Realme 12 Pro Plus Review: New Mid-Range Camera Champion

The Realme 12 Pro Plus 5G retails in India for a price of Rs.29,999 for the 8GB+128GB variant. Furthermore, the 12GB+256GB model of the phone costs Rs.33,999.

It is available in Explorer Red, Navigator Beige, and Submarine Blue colors. The Realme 21 Pro Plus can be purchased on Flipkart, the Realme India website, and leading retail stores

The Realme 12 Pro Plus comes with the following items inside the box:

• Phone
• Case
• Manual
• 67W SUPERVOOC Charger

Before we talk in detail about the device, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like:

• Display: 6.7 inch AMOLED with 120Hz refresh rate
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 7S Gen 2
• RAM & ROM: 8GB 128GB, 8GB 256 GB, 12GB 256 GB
• Software: Realme UI 5 based on Android 14
• Rear camera: 50MP + 8MP + 64MP
• Selfie camera: 32MP
• Battery: 5,000mAh
• Weight: 196 grams
• Dimensions: 161.5 x 74 x 8.8 mm

The Realme 12 Pro Plus sports a premium vegan leather back with a luxury watch-inspired design. Realme has collaborated with renowned watchmaker Ollivier Savéo to create the design.

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Moreover, the vegan leather back has a silky finish that feels to the touch and offers a sophisticated feel that even devices that cost twice as much cannot provide. The vegan leather’s thickness is much higher than past Realme phones, and the Explorer Red color I have looks stunning.

On the back, you will get a large circular camera island surrounded by a golden bezel. Furthermore, a thin metallic strip goes through the middle of the phone, offering a uniform look, but I feel it interrupts the soft-touch vegan leather finish.

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At the bottom left corner, you get the Realme branding and curved sides that smoothly blend into the frame. Despite the phone weighing 196 grams, it feels comfortable to hold in the hand and is just 8.8mm thick.

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Coming to ports and placements, you get the volume rockers and power buttons on the right while the left side is empty. Furthermore, the top of the phone houses the secondary speaker grille and microphone.

At the bottom, you will find the USB-C port, speaker grille, and the SIM tray. The phone has an IP65 rating to protect it against occasional water splashes.

The Realme 12 Pro+ features a 50-megapixel primary, 64-megapixel periscope telephoto, and an 8-megapixel ultrawide sensor. On the front, there is a 32-megapixel selfie shooter.

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During the day, the 50-megapixel Sony IMX890 can take amazing shots with plenty of detail and sharpness. Furthermore, the 64-megapixel OV64B telephoto sensor is the same as the one found in the flagship, like the OnePlus 12 and the iQOO 12.

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The telephoto lens can take crisp shots at 3x zoom and can take great portrait shots. Moreover, you get up to 120x zoom, although the output is barely usable.

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The 8-megapixel ultrawide angle lens is decent and can take some good shots, although it isn’t as great as the other two lenses. You still get plenty of detail and low-light shots.

The phone can take amazing shots with adequate detail and minimal noise in low light. Moreover, the dynamic range is excellent, and there is good sharpness.

The 32-megapixel selfie shooter can take good photos with accurate skin tones and details. However, you only get 1080p video recording at 30FPS on the selfie and telephoto lens, which could be much better.

Moreover, the primary camera can shoot up to 4K at 30FPS and 1080p at 120FPS, but stabilization is available only at 1080p 60FPS. The output is decent, lacking contrast and saturation, but you get good stabilization.

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Overall, the Realme 12 Pro Plus offers one of the best camera setups in this range and remains one of the few phones to boast a telephoto lens.

The Realme 12 Pro Plus packs a 5,000mAh battery with 67W SUPERVOOC charging support. Thanks to the 4nm chipset, the phone can easily last 6-7 hours of normal usage with a refresh rate set to 120Hz, which includes scrolling through Instagram, binge-watching TV shows, and playing casual games.

With the included 67W charger, you can fully charge the device from 0 to 100 per cent in just 43 minutes. However, it is worth noting that the predecessor of this device boasted 100W charging, and even competitors like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 Pro+ boast 120W charging. Realme has downgraded the charging speed to accommodate the new periscope lens.

