Realme 12 5G
The Realme 12+ 5G shines in two key areas – design and camera. Priced at ₹20,999, the Realme 12+ 5G stands out due its well though out design language; something that most companies shirk off at this price point. Plus, its primary camera shows great promise with good tuning. The Realme 12+ 5G is a no brainer for those who want a eye-turner phone that clicks some great pictures. However, if you’re a gamer or someone who wants long-lasting battery life, there are some options in the market that are better.
Just over a month ago, Realme launched its first 2024 in the mid-range smartphone market with its Realme 12 Pro series. Now, the company is back with its latest budget offering: the Realme 12 series, comprising the Realme 12 5G and the subject of our scrutiny, the Realme 12+ 5G. The Realme 12+ 5G aims to make its mark in a crowded market, boasting a sleek design and an impressive camera setup. With its stylish vegan leather back panel and a robust 50 MP Sony LYT-600 sensor, this device promises both style and substance.
However, it faces stiff competition from phones like the POCO X6 (review), Nothing Phone (2a) (review), and the upcoming iQOO Z7. Can the Realme 12+ 5G distinguish itself amidst such rivals? And does it live up to its promise? Let’s find out!
The Realme 12+ 5G is priced at ₹20,999 for the 8+128 GB variant. If you want for storage, you can go for the 8+256 GB model which is priced at ₹21,999. You can also get up to ₹2,000 off on select bank cards. The Realme 12+ 5G launched in India on March 6. It is available to purchase on realme.com, Flipkart, and offline stores.
Like the Realme 12 Pro series, the company has collaborated with French luxury watchmaker Ollivier Savéo to design the new Realme 12+ 5G. The circular camera module is modelled after the dials of luxury watches, giving it a very unique and premium look. The back features a soft vegan leather finish with a silver strip running down the centre.
The Realme 12+ 5G is available in two colours – Pioneer Green and Navigator Beige. I got the former for review, and it looks stunning. In fact, I prefer this colour over the other; it is very unique and distinctive.
The frame of the phone is not my favourite though. It is a glossy plastic frame that looks a bit cheap and attracts a LOT of fingerprints. A matte texture would be infinitely better here. The phone is quite slim though, at just 7.87 mm and it weighs only 190 g. It is one of the slimmest phones in the market at this price, which is pretty nice. It also comes with IP54 dust and water resistance, which is fairly common now.
The rear panel is nice and grippy but the phone’s flat sides can dig into the palm of your hand over time and make it uncomfortable to hold. Also, the vibration motor feels really cheap; the feedback is very poor. Nevertheless, the back panel alone is a work of art; a true rarity at this competitive price.
The Realme 12+ 5G houses a 6.67-inch AMOLED display with the usual niceties. You get Full HD+ resolution, 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut coverage, and 16.7 million colours support. There’s also 120 Hz refresh rate support and HDR10+ support. Sadly though, HDR support is not available on Netflix yet and HDR videos on YouTube lag quite a bit. I hope Realme can fix this via a software update, mainly because the screen is quite bright and vivid already, so HDR content would look great on this.
Realme has also added a Rainwater Smart Touch feature where the phone’s touch response is unhindered even if the screen is wet. This worked quite well during my testing and it is a useful feature to have, especially in cities like Mumbai where it rains a lot.
The Realme 12+ 5G is rated to have a peak brightness of 2,000 nits but in my testing, I got a maximum peak brightness reading of 1,022 nits under bright sunlight. This is pretty good for the price and I never faced any screen legibility issues. Content also looks rich and detailed on this phone, however, the POCO X6 does show it up with its 1.5K resolution display. Overall though, a solid AMOLED panel with impressive brightness and good colour reproduction; it is primarily let down by the HDR support issue.
