OPPO Reno12 Pro 5G Review - Generative AI arrives to premium mid-rangers
After using the OPPO Reno12 Pro as our daily driver for nearly two months, we share our thoughts and experiences with the AI-powered mid-ranger.
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| OPPO Reno12 Pro's unique curve design with gradients |
To recap, the OPPO Reno12 Pro's the company's first mid-range smartphone. It incorporates the brand's iconic visuals into a form factor using more affordable materials without compromising on sturdiness or performance.
It has a 120Hz 6.7-inch Flexible AMOLED screen, a 4nm Dimensity 7300 Energy octa-core processor, Mali-G615 GPU, LPDDR4X RAM, 512GB storage, and a 5,000mAh battery with 80W fast charging.
At the back are the 50MP rear main cameras, an 8MP ultra-wide camera, and a 50MP 2x telephoto with an LED flash. In front is the 32MP selfie camera.
It is running on Android 14-based ColorOS 14.1. Other features include WiFi 6, 5G, 4G, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, OTG, GPS, dual Nano SIM, In-display fingerprint scanner, stereo speakers and an IP65 water and dust resistance.
In the Philippines, it is priced at only PHP 34,999 for the 12GB/512GB variant.
Let's dive into the review!
For our review part 1: OPPO Reno12 Pro 5G Unboxing, First Impressions, and Camera Samples
Multimedia Experience
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| OPPO Reno12 Pro's curved display |
In front is a 6.7-inch flexible AMOLED screen with a 2,412 x 1,080 resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate, and a 240Hz touch sampling rate. It is Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protected.
Colors are vibrant, contrast is deep
The panel is bright enough to be readable under direct sunlight at maximum brightness. The colors are vibrant while the contrast is deep. Text and detail are crisp at 1080p resolution.
It supports 10 points of multi-touch, making it good for multitasking or games that support multiple simultaneous touch inputs. It responds quickly and accurately to our taps and gestures.
The Reno12 Pro is unique in that even though its front panel curves to the side, the bezels around the panel area are nearly symmetrical. Only the chin bezel is slightly thicker.
On the upper part of the panel is the punch hole for the selfie camera. On the top bezel is the super slim earpiece.
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| Top and bottom |
For audio, the phone is equipped with stereo speakers (top and bottom firing). Around the phone are two microphones used for noise canceling in calls and audio recording.
The sound from the speakers creates an immersive sound with decent power and clarity, loud maximum volume, and minimal distortion. The volume can even be pushed to 300 percent with minimal penalties.
The microphones do a good job of picking up sounds from a meter away while the noise-cancellation for calls is good too.
Cameras
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| Rear cameras |
The back is the rear cameras made up of a 50MP f/1.8 main camera with a Sony LYT-600 sensor and OIS, an 8MP f/2.2 112-degree ultra-wide angle camera with a Sony IMX355 sensor, and a 50MP f/2.0 2x telephoto camera with a Samsung JN5 sensor with an LED flash.
The included modes of the stock camera app include Photo, Video, Night, Pro, Portrait, High-Res, Pano, Slo-Mo, Timelapse, Dual-View Video, Sticker, and Doc Scanner. The app also allows switching between the 0.6x, 1x, 2x, and 5x zoom. Users can push it further to 20x digital zoom.
The Pro controls include EV (+-3), ISO (50-3200), Shutter speed (1/8000-30 secs), Focus, and White Balance.
Added features include Aspect Ratio, Timer, Histogram, Interval Shooting, and Focus Peaking.
The Portrait Mode is equally robust with bokeh strength control (f/1.4-16), and Beautifcations and it allows switching between 1x and 2x cameras.
Rear Camera Samples
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| Daylight 1x |
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| Daylight 5x |
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| Daylight ultra-wide |
All daylight images from the rear camera module produce surprisingly consistent results in terms of color, contrast, and detail. What we noticed was the ultra-wide camera was easier to overexpose than the other cameras.
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| Indoors 1x |
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| Indoors 5x |
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| Indoors ultra-wide |
Indoor shots are consistent. All three have similar colors and contrast. However, the ultra-wide and the 5x is somewhat softer than the main camera's 1x and 2x.
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| Lowlight 1x |
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| Lowlight 5x |
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| Lowlight ultra-wide |
For low light, the sharpness and detail were affected by the slight noise build-up. The ultra-wide has some noticeable lens flares too. The colors remained saturated while the contrast was decent.
