OnePlus 12R long-term review: Is it the best budget phone?

The OnePlus 12R is a $500 phone that aims to punch well above its weight, but is it the best budget phone out there? I spent over two months using the phone to find out.

The budget smartphone segment is often dominated by a Samsung Galaxy or a Google Pixel A-series. If you’re looking for affordable phones in the US, every “best cheap phone list” will point you to either a Pixel 7a or Galaxy A54. The OnePlus 12R aims to change this.

It’s a more affordable sibling of the OnePlus 12, but doesn’t cut many corners. The OnePlus 12R has the same super-fast charging speed as the OnePlus 12 and a larger battery. It also borrows the retina-searing AMOLED display from its more expensive sibling, while packing an older Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor.

The OnePlus 12R holds its own in many areas, but it doesn’t come without flaws. For instance, there’s no wireless charging—something the Pixel 7a offers. It also lacks proper dust or water resistance. Both the Pixel 7a and the Galaxy A54 boast an IP67 rating. So, there are drawbacks to the handset. But, does it all come together for a compelling package?

Key Specs

• Display: 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED panel with 4500 nits peak brightness, HDR10+, 120Hz refresh rate
• CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC
• Memory: 8GB or 16GB RAM
• Storage: 128GB or 512GB
• Battery: 5,500mAh unit with 80W fast wired charging
• Cameras: 50MP+8MP+2MP triple rear camera setup, 16MP front cam
• OS: Android 14 with OxygenOS 14

Price

The OnePlus 12R starts at $499 in the US for the base model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The higher-end model with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage costs $599.  You can find them on the OnePlus website or on Amazon.

Here’s how its price compares to that of the Pixel 7a and the Galaxy A54:

Phone Model	Storage	Price (USD)
OnePlus 12R	8GB RAM + 128GB	$499
OnePlus 12R	16GB RAM + 256GB	$599
Pixel 7a	8GB RAM + 128GB	$499
Galaxy A54	6GB RAM + 128GB	$300
Galaxy A54	8GB RAM + 128GB	$349
Galaxy A54	8GB RAM + 256GB	$399

Design

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The OnePlus 12R comes with a design that doesn’t look like a budget phone. The highlight of the OnePlus 12R is its circular camera module that tries to mimic an analog watch. It doesn’t look too different from the OnePlus 12, which, in turn, retained the OnePlus 11’s design. The OnePlus 11R, which was only launched in India, featured a similar design, too.

I have nothing against similar-looking phones. Every brand is doing it, and OnePlus is just following suit. Making too many changes to the design every year diminishes a brand’s identity. One brand that manages to pull off entirely different-looking smartphones every year while still maintaining the brand identity is Huawei. However, the company is no longer able to sell phones in the US.

Coming back to the OnePlus 12’s design, the smartphone features an aluminum frame and a glass back. OnePlus didn’t specify which type of glass is used on the back. The front boasts the Gorilla Victus 2. The OnePlus 12R feels premium to hold, and the button placements are good, so you’ll never find yourself struggling to reach over and find something. The alert slider on the left edge is a blessing, at least for me. It makes putting your phone on mute/vibration/ring super easy.

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Just like the OnePlus 12, the 12R features a curved display, which means you get slim bezels. OnePlus initially claimed that the smartphone featured an IP65 rating similar to the OnePlus 12, but later clarified it’s only IP64. That’s a bummer, because the IP65 rating is meant to withstand water jets while the IP64 only protects the phone from splashes.

There’s an optical fingerprint sensor placed inside the display. It’s placed high enough to reach easily and unlocks the phone pretty fast. However, It does occasionally fail to detect my finger sometimes, once in a blue moon.

Display

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The OnePlus 12R has a fantastic display. It’s the same screen you get with the OnePlus 12. It uses a large 6.78-inch display, bigger than the 6.1-inch Pixel 7A and 6.4-inch Galaxy A54 screens. Its resolution is a little bit higher than 1080p, offers a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. The OnePlus 12R uses a technology called low-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) to refresh all the way down to 1Hz, this means it can pull less battery when viewing static content.

This is a flagship-grade display often seen on flagship phones. The OnePlus 12R also boasts 4500 nits peak brightness, and it’s not just good on paper. The smartphone becomes super bright when in direct sunlight and is easily visible. It can also become equally dim in a dark environment.

