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OnePlus 12

OnePlus 12

OnePlus delivers another affordable flagship

4.0 Excellent
OnePlus 12 - OnePlus 12
4.0 Excellent

Bottom Line

With an impressive display, long battery life, speedy charging, and premium performance, the OnePlus 12 offers most of the features found on other flagship phones for a more affordable price.
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  • Pros

    • Bright, crisp display
    • Excellent battery life
    • Rapid wired and wireless charging
    • Powerful processor
  • Cons

    • Lacks mmWave 5G
    • Not as waterproof as competing phones
    • No special AI features

OnePlus 12 Specs

Battery Life (As Tested) 18 hours, 10 minutes
Camera Resolution (Rear; Front-Facing) 64MP, 50MP, 48MP; 32MP
CPU Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
Dimensions 6.47 by 2.98 by 0.36 inches
Operating System Android 14
Screen Resolution 3,168 by 1,440 pixels
Screen Size 6.82

The OnePlus 12 (starting at $799.99) carries over many of the things we liked about last year's 11 5G and Open and improves upon them across the board. Its fast and vivid display, extra-long battery life, rapid wireless charging, and blazing performance make it a compelling alternative to flagship Android phones like the $899 Google Pixel 8 Pro and the $999 Samsung Galaxy S24+. The OnePlus 12 is well worth considering if you're looking to spend $100 to $200 less than either of those handsets, but it's not a clear-cut winner as it falls behind slightly in a few key areas.


An Attractive Appearance  

The OnePlus 12 is a good-looking phone. It comes in two colors, Flowy Emerald or Silky Black. I received the visually striking Flowy Emerald for review. Its glass and metal design looks similar in appearance and color to last year’s 11 5G, which also came in green or black. Here, OnePlus deepens the shade of green and adds subtle striations on the back, giving the phone a marble-like appearance. It has a comfortable matte finish, making it easy to grip in one hand. This is a big improvement over the 11 5G, which had a glossy finish that we found slippery.

(Credit: Sarah Lord)

Despite the large footprint, the phone still fits well in my small hand. It’s about the same size and weight as last year’s model at 6.47 by 2.98 by 0.36 inches (HWD) and 7.76 ounces, but the display is ever so slightly larger at 6.82 inches compared with 6.7 inches. The screen’s curved edges elegantly join the aluminum frame along the side rails. The ProXDR LTPO display packs a resolution of 3,168 by 1,440 pixels, for a density of 510ppi. It has an adaptive refresh rate of 1Hz to 120Hz that automatically changes depending on what you are doing. You can set the phone so that games are always played at the peak 120Hz rate. The screen supports Dolby Vision and 10-bit color for your video content and reaches a peak brightness of 4,500 nits (1,600 typ). I found the phone to be very bright. Thankfully the display glass is not reflective and you can easily see it under the sun.

(Credit: Sarah Lord)

Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protects the display while the slightly older Gorilla Glass 5 covers the back. Either way, it should handle an occasional drop without issue. The phone has an IP65 rating, so it is protected from dust and from jets of water from any direction, but not full submersion. Basically, you’re covered unless you drop it in a pool. Competing phones like the Galaxy S24 and Google Pixel 8 have higher IP68 ratings, which means they are more protected from water.

(Credit: Sarah Lord)

A raised and rounded Hasselblad camera module stands out from the rest of the rear panel. The space between the lenses has the same green coloring as the underlying panel, but the glass covering makes the finish sparkle. You’ll find a SIM card slot, a USB-C port, and a speaker grille tucked into the phone’s bottom edge. There are two buttons on the right side: a small power button and a longer volume rocker. Both feel solid to the touch and make a satisfying click. OnePlus' signature ringer switch is near the top of the left side. It has three stops for sound, vibrate, and silent, and makes satisfying clicks when moved up and down.

(Credit: Sarah Lord)

Biometric security is available via fingerprint scanner (under the display) or facial recognition (selfie camera). Though both worked well in testing, I found the fingerprint sensor to be particularly useful, as it was fast and accurate. 