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| Night mode 1x |
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| Night mode 5x |
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| Night mode ultra-wide |
The Night mode improves the sharpness while reducing noise and grain. However, light sources tended to overexpose.
Overall, the rear camera produced good images that just need tweaking to get the best possible result.
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| Selfie cameras |
The 50MP f/2.0 selfie camera is on the punch hole on the display.
Camera modes include Photo, Video, Portrait, Panorama, Night mode, and Dual View.
Selfie Camera Samples
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| Selfie daylight |
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| Selfie Portrait |
Daylight selfies from the OPPO Reno12 Pro are good. You immediately notice the sharpness and detail. The colors and skin tones of most elements in the frame are accurate.
The portrait mode's edge detection is impressive. It almost didn't struggle with fine hair fibers.
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| Selfie indoors |
Indoors, the image is similar to daylight where the sharpness and detail are good while the colors and skin tones are spot on.
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| Selfie low light |
In low light, the selfie camera's images have more grain and noise which affects the detail and sharpness of the overall image. The skin tones are not spot on.
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| Selfie night mode |
The night mode managed to recover the sharpness and detail but the skin tones were not natural looking.
Overall, the front cameras produce images with very good color, contrast, sharpness, and detail but struggle with skin tones in low light. The night mode could use some tweaks too.
The rear and front cameras can record up to 4K at 30fps or 1080p at 60fps. The footage is decent sharpness and vibrant color. The noise is more apparent in low light.
If you want more stabilized footage, use the Ultra Steady mode. It has a small large crop and is limited to 1080 at 60fps.
Performance
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| AnTuTu and GeekBench results |
To recap, the OPPO Reno12 Pro features the 4nm MediaTek Dimensity 7300-Energy octa-core processor, Adreno GPU, 12GB LPDDR4X, and 512GB UFS 3.1. The previous Reno11 Pro had a Dimensity 8200 chip.
During the AnTuTu test, the phone's temperature increased by 5.9 degrees while the battery lost 4 percent power.
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| AI Benchmark and CPDT results |
In AI Benchmark, it scored a respectable 391 points.
OPPO Reno12 Pro benchmarks:
- AnTuTu - 704,411
- Geekbench 6 - 795 (single-core), 2,553 (multi-core)
- AI Benchmark - 391 Good Performance
- CPDT - 654.25 MB/s sequential read speeds and 506.29 MB/s sequential write speeds
The OPPO Reno12 Pro 5G scores in AnTuTu and the Geekbench are in the lower range of what we expected from this combination of chipset and software. While the CPDT and the AI Benchmark are decent.
Slower than Reno11 Pro 5G
While the experience is fast for most of the basic tasks like opening your favorite social media apps and creating content via CapCut or any other photo editing app, and the camera loads fast, the chipset that OPPO used here is a downgrade coming from the previous generation Reno11 Pro 5G.
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| Genshin Impact graphics |
On Genshin Impact, it is set on the low graphics settings as the default. Playing the game is mostly smooth when wandering around the world but when in combat with many animations, the phone stutters occasionally.
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| Call of Duty: Mobile Graphics |
In Call of Duty, the phone's default graphic settings were very high graphics quality and frame rate. Users can select the max frame rate, but the graphics will be lowered to high.
In our experience, the phone can handle the majority of tasks like navigating through the OS, opening apps, web surfing, and social media without struggling.
The phone has an optical In-Display fingerprint sensor and face unlock for security. The initial setup and subsequent uses are quick and it detects our biometrics instantaneously. It works even if your finger is a little sweaty.
The face unlocks only struggles when the camera is dirty or when we are wearing a mask and sunglasses. The screen brightens up when used in the dark. Face unlock even has a super bright mode that can be set in the settings.
Regarding connectivity, we have the following: WiFi 6, 5G, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.4, NFC, OTG, GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, and dual nano SIM.
Connection is usually stable for WiFi and we get 4 to 5 bars of mobile data signal most of the time.
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| PCMark Battery benchmark and battery usage |
Inside the phone is a large 5,000mAh battery. It lasted more than 10 hours on our usual PCMark Battery benchmark. In daily use, we would end the day with 30+ percent battery after 5 hours of on-screen time even when constantly connected to 5G, WiFi, and Bluetooth devices.
