It’s that time once again when realme unveils the newest additions to its number series – its newest mid-range contenders. Heading the pack is the realme 12 Pro Plus 5G, a showcase of the brand’s A-game to provide a premium user experience in every aspect – from the design, performance, all the way to its cameras.
Design and Build Quality
For the realme 12 Series, the brand has collaborated with a watch designer who has worked with premium brands sports – thus, the polished sunburst dial design on its back, a golden fluted bezel, and a 3D jubilee bracelet pattern is all reminiscent of a premium timepiece. May it be an issue or not, the camera module does protrude, a lot. At 196 grams, it’s only slightly heavier than its predecessor.
The Submarine Blue colorway of its vegan leather back panel perfectly complements all these elements for a stylistic and refined aesthetic. The phone still maintains realme’s signature thin and light profile despite packing a large 5,000mAh battery.
realme 12 Pro Plus 5G has a dual speaker setup which also supports Dolby Atmos. The volume is certainly enough for a small space and has no audible distortion even when maxed out. The bass is decent, and the clarity is very good for smartphone speakers.
While I’m not a fan of curved displays in general, I think that the 6.7” OLED display does add a point to the phone’s premium look. I wish that they used a slightly less glossy finish on the sides, as they can easily pick up fingerprints and smudges. One notable update is an IP65 rating for water and dust resistance.
Display
The realme 12 Pro Plus 5G has the same display its predecessor – a 6.7-inch Curved OLED display with Full HD+ resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. It offers up to 950 nits of brightness but now has a 2160Hz PWM Dimming for reduced eye strain plus Low Blue Light and Flicker Free certifications. It’s protected by double reinforced glass.
As expected, this display is very good for watching content, with deep blacks and punchy colors that add liveliness to just about anything you’re watching.
There is an in-display fingerprint sensor which is very responsive, and guess what? there’s an embedded heart monitor as well so you can easily and conveniently check your BPM. I’m not sure how accurate it is, but it’s a nice feature to have.
Cameras
Like its predecessor, the realme 12 Pro+ 5G also boasts a triple rear camera system, only now, it has a 50MP Sony IMX890 main camera with OIS and 2x in-sensor zoom, an 8MP ultrawide unit, and a 64MP Omnivision 64B periscope camera with OIS that allows for up to 3x optical zoom and 6x in-sensor zoom. There’s also a 32MP Sony IMX615 selfie camera.
The device can do up to an astonishing 120x digital zoom, which is unheard of in a mid-range phone. That being said, it’s not a feature that I would use every day. Still, the fact that something that used to be found only on flagship devices, has already made it to this category is a technological feat.
On the video side, the main camera maxes out at 4K 30 fps, while the ultrawide camera and front camera both max out at 1080p 30fps. The latter isn’t exactly an issue for me personally, but it could be for those who are doing vlogs.
As for the quality, well, let me just say that it works better in situations where you want to read something from very far away, as opposed to finding a specific object, or person.
We’ll be saving our more detailed analysis for the full review, but for now, please have a look at some of the shots we’ve taken using the device.
Performance and Software
realme 12 Pro Plus 5G packs a 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen processor paired with an Adreno 710 GPU. You get 12GB of RAM which is great for light to moderate multitasking, and a generous 512GB of storage. Unfortunately, there is no card slot on this phone. That might be an issue to some, but certainly not for me.
As far as how fast apps open, and how responsive the device is, the experience has been great so far. And while I would say that this isn’t exactly the most powerful chip they could choose, the phone is still a good performer as far as what we threw at it are concerned.
Mobile Legends, for example, will run smooth and fluid, though surprisingly, I could only crank it up to High FPS and High Graphics settings, probably due to lack of optimization, being a newer chip. Honkai: Star Rail, a more resource intensive game, runs decently at medium settings. Its 3D Vapor Chamber Cooling System must be working well too, as the phone never felt too hot to use. We’ll make sure to show you more detailed benchmarks on the full review.
realme UI 5.0 is the latest version of the brand’s take on Android, and while I didn’t really see any noticeable changes in performance, meaning everything was still just as snappy and fluid, what also didn’t change, and in a not-so-good way, is the amount of pre-loaded apps/shortcuts that you get.
Sure, you can remove or uninstall but wouldn’t it be better if you can just choose what to install when you set up the phone for the first time?
Battery
The realme 12 Pro Plus 5G houses a hefty 5,000mAh battery, which is pretty standard for a lot of phones these days. While we do have to do a proper battery benchmark, I would usually get a day and a half of use before having to recharge. If you want to know my use case, it’s mostly social media updates, YouTube, Netflix, Spotify, and email. Of course, there the usual picture taking from time to time.
When I do need to recharge the battery, the bundled 67W SUPERVOOC Charger is there to save the day. It only needs about an hour from zero to full.
realme 12 Pro Plus 5G: Initial Thoughts
So far, I’m actually enjoying my time with the realme 12 Pro Plus 5G. The design is fire, the performance has been great, the cameras, definitely versatile (Not an everyday feature for me, but that 120x zoom works and is fun) and it charges very fast. I just wish that the UI wasn’t so cluttered with pre-loaded apps/shortcuts.
There’s still so much more to test before I can give a proper verdict, including the price, so make sure to subscribe to our channel and visit gadgetpilipinas.net for our full review of this device coming very soon!
Emman has been writing technical and feature articles since 2010. Prior to this, he became one of the instructors at Asia Pacific College in 2008, and eventually landed a job as Business Analyst and Technical Writer at Integrated Open Source Solutions for almost 3 years.
