Initial verdict: The OnePlus 12 refines everything we love about last year’s OnePlus 11. However, as much as we love the OnePlus 12, it is very expensive in the Philippines–even more expensive when you compare it to its pricing in the US. 

Pros

• Excellent battery life
• Great flagship-caliber cameras
• Very bright display

Cons

• Very expensive (in the Philippines)

We’ve waited for months before OnePlus has officially made the OnePlus 12 available in the Philippines. It improves a lot with the already good OnePlus 11, though we think that its steep pricing might give prospective buyers second thoughts about getting one. Pricing aside, we used the OnePlus 12 for a week, and we share our thoughts about it:

OnePlus 12 Review Philippines: Design

The OnePlus 12’s design is similar to last year’s OnePlus 11, though the camera module has grown significantly to accommodate the larger sensor used on the main camera and the use of a periscope camera instead of a conventional 2x telephoto module. There’s no included case with the OnePlus 12, so you’ll need to buy that separately to protect that huge camera module from scratches. Our review unit comes in Flowy Emerald, which has intricate details behind that matte glass panel.

Since the design is similar to its predecessor, that also means that OnePlus’ trademark alert slider is still there, which is a simple yet handy switch for keeping your phone quiet. The OnePlus 12’s IP rating is slightly better at IP65, and the phone is heavier than its predecessor by 15 grams, partly because you are getting a bigger battery inside.

 

OnePlus 12 Review Philippines: Display

While you still get a curved 120hz AMOLED display, the OnePlus 12 has a slightly larger panel at 6.82 inches. The display is typical for a flagship device, but one thing we noticed with the OnePlus 12 is that it is very bright. With high brightness mode, using the OnePlus 12 under direct sunlight is not an issue–the display is bright and legible enough and has great viewing angles.

Being a flagship display, you get the usual set of bells and whistles: support for HDR10 content, adaptive refresh rate, Widevine L1, and great color accuracy. The great display is complemented by stereo speakers, making the OnePlus 12 a great device to have for content consumption.

The OnePlus 12’s display has a unique feature called Aqua Touch, which essentially allows you to utilize the display even while your hands are wet. We tried this feature, and it does get the job done: even with water droplets on the screen, we were able to use the display with very minimal touch input lags.

 

OnePlus 12 Review Philippines: Cameras

The OnePlus 12 gets you a Hasselblad-tuned triple rear camera setup that consists of a 50-megapixel LYT808 main camera with an f/1.6 aperture and OIS, a 48-megapixel IMX581 ultra-wide camera with an f/2.2 aperture and autofocus, and a 64-megapixel f/2.6 3x periscope camera with OIS.

We praised the OnePlus 11 for its improved second-generation Hasselblad cameras, and the OnePlus 12 takes it to another level thanks to a bigger sensor for the main camera and a more versatile periscope camera with a longer zoom range at 3x.

From the photos we took with the OnePlus, you are getting a true flagship-caliber image quality. While it can’t beat the imaging performance of other premium flagship phones like the Galaxy S24, the OnePlus 12 still stands out on its own with its generally great camera performance across all lighting conditions.

 

OnePlus 12 Review Philippines: Internals and Battery

The OnePlus 12 is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, and the configuration that will be made available in the Philippines comes with 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB UFS 4.0 storage.

There’s no question about the performance of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3: as Qualcomm’s top-end processor for 2024, the OnePlus 12 can easily run games like Genshin Impact with the settings cranked to the highest possible graphics. Even if it is not a gaming phone, the OnePlus can handle the most demanding mobile games with ease and without the phone running too warm even during prolonged gaming.

The OnePlus 12 comes with Android 14-based OxygenOS 14 out of the box, and the brand has a good track record when it comes to software updates. In the case of the OnePlus 12, you are guaranteed 5 years of security updates and 4 major Android updates.

The OnePlus 12 is a rare flagship that has a battery bigger than the usual 5000mAh cell. You get a 5400mAh battery inside that supports 100w wired and 50w wireless charging. Paired with OxygenOS’ excellent power management, we managed to use the OnePlus 12 for as long as 2 days with light use and more than a day of use if you’re a heavy user.

 

OnePlus 12 Review Philippines: Wrap-up and Conclusions

While the OnePlus 12 has all of the upgrades we wanted from the OnePlus 11, its biggest downside is its pricing in the Philippines, where it costs almost Php 65k. That’s almost Php 20k higher than the OnePlus 12’s SRP in the US, which is $799 for the 12GB/256GB version. Granted that the one sold in the Philippines has higher RAM and storage, it’s hard to fathom how a OnePlus phone will cost you over Php 60k–even more expensive than other flagship Android phones being offered in the Philippines.

OnePlus 12 Review Philippines: Price

The OnePlus 12 is priced at Php 64,990 for the sole 16GB/512GB variant.