OPPO Reno12 5G Review

Back in February, OPPO launched the Reno11 series. I did a review of the base Reno11 5G model which you can read here 55.

Fast forward to today and OPPO has unveiled that series’ successor: the OPPO Reno12 series and coincidentally, I’m here reviewing the OPPO Reno12 5G.

So, has there been any changes with the Reno12 5G compared to the Reno11 5G? Keep reading to find out. 

For the Pro version, you can check out that review right here 105.

Design and Construction

The OPPO Reno12 5G is made out of plastic with an aluminum frame. Our review unit is in Astro Silver, but there are two other color options if you want that splash of color on your devices: Sunset Pink, and Matte Brown.

It comes included with a gray rubber case similar to the Reno11. This should protect your devices from small drops, scuffs, scratches and fingerprints, but it does cover the color of your device so take note

Instead of the oblong camera island that you get with the OPPO Reno11, you see a rectangular island that holds the lenses.

The LED flash is now beside the topmost sensor and inside the camera island which I prefer more compared to the Reno11’s design where the flash was outside of the island.

You can also see the words “AI CAMERA SYSTEM” beside the camera lenses. We’ll get back to camera specs later, though.

No protection certification or IP rating have been specified by OPPO so you might want to be careful with this device, however.

Other than that, the Reno12 is thin and light to hold. I had no issue using the phone with one hand and it is able to fit most pockets. Comparing the weight and dimensions of the Reno11 and 12, it looks like the Reno12 is slightly thinner and lighter than the predecessor.

For I/O, you’ve got the volume rocker and power buttons on the right side, USB Type C port for charging, a dual SIM card tray; one of the dual stereo speakers is at the bottom, while the top side has the other speaker and an IR blaster that can be used as a universal remote control for your home appliances. These are the same placements as the OPPO Reno11.

Display, Biometrics and Audio

Like its predecessor and its older versions, the Reno12 has the same 6.7-inch size, but it now has a 3D Curved AMOLED panel with up to 120Hz refresh rate. It’s also got HDR10+ support and dual stereo speakers. 

The Reno12 bumps up its peak HDR brightness to 1200 nits. I had no trouble using the phone for daily consumption when the sun is bright outside. It’s an improvement compared to the Reno11’s in my opinion.

The bezels are almost unnoticeable as the display almost fully covers the front. It won’t bother you at all as the device produces almost to real life true colors, giving users a great viewing experience.

For biometrics, you get an in-display fingerprint scanner and face detection. The smartphone is able to detect biometrics really fast, almost unlocking the device immediately when the correct fingerprint or face is detected.

As for sound, and mentioned earlier, you’ve got  dual stereo speakers and they’re pretty loud. I didn’t have to up the volume all the way up, nor did I need to use earphones with how loud they were.

Hardware and Performance

Powering the device is a Mediatek Dimensity 7300 – a chipset announced back in May. It has an octa-core CPU that’s clocked at 2.5GHz and paired with an Arm Mali-G615 GPU.

Our config comes with 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 512GB UFS 3.1 of storage, but if 12GB isn’t enough for you (for some reason), you can have up to 12GB more memory through RAM Expansion. A microSD card slot is also available that can support up to 1TB this time around.

We played Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, and the recently released Wuthering Waves on this. In their highest settings, the device seems to lag a bit every now and then, but after bumping the settings down to medium, but still have 60FPS, the games are able to run smooth like butter. 

When it came to Pokemon Unite, my MOBA game of choice, I was able to run this game at the highest of settings without experiencing any lag. This is quite the improvement for me as the Reno11 wasn’t able to run even in medium settings of the mentioned games. 

It does, however, heat up after a certain amount of time. I played for about an hour and I could feel the device heat up. Not too hot to the touch, but it warms up significantly fast.

For those interested in what our benchmark scores say about the device, here’s what we got:

• AnTuTu V10.2.7 – 642,338
• PCMark Work 3.0 – 12,683
• GeekBench v6.3:
  • Single-Core – 1,042
  • Multi-Core – 2,948
  • GPU OpenCL – 2,594
  • GPU Vulkan – 2,528
• 3DMark:
  • Wild Life – 3,169 (18.98 avg frame rate)
  • Sling Shot – 6,680 (Graphics score: 7,387 Physics score: 5,003)

Camera

Moving on to cameras, the OPPO Reno12 comes with a triple-rear camera setup that features the same main sensor that the Reno11 has: a 50MP Sony LYT600 sensor with an aperture of f/1.8, PDAF and optical image stabilization.

The other lenses consist of an 8MP 112° ultrawide Sony IMX355 lens with an aperture of f/2.2 and a 2MP macro with f/2.4 aperture.

For the selfie camera, it uses an identical 32MP front-facing shooter that the Reno11 also has.

I had quite a blast taking day shots with the OPPO Reno12. It’s able to focus on subjects almost immediately while being able to capture details accurately.

For instance, because toy photography is a hobby of mine, most of my subjects are figurines or charms. You can see the paint job of the figures or the fabrics of the doll seen in some of our sample shots below.

