The OnePlus 12 is an absolute Powerhouse with amazing battery life but is it actually worth your money let’s find out One Plus’s latest flagship phone is packed with potent Tech from its glorious screen
Due to its insanely powerful processor its battery life is great and it charges in lightning fast time too it’s a phone that works really hard to justify its Flagship title but then it needs to as the
OnePlus 12 is more expensive than last year’s OnePlus 11 let’s dive in and take a closer look visually the OnePlus 12 design doesn’t stray too far from the OnePlus 11s it features an almost identical
circular camera unit set into a curving glass back with a glossy aluminium frame. The 12’s glass back is frosted now though and my green review model features this wavy pattern that I quite like feels good to hold with quite
A solid feel to it that I think feels more premium than last year’s quite slippery 11 obviously though looks are subjective but it might be worth seeing if you can go Hands-On with a model before you
Spend your money I like that the volume buttons have been moved to the same side as the power button now which I found generally makes them easier to use with one hand while the iconic OnePlus toggle slider is now on the opposite side the phone is ip64 rated
This should help keep it safe from spilled drinks or if you’re taking phone calls in the rain and using the phone in the rain should be a bit easier as well as the display has been designed to still register inputs
Even when it’s wet I sprinkled the phone with tap water and even though it was covered in droplets it still registered all of my inputs at 6.2 in the OnePlus 12 screen is big enough to give you plenty of room for playing your mobile games
While it’s high resolution and Vivid colors means that all content looks great OnePlus claims that it is the brightest screen ever found on a smartphone, with a whopping 4,500 nits Peak brightness now theoretically makes it around twice
As bright as the iPhone 15 Pro Max but those are lab-based figures and in real-world usage that difference isn’t so huge There’s no question that it is very bright so it does make it a good phone for using Outdoors
It runs the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 gen 3 processor backed up by 16 GB of RAM as the most Cutting-Edge chip from Qualcomm it is safe to expect this new processor to be an absolute powerhouse genin impact when played at maxed-out settings with incredibly smooth 60 frames per second gameplay with absolutely zero lag
Or stuttering scene at any point ditto for Asphalt 9 Legends on 3D Mark’s Wildlife Extreme Graphics Benchmark it’s beaten scores from both the iPhone 15 Pro Max and Samsung’s brand new Galaxy s24 Ultra in fact the scores it achieved on that test were some of the highest I have ever seen
General navigation around the interface is of course extremely nippy and buttery smooth and in fact generally, I found nothing that could really slow it down
OnePlus reckons that one of the bigger benefits of its various software optimizations is that it’ll keep it running smoothly for longer
I’ve only been testing this phone for a little over a week so I’m going to have to come back to that in months time to see if it’s still performing as it should it’s running Android 14 at its core with Oneplus’s own oxygen OS skin over the top
I quite like the interface because it’s very neat and easy to use whether you are an Android beginner or you’re very experienced with smartphones OnePlus is offering four years of software support and an additional fifth year of security support
and that’s the same offered with the OnePlus 11 and both Google and Samsung are offering at least 7 years of support on their phones and longer support periods mean that your phone will be safer to use for longer
That’s better for you it’s better for the planet and while 5 years total isn’t bad it is disappointing not to see OnePlus trying to up its game here the other aspect of Oneplus’s various software optimizations is in power efficiency
Battery Life & Charging
And together with a pretty capacious 4,500 mAh battery, this phone delivers superb battery life after 3 hours of YouTube streaming at full brightness this phone had dropped from Full to only 95% remaining which is one of the best efforts I have ever seen on this test in short
I am very impressed with the battery on this thing but if you do happen to start to run low on power,
Then putting it back into the phone is a very quick process in the US the OnePlus 12 supports
80 W fast charging, which should take the phone from empty to full in a little over 30 minutes my UK model takes that even further with a 100 WT fast charging
Now that should take it from empty to full in about 26 minutes or empty to half full in only 11 minutes fast charging like this is one of my favorite features of any phone cuz it means you don’t need to worry about running out of juice
towards the end of the day the phone also has wireless charging something not seen on last year’s OnePlus 11 and it’s Fast 2 supporting 50 WS wireless charging as long as you can find a compatible.
Camera
Charger OnePlus phones have typically offered great processor performance but have been let down by pretty average cameras and unfortunately, that’s the same story here OnePlus 12 comes with three rear cameras and in daylight shots on the main camera’s decent exposure is generally good their’s plenty of detail to be seen and colors are mostly quite accurate there’s less color shift
when you switch between Main and ultrawide lenses too which was something I found to be a particular problem on the last model the three-time zoom lens captures zoomed-in shots with adequate detail
and even the six-time zoom can produce some good-looking images as long as you’re shooting in bright conditions it’s a shame not to see a longer telephoto Zoom here as I absolutely love the five-times optical zoom on both the
iPhone 15 Pro Max and the Pixel 8 Pro at night performance significantly drops images from all lenses and are surprisingly dark with the ultra-wide in particular producing very underexposed shots
I actually often preferred nighttime images taken on the OnePlus 11 the optical zoom has been very hit-and-miss at night with some shots looking okay
While others have come out with such mushy details that they look out of focus I’ve been rather surprised at the poor nighttime performance here, as the larger image sensor and wider aperture of the main camera should allow it to capture more light
Indeed in more low-light rather than specifically night-mode conditions, I did find the camera was able to take some good-looking images but overall I am underwhelmed by the camera performance on the OnePlus 12
It’s definitely capable of taking nice-looking images in good conditions and maybe those of you just wanting snaps of
your family and friends will be well served but it’s definitely not up there with its Flagship Rivals with its night mode and particular particularly letting it down there is plenty that
I like about the OnePlus 12 it’s extremely powerful, its battery life is superb and its display is big, and bright and vibrant
But there are some problems which I don’t like The camera is not great, particularly at night and while its software support is not the worst around
I really hope to see OnePlus extending it even further to match what both Google and Samsung are offering still if you’re after a high-performance phone for gaming with a battery that’ll put up with punishment and as long as you’re not that into your photography, the OnePlus 12