I reviewed OnePlus’ $500 Android phone, and it’s spectacular

The OnePlus 12R is a special phone. It doesn’t have the latest processor or the best camera system I’ve ever seen, and it’s missing some features like wireless charging. The design is also a pretty standard affair. But it’s still special.

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Why? For all intents and purposes, the OnePlus 12R has the makings of an expensive flagship Android phone from 2023 — and you can buy it new for just $500. It’s one of the best smartphone values I’ve seen in years, and even after a couple of weeks of using the OnePlus 12R, I still can’t believe how good it is.

OnePlus 12R: design

If you ever used or saw the OnePlus 11, you’ll be right at home with the OnePlus 12R’s design. It has the same curved display, flat aluminum frame on the top and bottom, and circular camera housing on the back. It’s a familiar and comfortable design, and one I really like.

There are some subtle differences between the OnePlus 12R and the OnePlus 11. The 12R is slightly thicker and a couple of grams heavier. The alert slider is also now on the left side of the phone, while the volume buttons are higher up on the right side. It’s a pretty small change and one I got used to very quickly.

There are some other nice design touches on the 12R that we didn’t get last year. The camera circle on the back now has a notched design along the edge, along with a subtle pattern underneath the glass. There’s also an official IP64 dust- and water-resistance rating, and OnePlus even included an IR sensor for controlling TVs, projectors, cable boxes, etc. It’s something we rarely see in smartphones these days, and I’m happy it’s here.

The OnePlus 12R comes in two colors, including the Iron Gray color seen throughout this review, plus a really striking Cool Blue variant. While Cool Blue looks great in photos, I really like the matte finish of the Iron Gray on my review unit. It’s a little slippery, but fingerprints and smudges are nonexistent on it.

OnePlus isn’t breaking any new ground with the OnePlus 12R’s design, but I think that’s perfectly fine. This is a well-crafted and well-designed smartphone, even if it looks a bit familiar. It’s comfortable to hold, feels sturdy, and has a few extra goodies in the alert slider and IR sensor. Especially when you consider the price, OnePlus killed it here.

OnePlus 12R: screen and performance

Speaking of killing it, let’s talk about the 12R’s screen. The phone has a 6.78-inch AMOLED panel with a 2780 x 1264 resolution — giving you 450 pixels per inch. The variable refresh rate scales up to 120Hz and down to 1Hz, it has a ridiculous peak brightness of 4,500 nits, Dolby Vision and HDR10+ are supported, and the whole thing is covered with Gorilla Glass Victus 2.

This is a screen I’d expect on a $1,000 phone — not one that costs half the price.

Those are a lot of impressive numbers, and in practice, the OnePlus 12R’s screen is a thing of beauty. Colors are bright and vivid, everything is razor sharp, and the refresh rate makes scrolling and other animations buttery smooth. This is a screen I’d expect on a $1,000 phone — not one that costs half the price.

If I have to complain about something, it’d be the curved edges of the screen. They’re very reminiscent of the curved edges on the Motorola Edge Plus (2023), and just like on that phone, they can occasionally cause unwanted actions on the touchscreen. There have only been a handful of instances where this happened, though, so it’s far from a deal breaker.

Similarly, performance on the OnePlus 12R is top-notch. It’s powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip — the same one found inside last year’s biggest flagship phones, from the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra to the OnePlus 11. No, it’s not the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, but that’s a complete nonissue.

Everything on the OnePlus 12R is fast. Apps open instantly, there’s zero stutter when navigating the phone, and multitasking is handled with ease. I should note that I’m using the OnePlus 12R with 16GB of RAM, but the base model with 8GB of RAM should also be able to hold its own just fine.

I’ve also been impressed with the gaming experience on the OnePlus 12R. Not only does Call of Duty: Mobile play smoothly at 120 frames per second (fps) at Medium graphics, but it does so without ever feeling warm. This is thanks to a much larger vapor chamber design inside the 12R. It’s not the flashiest thing to talk about, but in my testing, it works ridiculously well.

OK — let’s talk cameras. The OnePlus 12R’s main camera is a 50-megapixel Sony IMX890 sensor with optical image stabilization and an f/1.8 aperture. It’s joined by an 8MP ultrawide camera with a 112-degree field of view, plus a 2MP macro camera. On the front is a 16MP selfie camera. Unlike some other OnePlus phones, there is no image processing or tuning done in partnership with Hasselblad.

So, how do the photos look? In the right conditions, the 50MP main camera can do a really good job of capturing a lot of detail with pleasing colors. There are some photos I’ve been thoroughly impressed with.

On the flip side, I’ve also taken a few stinkers during my testing. When trying to take pictures of fidgety cats, the OnePlus 12R occasionally gave me blurry images. I’ve also had some shots where the colors don’t always look 100% right — whether it’s my cat’s white fur being overexposed or my dog looking more saturated than he should. It’s certainly not a perfect camera, but it also could have been a lot worse.

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I reviewed OnePlus’ $500 Android phone, and it’s spectacular