Performance to Spare

The OnePlus 12 is among the first wave of phones to come with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 system on a chip. OnePlus pairs the processor with generous allotments of LPDDR5x RAM and UFS 4.0 storage. There are two versions, one with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage ($799) and one with 16GB of RAM and 512GB storage ($899). We reviewed the latter and it performed admirably. 

On the Geekbench 6 test, which measures CPU performance, the phone scored 2,252 on the single-core test and 6,810 on the multi-core test. These numbers are right in line with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, which also runs on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and scored 2,273 and 7,056. The Pixel 8 Pro, which uses Google's Tensor G2 processor, scored 1,268 and 3,271.

(Credit: Geekbench/GFXBench)

The OnePlus 12 surpassed the performance of most competing phones in GFXBench graphics testing. It averaged 71fps during the Aztek 1440p offscreen test, outperforming the Galaxy S24 Ultra (51fps) and the iPhone 15 Pro Max (60fps), but not the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition (108fps).

Genshin Impact posed no problem for the phone, even at the highest settings. I didn't experience any lagging or stutters during gameplay, even in heavy battles. This phone can handle just about any game available to Android right now. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it had no problems running the simpler Alto’s Odyssey. Everyday tasks are no issue at all.


A Better Battery

A 5,400mAh battery, divided into two 2,700mAh cells, provides power. To test the battery, we ran a YouTube video on a loop over Wi-Fi with the screen brightness set to the max. The battery lasted an impressive 18 hours and 10 minutes on a single charge. That’s a huge step up from the 11 5G (11 hours), far longer than the Galaxy S24 Ultra (14 hours), and one of the longest results we've seen from an Android phone. The iPhone 15 Pro Max ($1,199) still stands as our battery life champion at 20 hours and 15 minutes.

Charging speeds, both wired and wireless, are ahead of much of the competition. The phone supports OnePlus' proprietary 80W SuperVooc wired charging tech and packs a fast charger in the box. It took 38 minutes to charge the phone from 0 to 100% using the included charger. That's actually longer than it took the OnePlus 11 to charge (27 minutes). For comparison, the Galaxy S24 Ultra has a smaller 5,000mAh battery that can charge at 45W, while the Pixel 8 Pro is limited to 30W and the iPhone 15 Pro tops out at 27W. None of these three include chargers in the box.

(Credit: Sarah Lord)

Unlike last year's model, the OnePlus 12 supports wireless charging. This is a welcome upgrade. It can charge at up to 50W with OnePlus' AirVooc wireless charging stand. Using the stand we were able to charge the phone from empty to full in 45 minutes. That's faster than many phones can charge via cable.


Mostly Competitive Wireless

US buyers will find that the OnePlus 12 supports the majority of sub-6GHz 5G bands. That means plenty of mid-band and C-band spectrum for the three major carriers and their MVNOs, but not the mmWave 5G that pushes 1Gbp+ speeds for T-Mobile and Verizon. The iPhones, Pixels, and S24s all support mmWave in the US, which puts OnePlus a step behind of the competition.

I live in an area with relatively weak 5G coverage, but the phone performed well on Google Fi. It managed download speeds of 173Mbps and upload speeds of 67.6Mbps. By comparison, an iPhone 14 Pro tested in the same spot got 134Mbps down and 6.54Mbps up. 

(Credit: Sarah Lord)

Wi-Fi 7 is on board, though we conducted our wireless LAN tests on a Wi-Fi 6 router. In a spot close to the router, the OnePlus 12 managed to reach 114Mbps down and 22.9Mbps up, while an iPhone 14 Pro hit 176Mbps down and 19.6Mbps up. When tested close to the edge of the Wi-Fi network, the OnePlus 12 hit 55Mbps down and 18.9Mbps up.

OnePlus has upgraded to Bluetooth 5.4 for use with wireless headphones or Bluetooth speakers and NFC for mobile payments. In addition, the phone has dual-band GPS for more precise map results when in dense urban areas.

Call quality is strong. I didn’t have any problems hearing or being heard when conducting test calls. The earpiece reached 74.6dB during calls with the volume all the way up. Call volume jumped to 88.6dB when routed to the speakerphone.

Dolby Atmos support means you get decent performance out of the phone's stereo speakers. You can hear a surprising amount of bass in our test track “Silent Shout” by The Knife. There's no 3.5mm headphone jack so you'll have to use Bluetooth for private listening.