Safe to say, the cameras shine when it comes to taking photos in well-lit environments, the camera’s AI gets challenged when focusing on subjects at night. Moving subjects in the daytime weren’t too much of a problem before, but at night? Even the slightest movement will deter the camera. Still, noise is now less evident compared to previous Reno versions so kudos to that, Oppo.

For video, it’s able to shoot up to 4K@30fps for both the rear and front cameras.

Rear camera:

Front camera:

Color reproduction for skin tones comes out really well, being able to recreate almost true-to-life results.

You can be the judge of it though. Here are our sample shots!

OS, UI, and Apps

The Reno12 runs on OPPO’s ColorOS 14 based on Android 14. The phone, though, has a lot of bloatware that are even in folders. They can be uninstalled, but it is a bit annoying to remove around ten applications. 

The OPPO Reno12 has the same features like split screen, floating windows, and Smart Sidebar. For those who don’t know, Smart Sidebar allows users to easily access different apps such as Photos and the Calculator and turn them into a Floating Window.

Smart Sidebar also has File Dock that lets users drag something they want to save to the Dock, making it easier to access the file. If you have other OPPO devices that support File Dock, you can sync them through your OPPO account. 

With the OPPO Reno12 series, a new addition is GenAI. One of the added new features here, besides the camera, is the AI Toolbox and AI Recording Summary.

Through the support of Google Gemini, users are able to have an AI Writer recommend what to write in posts or comments, and AI Speak and AI Summary to summarize what an article of a website is discussing. AI Recording Summary lets users be able to summarize audio recordings and convert its results in the Notes app. This is currently applicable in Chinese, English, and Hindi with a maximum of 45,000 characters.

Connectivity and Battery Life

For connectivity, it’s got a dual nano SIM with 5G support, a microSD card slot, and an IR blaster as mentioned earlier. It supports Bluetooth 5.4, 5G, WiFi 6, GPS and NFC.

The OPPO Reno12 packs a 5,000mAh battery and comes with an 80W SUPERVOOC charging support. It took about an hour to charge the device from 20% to a fully charged 100%. This is slightly faster than the Reno11’s charging speed.

The phone lasted the whole day and a bit more the next day. I’ve used it to watch videos on YouTube, scroll through social media, take photos outside and go through my dailies in games.

In our video loop test, where we run a 1080p movie at 50% brightness with zero volume and in airplane mode, the device lasted 20 hours and 14 minutes. Compared to the Reno11, the latter wins here as it has 4 more hours in its battery life (24 hours and 10 minutes).

Meanwhile, in PCMark’s Battery 3.0 test, it got a result of 15 hours and 34 minutes. 

Pricing and Conclusion

The OPPO Reno12 5G has a price tag of PHP 24,999 pesos. Pre-order is currently ongoing until July 19 and is available in all OPPO authorized offline stores nationwide. All preorders of the OPPO Reno12 Series 5G come with a free S29 Night Light Bluetooth Speaker.

If you are a My OPPO app user, here are some redeemable perks for OPPO Reno12 Series 5G users starting July 12 (until stocks last):

• 4,500 Mabuhay Miles
• PHP 1,000 Gift Code from Happy Skin
• PHP 3,000 CUL-DE-SAC and AKIMBO Discount Codes
• PHP 300 Gift Code from Zalora

The Reno12 has a great camera that’s able to capture subjects really well especially in well-lit environments and a decent chipset.

It’s a great choice for users to have as their new daily driver especially if they are into their details in photography and prefer curved displays.

But if you’re someone who likes upping the graphics in your mobile games all the way to the max or detests bloatware on their phones, you might be upset with this guy.

What we liked:

• Almost invisible bezels
• Great daytime photography camera
• Able to run games decently

What we didn’t like:

• Tons of bloatware
• Heats up a bit fast

OPPO Reno12 5G specs:
6.7-inch 3D Curved AMOLED panel, @ 2412 × 1080 pixels
120Hz refresh rate, 1200 nits peak
brightness, HDR10+, 394 PPI
Corning Gorilla Glass 7i
MediaTek Dimensity 7300
4x ARM Cortex-A78 @ 2.5GHz, 4x ARM Cortex-A55 @ 2.0GHz
Arm Mali-G615 GPU
12GB LPDDR4X RAM (up to +12GB RAM Extension)
256GB, 512GB UFS 3.1 storage
MicroSD card slot
50MP Sony LYT600 PDAF OIS main camera f/1.8
8MP 112° Ultra Wide IMX355 camera f/2.2
2MP macro f/2.4
32MP front camera f/2.0
Dual nano SIM
Max to 1TB microSD
5G
WiFi 6
Bluetooth 5.4
GPS
360° NFC
IR Blaster
Dual stereo speakers
USB Type-C
ColorOS 14.1 based on Android 14
In-display Fingerprint sensor, Face unlock
5,000mAh battery, 80W SUPERVOOC
Weight: 177 grams
Dimensions: 161.4mm × 74.1mm × 7.6mm
Astro Silver, Sunset Pink, and Matte Brown