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Overall, the Realme 12 Pro Plus offers excellent battery life and easily lasts a day. However, the downgraded charging speed is a bummer.

The Realme 12 Pro Plus features a 6.7-inch Full-HD+ AMOLED curved screen with a 120Hz refresh rate. Moreover, the display has a peak brightness of 950 nits and comes with 2160Hz PWM dimming.

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The curved screen looks beautiful, with very slim bezels surrounding the screen and a punch-hole cutout. Despite being having only FHD+ while others like the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ boast 1.5K resolution, the screen is sharp enough for daily usage.

Thanks to the curved edges, watching content on the phone is a pure joy as you get saturated colors. I enjoyed watching Season 2 of Halo on it, although the lack of Dolby Vision and HDR 10+ is disappointing.

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The phone has a peak brightness of 950 nits, and although it is good enough indoors, I did face legibility issues under bright sunlight. Moreover, phones like the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ and Poco X6 Pro offer 1800 nits of peak brightness, which is twice as bright as the Realme 12 Pro Plus. It has a smooth 120Hz refresh rate that offers a fluid software experience. You can also change the refresh rate and color profile in the settings.

There are also dual stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos support that are loud enough to fill an entire room. Moreover, you also get O-Haptics, one of the best implementations of haptic feedback I have ever seen on phones. The haptics are strong enough to rival even flagship phones that cost twice as much.

The Realme 12 Pro Plus uses the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 chipset paired with up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. This 4nm processor can be found in phones like the Poco X6 and the Redmi Note 13 Pro.

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The phone remains smooth during day-to-day usage and can easily handle multitasking between apps like Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Moreover, most apps stay in memory and load quickly thanks to the UFS 3.1 storage.

However, things took a different turn when I tried intensive tasks like gaming. The phone can run BGMI at Ultra HD and Ultra Frame Rates (40 FPS) or HDR and Extreme (60 FPS). Similarly, it can handle CODM at High and Max Frame Rate (60 FPS). Unfortunately, there is no support for 90FPS, which is disappointing given the price of the phone.

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I even tried demanding games like Genshin Impact, Wreckfest, Hitman Blood Money Reprisal, and GTA San Andreas Definitive Edition. This is where the Adreno 710 showcased its limitations, as it failed even to achieve 30 FPS in some games.

When it comes to benchmarks, the phone has a Geekbench score of 940 in single-core and 2815 in multi-core tests. Furthermore, it only throttled to 88 per cent in the CPU throttling test and has a 99.8 per cent stability score in the 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress Test.

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It manages a score of 644684 in the AnTuTu V10 benchmark, which is average given the price range. Overall, the Realme 12 Pro Plus is best suited for day-to-day tasks, and there are much better phones in this segment if you want a gaming-oriented smartphone.

The Realme 12 Pro Plus ships out of the box with Android 14 based on Realme UI 5.0, which is great. The company promises two years of OS updates and three years of security patches, which is disappointing because other phones in this segment, like the Poco X6 Pro, offer three years of OS updates.

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Moreover, you get plenty of preinstalled apps and bloatware such as Rummytime, Agoda, Dream 11, WA Business, Candy Crush, Free Fire, Angel One, Wynk, Meesho, Coffee Run, etc. Thankfully, there is an option to uninstall them from the Settings.

In addition, the infamous Hot Apps and Hot Games folder is still present on the device, but you can disable it from the App Market. Realme UI 5.0 brings new features like File Capsule, which can show notifications in a pill-shaped cutout similar to Dynamic Island.

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Furthermore, you also get a File Dock feature that seamlessly transfers files, photos, and documents from one app to another. Other features include the ability to separate pictures from their background, app-specific volume controls, and internal changes resulting in faster app opening times.

The Realme 12 Pro Plus also offers 8GB of virtual RAM with the RAM expansion feature. You also get Microsoft Phone Link integration in the Settings app.

Overall, Realme UI 5.0 offers a much-refined user experience, but the inclusion of bloatware leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. The company needs to work on its update policy and remove bloatware to provide a premium experience similar to Oxygen OS.