Last year OnePlus mentioned they were staying away from Pro labels as they did with the OnePlus 11, and it looks to be the case this year. This time we are presented with their flagship known as the OnePlus 12. Bringing a good amount of the design language of its predecessor with some nice upgrades inside and out.
Style
OnePlus’ trend continues to be coming out in two colorways of Black or Green. There is Flowy Emerald which is more of a glass backing while Silky Black (OnePlus provided to us) which is sleek but has a nice slight feel of brushed texture (it’s still glass FYI). It’s great as it doesn’t pick up many fingerprints if you decide to go caseless. It comes in at 220g making it heavier than the OP11 but lighter than the OP Open. It has Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 but also has included screen protector luckily as well.
Interestingly with the OP 12, OnePlus has flipped the button placement. With this model we get the Alert Slider on the left side while the volume controls and power button on the right. USB-C on the bottom next to one of the speakers while the other is on top. If you haven’t noticed also up there is an infrared sensor. You can use it to not control your TV but other devices such as your lights, robovac, etc.
Included with the OnePlus 12 is a SUPERVOOC 80W Power Adapter and a USB-A to USB-C Cable.
Power Pushing Hardware
You can always expect the latest power in the flagship OnePlus devices. With the OnePlus 12 you are getting a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, Adreno 750 GPU, and RAM/Storage configurations of either 12GB/256GB or 16GB/512GB. This phone has done a stellar job of keeping apps going even days from not using it in the background. I have returned to games and it’s still waiting for my next move rather than reset because I forgot about it. Seldomly has an app crashed and if so, it was moreso an issue with the app itself.
Juicing up your OnePlus is always a pleasure with them still offering some of the fastest charging in the game. Its included 80W SUPERVOOC fast charging will have that 5,400 mAh battery back to 100% in under 30mins. If you want to go the wireless route with its 50W AIRVOOC charger you can get back to 100% in under an hour. I honestly rarely used wireless though and just preferred wired. Last year’s OnePlus 11 had omitted wireless charging so it’s nice to have it back as an option.
The Brightest Display
Easiest one of the most gorgeous displays on a smartphone. It is a 6.8” 2K 120Hz ProXDR Display with eye popping 4500nits of peak brightness. The OnePlus Open was only able to reach 2800nits while the OP11 topped out at 1300nits. That’s quite an amazing feat. You can see this phone clearly in the sunniest weather outside or shine in the darkest room. It does also support Dolby Vision content if you have any available and games look terrific on them as they can reach up to 120Hz if supported. You do have to go into the settings if you want to push the display to its fullest potential but that’s at the cost of battery life.
Customize with OxygenOS
Android 14 is available on the OnePlus 12 with support for newer versions down the line. OxygenOS will always be one of my favorite skins as it looks simple but can easily be customized to your liking. If you want to download icons and add them no additional launcher required. You can do various gestures, taps, etc. It does a fantastic job handling games too adding assistance such as HyperBoost. It makes gaming easier as it will adjust the phone accordingly.
Triple Camera Lenses
No surprise every phone iteration OnePlus steps up its camera game. This being the 4th year with Hasselblad we continue to see the leveling up in this category. It has a triple camera system highlighting 50MP(Main), 64MP(Telephoto), and 48MP(Ultrawide). With the Telephoto lens you can utilize optical zoom 3x and 6X in-sensor zoom which was something like the OnePlus Open. This allows us to get closer without losing much or any detail. You can zoom all the way up to 120x but of course that’s more for fun.
I didn’t have to adjust too often for overexposure on most photos. I was impressed by some of the lowlight shots I got inside bars or outside at the later hours.
If you like taking selfies the front camera has 32MP lenses. I’ll say even though I didn’t use it often the photos of myself came out nice which I snapped outside for the most part.
Everyday Usage
It took me a bit longer to start using the OnePlus 12, but that’s only because I couldn’t pull myself away from the OnePlus Open which was my fave smartphone to use last year. But once I did, I forgot how much more comfortable it can be to just have one phone that is thin and can fit easier in your pockets. Battery life held up nicely with the OP12 and being able to recharge it so quickly made my usage even more enjoyable. Keeping multiple apps open without worrying about them closing was convenient.
Verdict
OnePlus 12 hits the sweet spot with its pricing against the competition. Starting out at $799.99 gets you at least 256GB which is double the space compared to Pixel 8 Pro and Galaxy S24 starting models at the same price. You can get it even cheaper w/ trade-ins. Using it for the past couple of months the OP12 hit marks regarding battery life, gaming, and taking photos.
You can check unboxing of the OnePlus 12 on TikTok / Instagram