OnePlus 12R review: Flagship vibes from a $500 phone

Election is a beautiful thing.

The OnePlus 12R has just arrived in the US, and not a moment too soon. This is the first $500 smartphone we’ve seen in a while Samsung Galaxy A54 And google pixel 7a No serious competition.

Each of these devices is a slightly different answer to the same questions: What is absolutely essential in a phone? What will you keep when you can’t have it all? Maybe you can’t live without wireless charging, or you want full water resistance and a larger screen, or you want a high-end processor so the phone feels faster for longer periods of time. Guess what? Now you have options! You can afford to be selective with more options on the table.

It all starts with the screen. The OnePlus 12R comes with a 6.78-inch display, which is larger than the 6.1-inch Pixel 7A and 6.4-inch Galaxy A54 screens. The resolution is a little over 1080p, which seems like enough pixels to cover such a large display. It offers a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz, and it uses a technology called low-temperature polycrystalline oxide, or LTPO, to downshift up to 1Hz. Other high refresh rate screens on budget phones vary between a few settings like 60 and 90 Hz. LTPO panels are This is much more common among flagship phonesAnd they actually offer variable refresh rates, which saves battery life.

The screen’s maximum brightness of 4,500 nits sounds absolutely amazing considering most phone screens have a maximum brightness between 1,000 and 2,000 nits. And it gets brighter in direct sunlight, but because of the way we measure such things, it’s not as fantastically bright as it seems. In any case, the screen is comfortable enough to be used outside in sunny conditions, which is rare even in a budget phone.

I noticed a strange screen flickering on a few occasions. This happens maybe once a day, and it’s just a fleeting thing. I asked OnePlus about this behavior, and spokesperson Spencer Blank told me it was the first he had heard of it. This is an unusual little bug on an otherwise great display.

Under the hood, the 12R comes with last year’s flagship chipset: the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, along with 8 or 16 GB of RAM. The 8 Gen 2 is a complete unit that powers every one of last year’s $1,000 Android flagships, and I had no problems handling daily tasks and even cropping some rapid-fire portrait mode photos. Using last year’s chip is a smart move, like buying a high-end coat at an end of season sale. It’s not the very latest, but it’s still a very nice coat.

The flagship vibes carry over to the overall build. The 12R offers a sturdy aluminum frame in a price range where composite plastics are quite common. The back panel is glass, and the front panel is Gorilla Glass Victus 2 – all very nice and high quality. But here’s the less encouraging news: the 12R comes with an IP64 rating, so although it’s completely dustproof, it’s only resistant to splashes and splashes of water.

Both the Pixel 7A and Galaxy A54 come with an IP67 rating, which means they can withstand being submerged in water for a while like a puddle or (God forbid) a toilet bowl. Are made for. The 12R absolutely looks and feels the part of a high-end phone, but in unfortunate circumstances, it may not perform that well.

Long live the alert slider: OnePlus’ signature three-stage mute switch is active and works well on the 12R. It’s an easy way to turn your volume up to watch TikTok and then immediately turn it back down again, and I appreciate that.

I’m less keen on the phone’s curved edges – sometimes a menu option disappears off the edge of the screen, and I feel as if I’m tapping on the edge of the phone to reach it. Plus, they make the phone feel a little more slippery in your hand. It’s personal preference, but flat edges have been making a comeback on phones lately and I’m here for it.

Anything else that’s not so good? No wireless charging. The OnePlus 12R supports very fast wired charging – up to 80W for the US version. Wireless charging isn’t that common on $500 phones, but the Pixel 7A has it. This isn’t necessarily true for everyone, but I personally would prefer the flexibility of wireless charging over fast wired charging.

OnePlus 12R is based on the company’s Android 14, OxygenOS 14. It’s straightforward and doesn’t require as much change as Samsung’s One UI to live with. The company says the 12R will get three years of OS upgrades and four years of security support – not a class-leading support policy, but enough to last as long as most people will want to hang onto this phone.

If you don’t press it too hard, the OnePlus 12R’s camera takes very good photos. The standard 1x shooting mode of the still 50-megapixel main camera produces nice, detailed images with rich colours. The 2x setting is surprisingly capable, considering this is just digital zoom – not lossless crop zoom.

I used it in dim indoor lighting, and it included some sharp photos of my kid and his friend preparing to roast a Beanie Baby on a play kitchen stove. (No Beanie Babies were harmed.) Regardless of the lighting conditions, the system kept the shutter speed fast enough to freeze the action, which is no small feat for a phone camera.

However, the 12R comes out of its skis at the 5x zoom setting. Even in plenty of outdoor light, photos look like a blurry mess of up-scaled digital zoom processing. Portrait mode is surprisingly capable, and wisely, OnePlus limits you to a 1x zoom setting here.

There is a redundant two-megapixel macro camera which I believe OnePlus included only to round out the number of lenses on the rear camera bump. Video recording is fine for casual clips – 1080/30p is the default, but you can upscale it to 4K/30p without noticeable cropping.

The OnePlus 12R is a much-needed midrange contender in the US. It lacks some features that you might find in its counterparts, like wireless charging and a better water resistance rating, but it makes up enough to make it a legitimate alternative to the Pixel and Galaxy alternatives.

For starters, you won’t find a screen this big and this good in any other $500 phone sold in the US. Overall the build quality is top notch, even if the curved edges aren’t my favorite. Choosing Qualcomm’s last-generation flagship chipset is also a smart move. I find its long-term prospects better than the competing Tensor and Exynos chips.

The Pixel 7A is probably still the better choice for photo quality, although I’m impressed by how small its lead is over the OnePlus. The 12R actually outperforms the Pixel in some situations, such as at the 2x zoom setting, but ultimately, the 7A offers a more consistent camera experience. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a larger screen and better water resistance, the Galaxy A54 is worth considering, although it also lacks wireless charging and lacks some of the features of the 12R with its overall frame.

The 12R won’t be the right choice for everyone, but you know what? He is alright. It doesn’t have to be a one-size-fits-all tool as you have other options as well. And that’s a wonderful thing.

Photography by Alison Johnson/The Verge