Hasselblad Cameras 

OnePlus continues to work with Hasselblad for its smartphone cameras. The partnership includes both hardware and software; the branding is plainly visible on the outside of the camera module as well as within the camera app itself.

(Credit: Sarah Lord)

The main shooter features a 50MP Sony LYT-808 sensor at f/1.6 with optical image stabilization (OIS), an 85-degree field of view (FoV), and an equivalent focal length of 23mm. The ultra-wide camera has a 48MP Sony IMX581 sensor at f/2.2 with electronic image stabilization (EIS), a 114-degree FoV, and an equivalent focal length of 14mm. It supports macro shooting at a range of 1.4 inches. The telephoto camera features a periscopic design to boost the optical zoom range. It has a 64MP OmniVision OV64B sensor at f/2.6 with OIS, EIS, a 33-degree FoV, and an equivalent focal length of 70mm at 3x optical and 145mm at 6x hybrid zoom. OnePlus claims the camera can reach up to 120x with its Ultra Res Zoom.

The front camera has a 32MP Sony IMX615 sensor at f/2.4, a 90-degree FoV, and an equivalent focal length of 21mm.

All four cameras rely on quad-Bayer binning to improve low-light performance, resulting in 12.5MP, 12MP, 16MP, and 8MP final images, respectively.

Main camera
(Credit: Sarah Lord)

Shots look good in all lighting conditions. Daytime photos are crisp and capture color accurately. Night mode does a great job of automatically brightening the shot, making it easy to capture subjects in low light. 

Ultra-wide camera
(Credit: Sarah Lord)

Portrait Mode allows you to manually adjust the aperture with a slider in order to get your desired depth of field. The results get you the soft background blur that looks great in portraits. 

Telephoto camera
(Credit: Sarah Lord)

The selfie camera is not spectacular, though it mostly works fine. I was able to capture pictures of my cat, but they were not nearly as good as the ones taken with the rear cameras. Dark details are a bit lost and images are slightly noisy.

Selfie camera
(Credit: Sarah Lord)

The phone can record 8K video at 24fps and 4K video at either 30 or 60fps. Video quaity is above average, with test videos appearing crisp, clean, and true to life. 

By default, a large white watermark appears at the bottom of your photos (as you can see in some of my test shots here). It's shockingly huge and obnoxious. You can turn the watermarking feature off in the settings, of course, but we'd prefer if it were off in the first place.

Main camera
(Credit: Sarah Lord)

Overall, image quality is mostly comparable with the cameras of other flagship phones, though the Pixel 8 Pro and the Galaxy S24 Ultra have an edge here, largely thanks to the use of AI to enhance images both while and after shooting. It's particularly worth noting that OnePlus doesn't use any AI-based tricks here, given the industry push to include AI enhancements just about everywhere.


Unobtrusive OxygenOS 

The phone ships running OxygenOS 14, which is based on Android 14. There are a handful of bloatware apps, such as the OnePlus store and a OnePlus-centric social media app. Both are buried in a folder of more useful OnePlus software like the calculator and notetaking apps. The operating system runs smoothly and includes gestures that make navigating around the phone easy and effective. A dedicated gaming mode puts the kibosh on notifications so you can play in peace.

Again, OnePlus refrains from taking advantage of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3's AI chops, failing to include any interesting AI-based features.

(Credit: Sarah Lord)

OnePlus promises four years of Android upgrades and five years of security updates for the phone. This is fine, but both Google and Samsung have pledged seven years of OS and security updates for their latest flagships. It would be nice to see OnePlus get closer to its competitors on this front. 


Power Meets Affordability

With loads of power, epic battery life, lightning-fast charging, and a solid camera, the OnePlus 12 almost has it all—at a lower price than the competition. That said, both the Galaxy S24 and the Pixel 8 have even better cameras, higher IP ratings, faster 5G, longer support commitments, and more AI-based features. If you place a high value on any or all of those features, you should consider spending more to get them, especially since Google and Samsung now offer such long-term support. Still, the OnePlus 12 covers far more than the basics, making it easy to recommend if you're looking for a flagship phone that's closer to a midrange price.

About Sarah Lord