The Realme 12+ 5G houses the MediaTek Dimensity 7050 processor with the Mali-G68 MC4 GPU. It comes with 8 GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128 or 256 GB of UFS 3.1 storage. Credit where its due, I’m glad Realme went with UFS 3.1 instead of 2.2 since the app loading and data transfer speeds are much faster compared to the costlier Nothing Phone (2a). That aside, this chipset is definitely not the fastest on the block.
For instance, in AnTuTu v10, the phone scores 6,06,667 which pales in comparison to the scores on the Nothing Phone (2a), and the POCO X6 5G. The phone scores 961 in GeekBench’s Single Core test and 2,415 in the Multi Core test; again not the best at this budget. Then again, it does score well in PCMark Work, meaning it is pretty capable at running excel sheets, image editing, and general day to day tasks.
In GPU tests, the Realme 12+ scores 2278 points in 3D Mark Wild Life, a decent score that’s sadly bested by the POCO X6 again. The phone redeems itself in GFXBench though, with good scores. So, although the Realme 12+ 5G is not the most powerful phone at this price range, it is still smooth enough for daily usage. Social media, video calls, web browsing and more work smoothly, but if you’re an ardent gamer, the POCO X6 is a better option.
As for software, you’ve got Realme UI 5.0 based on Android 14. The company provides two years of OS upgrades and three years of security patches, which is lacklustre. And if you’ve read enough of my Realme reviews, you know how I feel about Realme UI. It is the most bloatware-ridden OS I’ve experienced in 2023 and now, in 2024 as well. With options like the Nothing Phone (2a) with a clean OS, Realme needs to seriously step up its game in this department.
Housing a 50 MP Sony LYT-600 main camera, the Realme 12+ 5G stands tall as one of the better camera phones in its price segment. The 50 MP sensor has an f/1.8 aperture and OIS capabilities. The other two cameras aren’t spectacular though – an 8 MP ultrawide shooter and a 2 MP portrait camera. Either way, it’s the primary camera that’s the star of the show and it does shine.
There’s no missing the solid detail and dynamic range of the photos that come out of the Realme 12+ 5G’s primary camera. Shots look great with excellent HDR and vivid colours. The colours are a bit contrast-y but these look great for social media. Close-ups also have solid detail. Even though Realme has boosted the saturation of scenes, human subjects look closer to natural than they’ve ever looked on a Realme phone. There is room for improvement still, but they’ve come a long way.
As for portraits, the Realme 12+ does well with good detail, skin tone, and edge detection. The edge detection is not perfect, but the phone does a commendable job for the asking price.
Ultrawide photos and macro shots could be better; they’re just about average. Selfie photos, however, look stellar with good detail retention and dynamic range. There’s enough detail present on the faces as well. The phone allows for 4K at 30 fps video recording and 1080p video on the front camera.
The Realme 12+ 5G has a large 5,000 mAh battery to keep the lights on. The phone supports 67 W SUPERVOOC charging and comes with the charger bundled in the retail box. The battery life, while decent, doesn’t break the mold. Sure, the phone can last light users more than a day, but if you click photos, shoot 4K videos, and/or play games; the phone may run dry before the end of the day.
For example, one hour of running Google Maps drained the battery by a whopping 13 percent, and 15 minutes of Call of Duty: Mobile dropped the battery levels by 6 percent. The 67 W charging is pretty fast though. The phone can charge from zero to full in just 47 minutes, according to our tests.
The Realme 12+ 5G shines in two key areas – design and camera. Priced at ₹20,999, the Realme 12+ 5G stands out due its well though out design language; something that most companies shirk off at this price point. Plus, its primary camera shows great promise with good tuning. The Realme 12+ 5G is a no brainer for those who want a eye-turner phone that clicks some great pictures. However, if you’re a gamer or someone who wants long-lasting battery life, there are some options in the market that are better. One example is the POCO X6 5G that beats out the Realme 12+ in both these key areas. Also, if you want a cleaner UI, the Nothing Phone (2a) is a good option that costs just ₹3,000 more.
