Not even a month into 2024 and we already have so many product launches that it is tough to keep a track of. OnePlus is the latest brand to make use of the early start to 2024 with the much anticipated OnePlus 12. The new flagship comes as the successor to the OnePlus 11, which, for a lot of reviewers and users out there, was OnePlus’ resurrection as the caterer to the enthusiasts. Now, can the OnePlus 12 carry forward the return of the brand, or is this also one of the hit-and-miss situations that we have seen from OnePlus in the recent past?
I have been using the OnePlus 12 for the past few days and in this article, I will give my first impressions on the device. From the face of it, there are a lot of improvements across the board with the OnePlus 12. This year, the OnePlus 12 looks like a proper flagship smartphone with enough might, not only in performance, but also in the camera, display, battery, and charging space. Design? Well, that is a subjective thing right?
DESIGN
But I will start nevertheless. The design of the OnePlus 12 is striking and distinctive. Looking at the smartphone, you can easily tell that this is a OnePlus device. The round camera module with the Hasselblad branding, the marble-like back panel, the curved display up-front, everything is proper OnePlus. I personally like the marble-like finish on the back panel, which is now a OnePlus thing, thanks to last year’s Marble Odyssey Edition OnePlus 11 model.
The camera module also has the marble-like finish, along with a metal frame that bleeds out of the phone’s larger frame. Looks kind of cool. Like the camera frame was folded onto fit on the cameras. Furthermore, we get a curved hole-punch front display, and the signature OnePlus alert slider on the left side of the frame. With Apple removing the alert slider with the iPhone 15 Pro models, OnePlus remains the only brand to have this now.
DISPLAY
Coming to the display, here also the OnePlus 12 seems impressive so far. Now, since this is a first impressions story, I haven’t gotten the chance to test this display to its limits, but it looks stunning. We get a 6.82-inch QHD AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and LTPO 4. So in terms of specs, this checks all the boxes that one would expect from a proper flagship. And that is not all, the OnePlus 12 is also claimed to have 4,500 nits of peak brightness! Now, how close that is to reality is subject to deeper testing, but the display seems bright enough to use in all kinds of environments. Of course, in extremely bright sun, the visibility isn’t the best, but its still good enough to use in all kinds of environments.
Further, the 120Hz adaptive refresh rate makes scrolling and switching through menus an absolutely slick experience, plus the LTPO AMOLED panel also does its bit to save your OnePlus 12’s battery. Then comes the content viewing experience, where the smartphone comes with all the bells and whistles. The OnePlus 12 supports Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and other HDR content, so if you want to experience content in high definition, the OnePlus 12 has got you covered. I watched a movie on a 3-hour flight on the OnePlus 12 and the experience was as immersive as it can get on a smartphone, so great!
PERFORMANCE
Coming to performance, the OnePlus 12 comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip paired with up to 16GB RAM. Plus, there’s also the thermal management trickery that OnePlus has done. Now, given the bleeding edge specs, the performance numbers weren’t as high as I was expecting from the OnePlus 12. For example, the smartphone managed to put out an AnTuTu score of about 1,698,313 as compared to the 2 million-plus score that we have seen on the iQOO 12, the only other Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 smartphone that I have tested so far. In fact, the OnePlus 12 even came behind the Vivo X100 Pro, which is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 9300 SoC with the same amount of RAM. Surprising.
Even in Geekbench 6, the OnePlus 12 didn’t put out the kind of score that I was expecting from the smartphone. We were able to get a single-core score of 948 and a multi-core score of 4,738 on Geekbench. Very powerful, but seems low as compared to competing devices. While this is just the CPU performance numbers, and I haven’t tested the GPU so far (wait for full review for that), the OnePlus 12’s performance numbers seem lacking as compared to some of the competing devices.
BATTERY
Battery, I haven’t got the chance to test thoroughly yet, but here also, there are a few things worth mentioning. Firstly, the OnePlus 12 brings back wireless charging. Something I have always wished to have on a OnePlus smartphone and something OnePlus has always been rather stingy about. This year, we are getting wireless charging with the OnePlus 12 along with reverse wireless charging. The good thing is that we are getting wireless charging, but the bad thing is that we are not sure if that will be the case next year, or the year after.
CAMERA
Coming to camera, this is the first OnePlus flagship that comes with a periscope lens. We get a proper Hasselblad-powered triple rear camera setup that includes a primary 50-megapixel shooter, a 64-megapixel periscope telephoto shooter, and a 48-megapixel ultra-wide angle lens. The images out of the primary shooter are very good. The colour representation, the dynamic range, everything is very good. Further, with the new telephoto lens (first one on a OnePlus device), we now get 6X optical zoom, which makes a hell of a difference.
You can click many perspectives with the 1x, 2x, 3x, and 6x zoom levels, and the telephoto also enables a 120x digital zoom, which is not good in terms of the quality of the 120x images, but it is there so you can zoom into distant objects and at least make out what is what.
VERDICT
Now, while I have not tested the OnePlus 12 through and through, the smartphone looks great. This is a proper OnePlus look and feel, but without the heavy and un-wavered focus on performance. In fact, this time there seems to be a major focus on a full-fledged flagship feel. This year, the OnePlus 12 is not competing with its usual competitors. This year, the OnePlus flagship is competing with the Apple’s, Google’s and Samsung’s of the market. Offering you not just performance, but also a complete flagship experience that has a good camera, good display, and of course, premium features. Full review will be out soon, but until then, if you wish to buy the OnePlus 12, this should be of help.
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