Watching content is a treat on this panel. With Dolby Vision, movies and shows look better than ever. However, you may have trouble finding a streaming app that supports it. In my testing, Netflix was the only service that supported Dolby Vision. The Apple TV+ app also has it, but it won’t work on Android.

Performance

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You don’t expect budget smartphones to feature a very powerful processor or to perform well while gaming. They often heat up and start bottlenecking when you play graphic-intensive games or start multitasking between several apps.

However, the OnePlus 12R manages to challenge this very notion with its powerful performance.

It packs the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC, which, until late 2023, was powering flagship smartphones. The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has the same chip, and so does the OnePlus 11. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is one of Qualcomm’s finest SoCs in the market, second only to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The chipset has balanced thermal performance, improved efficiency, and a fast CPU.

While playing games like Genshin Impact, PUBG Mobile, and COD: Warzone on the highest settings and graphics available, the OnePlus 12R didn’t lag or heat up much. However, after gaming for more than half an hour, I noticed the phone started to get pretty warm. It didn’t get uncomfortable to hold, but there was noticeable heat. The newer Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones I have tested don’t heat up much even after long gaming sessions.

In daily tasks, the OnePlus 12R shines. I did a lot of multitasking, snapped pictures, and recorded video, but I didn’t notice any lag. However, benchmarks may tell you a different story. Somehow, the OnePlus 12R has subpar performance on benchmarking platforms.

In performance mode, the OnePlus 12R scored 1,511,642 points, while disabling the mode resulted in a score of 1,282,842 points. GeekBench 6 benchmarks showcased a single-core score of 1073 and a multi-core score of 4011 in regular mode.

Switching to high-performance mode, the OnePlus 12R achieved a single-core score of 2007 and a multi-core score of 5245. In 3D Mark’s 1440p 3D Wild Life Extreme test, the OnePlus 12R attained 3735 points with an average frame rate of 22.69 FPS.

Mode	GeekBench Single-Core Score	GeekBench Multi-Core Score	3D Mark 1440p Score	AnTuTu
Regular	1073	4011	3620	1,282,842
High-Performance	2007	5245	3735	1,511,642

Cameras

Cameras aren’t exactly one of the strong areas of the OnePlus 12R. There’s no Hasselblad tuning or telephoto camera. It brings a 50MP main shooter, an 8MP ultrawide, and a 2MP macro camera, while a 16MP shooter is on the front.

The main camera captures decent pictures in bright light. The details are sufficient, and there’s a wide dynamic range. You won’t see much saturation in the images, which holds true for the standard OnePlus 12 as well. While photos from the iPhone 15 Pro Max and Galaxy S24 Ultra are highly saturated, OnePlus opts for a calmer look.

OnePlus 12R shots at 1x, 2x, and 5x, in that order.

The 2X images are not bad either, but you won’t find much to appreciate in the 5X shots. Going beyond 5X is pretty much pointless as image quality becomes compromised.

Low-light shots were usable but often too bright. But, on the plus side, the OnePlus 12R has fast shutter speeds even in poor lighting conditions. Ultrawide shots are nicely detailed and bright. However, the third camera, a 2MP macro, is just for show. The OnePlus 12R would be better off with just two cameras, and doing them well.

Battery and software

The OnePlus 12R comes with a large 5500mAh battery—that’s 100mAh more than the OnePlus 12. The battery life on the smartphone is nothing short of impressive. I charge it once in the morning, and by the time I am going to bed, it still has 20-30% battery left. The screen-on time is well above 9 hours; however, it decreases when I game a lot.

The smartphone brings equally impressive charging speed, supporting 80W wireless charging. It charges from 0 to 100% in just half an hour. But, something to note is that there’s no wireless charging on the device.

The OnePlus 12R runs OxygenOS 14 on the software, based on Android 14. The software experience is smooth, and animations flow nicely. However, OnePlus is only offering three years of software updates with the device, which could be a major factor in your purchasing decision. Also, updates aren’t exactly being delivered on time. As of writing this, my review unit is still on the February security patch.

Verdict: 4/5

So, is the OnePlus 12R the best budget phone you can get right now? Yes. It packs in a ton of features you might not even find on some high-end phones, all for a pretty reasonable price. But is it the right choice for you? That depends.

If you must have wireless charging, the best cameras, or a waterproof phone, then the Pixel 7a, Pixel 8, or Samsung Galaxy S23 FE might be a better fit, and they’re all similarly priced devices.

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