Decent battery despite its slim design!
The battery charges via USB-C with the 80W wall charger which charges the phone 100 percent in around 70 minutes.
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| ColorOS 14.1 |
It is running on ColorOS 14.1 based on Android 14. It comes with minor visual refinements over the previous version.
It comes with heavily marketed AI features like AI LinkBoost. It supposedly improves seamless connectivity anytime, anywhere. It uses a 360-degree Surround Antenna that is said to provide robust connectivity.
This also has the BeaconLink technology that enhances Bluetooth uplink capabilities allowing device-to-device Bluetooth to Bluetooth voice calls at a distance of up to 200 meters in a completely disconnected environment.
Pre-installed is the AI Studio app where users can select from a gallery of preselected generated designs. They can then upload their own photos to generate photos of themselves that are based on both their photos and the preselected generated design. Currently, it costs 10 stars per press of the generate button.
Other AI features include the AI eraser phone in the image editing suite in the Photos app. Users can select between Smart Lasso, Paint Over, and Remove People. At first, the people detection and removal wasn't something to write home about. Over time and after several updates, it got better. Overall it is a nice to have feature when it works but how often do we really need it is the question only time will tell.
Pros - Eye-catching design, solid build materials, 120Hz AMOLED screen, near Symmetrical bezels, Solid Specs, good camera performance, Gorilla Glass Victus 2, IP65, powerful speakers
Cons - CPU and GPU perform decently but is a chip downgrade from the previous generation, Video up to 4K 30fps only, AI generative features are novel at best
OPPO Reno12 Pro 5G Specs
Display: 6.7-inch Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protected Flexible AMOLED screen w/ 120Hz refresh rate, 240Hz touch sampling rate, FHD+ 2412 x 1080 resolution at 394 ppi
CPU: 4nm MediaTek Dimensity 7300-Energy octa-core processor
GPU: Mali-G615
RAM: 12GB LPDDR4X
ROM: 512GB UFS 3.1
Back Camera: 50MP f/1.8 w/ AF, OIS + 8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle + 50MP f/2.0 2x telephoto
Selfie Camera: 50MP f/2.0
Battery: 5,000mAh w/ 80W SUPERVOOC
OS: Android 14. w/ ColorOS 14.1
Connectivity: WiFi 6 2 x 2 MIMO, 5G SA/NSA, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.4 (SBS, AAC, aptX HD, LDAC, LHDC), OTG, NFC, GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo, QZSS, dual SIM (nano)
Sensors: Accelerometer, light, orientation, proximity, gyroscope, sound, magnetic
Others: In-Display fingerprint sensor, IP65 dust, and water resistance, stereo speakers, USB-C, Colors: Space Brown, Sunset Gold, Nebula Silver
Dimensions: 161.5 x 74.0 x 7.45 mm
Weight: 180 g
Price: PHP 34,999
Verdict
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| Web surfing on the OPPO Reno12 Pro |
OPPO Reno12 Pro offers capable cameras, a beautiful design, and a Gorilla Glass Victus-protected 120Hz AMOLED screen. It is rare for a company to lean in completely to the materials' strengths. Others would make plastic or polycarbonate look metallic. The body is lightweight and easy to hold too.
It has a stunning 120Hz FHD+ LTPO AMOLED screen with near-symmetrical bezels. It is more than bright enough to be readable under direct sunlight. It also has immersive stereo speakers with a loud maximum volume that can even be pushed to 300 percent with minor distortion.
The cameras perform well in daylight and indoors but struggle in low light for photos and video.
It's definitely an eye-catching phone with solid build materials.
Even though the chip was a downgrade from the previous generation, it is still capable enough to be competitive in the price range. If you were coming from the Reno11 Pro, there is almost no reason to upgrade.
The 5,000mAh battery paired with fast 80W SUPERVOOC charging allows it to last more than 6 hours of on-screen time after being connected to 5G and WiFi all day while also serving as our hotspot.
We recommend it if you want a long-lasting battery and a good-performing phone with decent hardware and software visuals in its price range.
If you are its target audience or market, go for it. If you are a mobile gamer, look elsewhere.
What do you think guys?
Build/Design - 4.25
Multimedia Experience - 4.25
Cameras - 4.25
Performance - 4.25
Average - 4.25/5
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