Snapdragon 8 Gen 2? Check. 5,500 mAh battery? Check. Gorilla Glass Victus 2? Check. These were flagship elements even a few months ago but now they are all available on the OnePlus 12R. Sounds great? Almost.

Understand your workflow

Take a look at the design and it has all the elements of a flagship OnePlus phone, right down to the alert slider while the volume rockers and power buttons are on the right-hand side, similar to what we see on many flagship phones. The flagship design continues in the circular camera module. Even though I don’t personally like this massive round module at the back of the phone, it is nothing to mock and works well for many people. Also, the curved glass display doesn’t sit well with me because I like the screen to be flat, which doesn’t amount to false clicks. Further, the phone is slippery if we you don’t have a screen protector. Don’t get me wrong, I am nitpicking because I love smartphones and want every aspect to be perfect.

In 2024, this is one of the most practical Android phones for everyday usage if you don’t care about AI chops or extreme photo quality. Having Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is not a bad thing for many users. In fact, I would suggest you buy a phone with a flagship chip that’s one year old rather than buy a mid-range MediaTek or Snapdragron variant. Always go for a better chipset because that will ensure your phone will last a long time.

You could be wondering what about the IQOO Neo 9 Pro. Yes, it’s launching later this month and it is expected to offer competition. But OnePlus has its philosophy, especially when it comes to OS, which is pretty clean and awesome to work with. What about choosing between OnePlus 12 and OnePlus 12R? It will come down to the camera.

The main lens on the OnePlus 12R offers punchy colours (compared to the neutral tones on the OnePlus 12)

OnePlus offers a lot of display tech and a lot of features from their high-end models are here, like dynamic refresh rate of up to 120Hz and an insane peak brightness of 4,500 nits. The 6.78-inch AMOLED ProXDR display with LTPO4.0 is excellent to work with. There’s Dolby Vision HDR10+ and support for 10-bit color gamut. Overall, I can’t complain about the display whether I’m gaming, watching video content or just browsing social media.

Smooth performance

What will sway decisions is the software. Not that it is any different here than on most OnePlus phones. I like most of Oxygen OS 14… when it comes to customisation, fingerprint screen animations, battery percentage layout and always-on display images. There are some features that you may enjoy, like Split View, Flexible Window, smart sidebar, hyperboost gaming engine with CPU temperature, et al. There is also something called the Trinity Engine that offers advanced RAM performance acceleration technology to intelligently allocate memory resources and manage background apps. But that’s just a marketing buzzword since this should be happening in the background without you having to know about it.

In the same breath, I wish the software update timeline was better. Why not? If a company is confident with its phone, it should offer more than “at least three generations of Android OS upgrades and four years of security updates from the launch date”. At least four years of Android OS would have been good since it’s a costly device.
I have no complains when it comes to battery life. I am getting a day out of it and there is a massive charging brick in the box to juice up to 100 per cent in slightly over 30 minutes. Using Wi-Fi and heavy use, I am getting nine hours of screen-on time but with gaming it comes down to seven hours. It all depends on the individual.

In the sound department, you won’t be disappointed. There is no headphone jack but that’s hardly something to nitpick about in 2024. The audio quality is quite good. For connectivity you get Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3, both quite strong.

Using OnePlus 12R, portrait shots come out well in daylight but picture quality is slightly better on the OnePlus 12

Camera chops

All this brings me to the camera. The triple camera setup offers 50MP main camera (Sony IMX 890), 8MP ultra-wide and 2MP macro. It’s like what you get on Nothing Phone (2). In broad daylight, you will get decent shots but as soon as you start comparing between devices, there will be pros and cons. As for the 8MP ultra-wide, it’s good but nothing outstanding (colour science gets wobbly when you move from the main to ultra-wide) while the 2MP macro is as useful/useless as on any other phone.
The 12R doesn’t match the level of details you get on the OnePlus 12 but that’s understandable because of the pricing. The OnePlus 12R adds some contrast to photos, which you may like and HDR details are up to scratch. It’s when you start comparing with phones from Samsung or even Nothing Phone (2), you will notice several differences. For someone who takes a lot of portrait shots, the OnePlus 12 has a better camera setup. I won’t get into video because OnePlus 12 does a better job than the 12R.

Should you buy it?

If you are keen on AI magic, Pixel and Samsung have several devices. I am sure OnePlus will bring some of that in the coming days but as a rule, I go by what’s in the box rather than what’s promised by companies. Sure, the OnePlus 12 does a good job across the board but that doesn’t leave OnePlus 12R far behind. Most people don’t mind last-gen flagship processor or some compromises here and there. OnePlus 12R is a phone for everyday use and is among the cheapest flagships you can buy at the moment.

The phones comes with a power brick in the box but the cable is USB-A to USB-C

At a glance

Device: OnePlus 12R

Price: Upwards of Rs 39,999

High notes

Excellent performance

Clean UI

Good design

Good work on the display

Muffled notes

Security updates could have been given a year longer

Camera is good but OnePlus can do better