charger in the box. It’s their own proprietary charging bullcrap that caused this problem.
Where to buy? (Affiliate links)
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