The OnePlus 12R Is Solid, but It’s No ‘Flagship Killer’

At $500, roughly $300 cheaper than the flagship OnePlus 12, the OnePlus 12R looks like another great option for those looking to get a faster, better-performing Android device at a cheaper price point.

Having been billed as a flagship killer, I put the OnePlus 12R to the test to see just how well it stood up against other flagships, including the iPhone 15 Pro Max, the Pixel 8 Pro, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, the very flagships that it claims to kill.

Design and display

Right off the bat, the design and display of the OnePlus 12R are both wonderful. The phone comes in two styles: a frosted glass back that's a dark gray; or the smoother, cool blue glass back that I got to test out. The iron gray design looks more like the same design we saw on the back of the 12 that I tested, which I really liked because it did a good job of fending off fingerprints.

On the Cool Blue, though, the lack of frosted glass means that the back is extremely shiny. While pretty, fingerprints and smudges stick to it like glue. Sure, they can easily be wiped off, but if you end up picking up the Cool Blue, you'll definitely want to add a case or something to it just to help fend off those fingerprints and grime.

The display is equally as pretty as the back, though, and it comes with OnePlus' 120Hz ProXDR display, which offers a silky smooth touchscreen experience and vivid colors in all environments. It also sports Aqua Touch, a feature that the OnePlus 12 also came with. This means your phone is still usable even when it's wet, and I put that to the test out in the rain one day, and was still able to open apps, make a phone call, and even swipe around on TikTok.

With a peak brightness of 4500 nits, too, the HDR10+ and HDR Vivid enabled 6.78-inch display is a marvel to look at and use. Games look fantastic on it, and I tested it with Genshim Impact and Asphalt 8 with no issues. We'll talk a bit more about how those games performed further down, but they looked absolutely stunning on the OnePlus 12R's large display.

Of course, the overall design of the 12R is very reminiscent of the OnePlus 12, which means the display curves around the sides of the phone with a slight edge. It's still not my favorite design ever, but it never feels bad in the hands, either. Side-by-side, it's almost impossible to tell these two devices apart.

Specs

While the OnePlus 12R takes a lot of cues from the newest OnePlus flagship, it also cuts some of the internal pieces to make room for that price cut. The processor here is an older Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, so it's running a bit older hardware than the newer flagship models. The Gen 2 is still really good, though, and you shouldn't have much issue running anything on it. Here's how the 12R stacks up overall:

• SoC: Snapdragon 8 Gen 2

• RAM: 8GB / 16GB

• Storage: 128GB / 256 GB

• OS: OxygenOS/Android 14

• Display: 6.78-inch AMOLED ProXDR panel, 2780 x 1264, 1-120Hz dynamic refresh rate

• Battery: 5,500 mAh

• Charging: 80W SUPERVOOC wired charging

• Audio: Dolby Atmos

• Rear Camera: 50MP Sony IMX890 primary sensor, 8MP ultra-wide camera, 2MP macro lens

• Front Camera: 16MP

None of this is particularly exciting, but it should be more than enough to get you through the day and provide hours of gaming and entertainment power. That said, the lower-quality camera is disappointing, to say the least, and the lack of wireless charging definitely feels like a missed opportunity to keep up with other budget-friendly devices.

There's no removable storage option or headphone jack, so those hoping that OnePlus would add it on will be disappointed.

Performance

As far as budget-friendly phones go, the specs on the OnePlus 12R aren't anything to scoff at, especially for just $500. But how does that all translate to performance? As I noted above, I tested the OnePlus 12R using two pretty intensive games, Genshin Impact and Asphalt 8. Both games ran as smoothly as I expected on the device, which isn't surprising since this same chipset was found in flagship devices just last year. There were a few more hitches here and there than I noticed on the OnePlus itself, but for a $500 phone, the performance was really solid.

Movement through apps felt good, too, and I never noticed any big hiccups in performance while using the OnePlus 12R. Like I said, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is still a really good chipset. Benchmarks in GeekBench 6 showed a score of 1559 for single-core and 5059 for multi-core when running in regular mode, and in high-performance, the OnePlus 12R scored 2043 in single-core and 5557 in multi-core. It actually performed better in benchmarks than I saw from the OnePlus 12, which was somewhat surprising.

For those not familiar with benchmarks, these tests essentially run the phone through a multitude of different actions meant to mimic the things you do in your day-to-day life. The higher the score, the better the phone's systems performed. They aren't a true indication of how the phone will handle day-to-day usage, but they can give you a good starting place for comparisons.

The OnePlus 12R also features the newly updated dual cryo-velocity cooling system that the regular 12 does, which was a nice surprise, as it helped keep the phone cool throughout most of my testing. The only time that it did get even slightly warm was during a four-hour session of Genshin, but as I noted above, that game is extremely intensive, so I'm not surprised I felt some heat in the back of the phone. Overall, there's nothing to worry about when it comes to heat distribution here.

But what about the battery life? Because the OnePlus 12R actually has a bigger battery than the OnePlus 12, you might expect it to get better battery life. The reality is that the older processor in the 12R doesn't have as many tweaks and optimizations the newer processors do, which means that extra battery capacity is basically a wash. However, battery life was still really good, especially for a more budget-conscious phone. I was able to use it extensively throughout the day and still had around 25 to 30 percent when I got home at night. On the days when I didn't use it as much, I was able to go a day and a half without having to charge it.

Camera

The camera is usually a big sticking point for more budget-friendly phones, and that's the same here on the OnePlus 12R. There's no Hasselblad partnership on the OnePlus 12R, and the 64MP telephoto lens has been replaced with a 2MP macro lens. I've personally never seen much usage out of low-resolution macro lenses, and the same can be said about the lens in the OnePlus 12R.

Overall, camera performance is exactly what you would expect from a pared-down version of the OnePlus 12's camera array. The 50MP sensor still delivers solid photos—though, as I mentioned before, OnePlus delivers far less saturation in its photos than the iPhone 15 Pro Max or the Galaxy S24 Ultra.

Low-light images weren't great; they often turned out overly bright from the camera's compensation systems and were often grainy. The Pixel 8 Pro still continues to deliver some of the better low-light photos that we've seen in a smartphone this release season, and that's just always going to be hard to beat because of Google's heavy-handed AI systems.

For a $500 budget-friendly phone, though, the photos are more than adequate, so long as you aren't expecting it to always keep up with the higher-performing sensors found in more expensive smartphones.

Is it really a flagship killer?

Despite how much the OnePlus 12R does right, I have to say I'm not really willing to call it a flagship killer. This smartphone is really solid for the price tag, but OnePlus has made some big concessions to get us there.

One of the biggest, and the most egregious, in my opinion, is the shorter support time that the OnePlus 12R gets compared to the more expensive OnePlus 12: OnePlus only guarantees three years of software updates and four years of security updates on the 12R, compared to the four that come on the standard OnePlus 12. Other budget-friendly phones like the Galaxy S23 FE still offer four years, so it is weird to see OnePlus cut back on that as part of its "price-cutting" technique.

Overall, though, the OnePlus 12R is still a really solid device. If you've been looking for something a bit off the beaten path, but still want to save some money, the OnePlus 12R is a great choice that delivers on OnePlus's promise to "Never Settle," at least in most of the ways that matter.

The OnePlus 12R is available for preorder now. You can purchase it starting at $499.99 for the 8GB/128GB variant or $599.99 for the 16GB/256GB option. You can also get $100 off by trading in any phone, with up to $450 in credits available depending on the device.