It has been over a month since the OPPO Reno12 Series 5G became official in the Philippines. With OPPO’s push for AI, the OPPO Reno12 Series 5G positions itself as an AI phone that is accessible to more Filipinos.

We’ve been using the OPPO Reno12 5G as our daily driver for several weeks to explore what it has to offer. With a Php 24,999 asking price, does it stand out against a stacked midrange segment?

Here are our general sentiments about the OPPO Reno12 5G:

It has great signal reception.

When we heard about AI Linkboost, we were skeptical if it were a feature people would care about. However, this feature was the one that surprised us with the OPPO Reno12 5G: OPPO’s claims are true that it does offer better signal reception.

We compared the signal reception with other similarly-priced phones, and the OPPO Reno12 5G was doing better in preserving its 5G connectivity even if we were inside an elevator or in a crowded place in some of the events we attended. It’s also surprising that we could send a few messages over Messenger—inside the elevator.

If that’s not enough, another curious feature was BeaconLink. While it is limited to the OPPO Reno12 5G Series for now, it’s a nice feature to have in places where you can’t trust 5G or WiFi connectivity. For curiosity’s sake, we tried BeaconLink and tested its ideal range. From our tests, we got clear calls with a distance of approximately 30 meters, including a glass door and an area full of people using their phones.

Its processing package is not as bad as you think.

We get it: a lot of people are arguing that OPPO made a bad decision in equipping the OPPO Reno12 5G with a Dimensity 7300-Energy processor for its price point. While the competition does offer better processor options, the Dimensity 7300-Energy is a decent chip for its price. It’s a solid upgrade from the Dimensity 7050 that was used on the OPPO Reno10 5G and OPPO Reno11 5G, and OPPO did a good job in making this midrange chip well-optimized for both games and battery life.

Granted that chips like the Dimensity 8300 and Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 are more powerful, our gaming tests with the OPPO Reno12 5G gave us decent performance: we were doing an average of 40FPS at 88% stability with Genshin Impact at High graphics and 60FPS enabled, while we were doing an average of 28FPS at 85% stability in Wuthering Waves at Advanced graphics, FSR on, and 60FPS enabled.

We’ve been playing both games heavily on it, and we barely noticed any frame drops and lags despite both titles being demanding. Along with stable thermals even while playing for hours, the OPPO Reno12 5G barely ran warm—and that should be enough proof that the Dimensity 7300-Energy is a decent processor.

Another aspect of the Dimensity 7300-Energy being a good chip is battery life: we got close to 16 hours in PCMark’s benchmark tests for its 5000mAh cell, and that mirrored our day-to-day use. We were using the OPPO Reno12 5G heavily throughout the day, which included gaming, web and social media browsing, photography, and occasional WiFi hotspot—and we ended the day with enough juice to last us until we got home.

The cameras are good, but we miss the telephoto shooter.

Amidst all the good points we have for the OPPO Reno12 5G, we’re puzzled at why OPPO axed the telephoto shooter—which was present in the last 2 Reno iterations. This made the OPPO Reno12 5G less versatile, especially with that filler macro camera, but that does not stop the fact that the LYT-600 sensor used for the main camera takes great photos and videos.

We’ve reviewed a number of phones that used this particular sensor, and it’s safe to say that the LYT-600 is the best choice for mid-range phones, especially with its low-light performance. Even its 2x digital zoom produced decent photos—at par with what we experienced with older Sony sensors like the IMX766 and IMX890. Pair that with OIS, and the OPPO Reno12 5G is good for content creation—especially if you want to shoot 4K videos.

Suppose there are things we wish will be improved on future Reno phones, we look forward to bringing back the telephoto camera and using a newer ultra-wide camera that can shoot 4K videos—the OPPO Reno12 5G’s ultra-wide camera is limited to 1080p video recording.

The AI features deliver as promised

While there’s much debate about the hardware features of the OPPO Reno12 5G, OPPO did a great job on the software side of things. One of the OPPO Reno12 5G’s standout features is the AI Eraser 2.0. It is the refined version of AI Eraser launched in April with the OPPO Reno11 Series 5G. It is one of the most polished implementations we have seen on a midrange phone.

What we like about AI Eraser 2.0 is that it’s easy to use–not to mention that it is efficient. We tried editing a photo where we wanted to remove a crowd of people, and the OPPO Reno12 5G took around 20 seconds to give us a clean image with our desired results. Considering that the OPPO Reno12 5G is a mid-range device, we applaud OPPO for making its powerful AI features accessible at a lower price point.

You also have other AI features with the OPPO Reno12 5G like AI ToolBox which is powered by Google Gemini to assist you with writing tasks, AI Recording Summary to transcribe your audio recordings, and AI Summary to give you all the relevant key points you’re reading in your web browser. 

Aside from AI Eraser 2.0 and its suite of AI features, ColorOS feels more polished compared to other Android skins–and that’s evident not just with the general browsing experience, but also with its suite of battery management features to keep the OPPO Reno12 5G’s battery healthy. OPPO is also consistent with software updates: the monthly security updates always arrive on time, and OPPO also makes an effort to tweak the cameras further as well.

Do we recommend the OPPO Reno12 5G?

While we understand that the OPPO Reno12 5G is on the pricey side, OPPO did a great job in making it as balanced as possible, especially with all the software optimizations. While hardware is a major deciding factor in buying a new device, we also believe that good software is just as important to maximize a device’s full potential. So if you’re after a midrange phone that is well-balanced in both hardware and software, the OPPO Reno12 5G is a good choice.