I really enjoyed my time with the OPPO Reno12 Pro 5G 33 earlier this year. As part of the Reno12 family, the Reno12 Pro is definitely one of my top picks in today’s mid-range smartphone segment. It packs a competent camera with AI features, a decent chipset, and a beautiful display.
But as I said in my review, there’s just one problem – the Reno12 5G models are now a lot more expensive than before. For reference, the Reno12 Pro retails for PHP 34,999, which is a lot of money. It’s also a huge jump from its predecessor by almost PHP 10,000.
Even the standard Reno12 5G isn’t exactly the most budget-friendly mid-range smartphone with a retail price of PHP 24,999, while t With that, some more budget-conscious buyers might not be able to afford these two phones.
Now, there’s a more affordable member of the Reno12 family – the OPPO Reno12 F 5G. It’s a lot cheaper than the Reno12 5G with prices starting at just PHP 18,999, making it a lot lighter on the wallet. But of course, the lower price does come with some drawbacks.
The question now is this – is the lower price worth it for all of the less powerful hardware? Well, I suggest you read on to find out.
Table of Contents
Design and Construction
Starting with the design of the OPPO Reno12 F 5G, we have to talk about the elephant in the room. This phone looks nothing like its Reno12 and Reno12 Pro siblings. They look worlds apart, and if you didn’t tell me, I wouldn’t think that the Reno12 F is a part of the Reno12 family.
In terms of the styling though, it is quite minimalist with squarish corners and flat sides. No curved sides here, since it doesn’t have a curved display. Color-wise, I love the Olive Green color of this phone. The color isn’t too flashy nor is it very subtle. It looks the best when you shine it under some white light to make the color pop.
The back panel is clean and adopts a minimalist design with only the OPPO logo at the bottom center. The center of attention is the large circular camera island at the top of the phone.
There’s also a small color-matched bezel to give it a bit more stylish flair. I also like how OPPO made the camera housing relatively flat, giving the phone a thinner profile. Although not as obvious, there is a halo that lights up around the camera island. It’s not a flash, but the halo lights up when you’re charging, starting a game, receiving a call, or listening to music. You can adjust the colors to your liking in the settings.
As I mentioned above, the Reno12 F is far from thin. It only measures 7.69mm thick and weighs 187g. But because it has no curved edges, the phone feels bulky. You’ll feel it inside your pocket. Based on personal preference, I like this design more because you can grip it much more easily as compared to phones with curved displays.
The volume rocker and power button are easily within reach on the right side of the phone. At the bottom, you get the dual-sim and microSD slot, USB-C port, and one of the loudspeakers. The left side is clean, while at the top, you’ll find the secondary mic and the other loudspeaker.
Overall, I like the colors, and there’s nothing bad about the simplistic design of the Reno12 F. It just looks too different from the Reno12 and the Reno12 Pro for me.
Display and Multimedia
While the OPPO Reno12 F may not have the curved display of its siblings, it still packs an OLED panel. The screen measures 6.67 inches with FHD+ resolution (2400×1080) but with somewhat thick borders all around, especially the bottom portion of the phone.
However, since it’s still an OLED panel you get vibrant colors and deep hues. The blacks are also decent, making it great for watching your favorite movies on Netflix or binge-watching stuff on YouTube – like our reviews. Interestingly, videos on YouTube are limited to just 1440P so do keep that in mind.
The viewing angles are great too, so even your friends can see what’s happening on screen without any issues. Despite this being the most affordable model, OPPO still fitted dual stereo speakers. They’re decent at best, but they can be loud. You can go up to 300% volume, but I don’t recommend it since you sacrifice sound quality.
When you’re out and about, it has a maximum peak brightness of 2100 nits, allowing you to see everything on the screen even when it’s bright outside. Paired with a 120Hz refresh rate, you get smooth and buttery animations all around. It’s great for games too, well if the chipset handled games better but more on that later.
No doubt it’s a great display, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching videos on this phone.
Cameras
For the cameras, the OPPO Reno12 F comes with triple rear cameras, similar to its siblings. You get a 50MP main shooter, an 8MP ultrawide, and a 2MP macro lens. For selfies, you have a 32MP front-facing camera. It also comes with AI as said on the camera island.
Given the camera specs on paper, you should expect this phone to capture images similar to the Reno12 5G right, or at least somewhat similar? Well, unfortunately, that’s not the case with the Reno12 F at least in some aspects. In well-lit conditions, you get sharp images and good contrast. The clarity is also great, but the colors aren’t as nice as I expected even with AI enhancements.
The images seem to be over-saturated, and they don’t look that natural. Even the color of people looks somewhat off. It seems the AI algorithm overcompensates with the edit, particularly with the colors. Granted, you can edit them in post using a third-party application, but it’s quite a hassle for those who don’t like editing.
I’m sure some of you might find it nice especially if you want those bright and popping colors, but I prefer more natural-looking images. Colors aside though, the camera is more than adequate when shooting in the day, especially for its price point.
However, at night or when shooting in low light, the drop in quality is very noticeable. Even though the camera does have an AI algorithm to help, the images come out decent at best. The image is no longer sharp, and you get a lot of grain. Don’t bother zooming in at night too; the image quality goes down even further if you do.
Fortunately, you have other AI features to play with like AI Eraser that can help clean up the background of people or other disturbing items.
In terms of video, the Reno12 F can capture at a maximum of 1080P@60FPS. Unfortunately, there is no ultra steady mode to help stabilize the footage. So you will need very steady hands to make the most of it.
While it is limited to 1080P, the quality of the videos is more than adequate for IG stories or even capturing memories. During the day, you can get some sharp videos with decent contrast, and there’s good clarity too. Again the colors are a bit saturated though and sometimes they don’t look natural.
At night or in low light, the video quality drops, and you can tell from all the noise and grain in the footage. You also lose sharpness and clarity, especially if it’s very dark. It has a hard time focusing well too.
For reference, all the photos and video below were taken without any of the filters or retouch turned on.
OS, Apps, and UI
Moving on to the software side of things, the OPPO Reno12 F runs on ColorOS 14 which is based on Android 14. There’s nothing that stands out. It’s very much the same OS installed in other OPPO devices that I’ve used before.
You get the usual smart sidebar, floating windows, split view, and the like. It’s simple which I like since there aren’t too many complicated functions to deal with. You do have Beaconlink which works like a walkie-talkie but only works with other OPPO devices. Perfect for times when you don’t have a signal.
What I don’t like are the tons of bloatware that comes pre-installed with the phone. You have to deal with three separate game folders that you will end up deleting to free up space. On top of the useless games folders, the other pre-installed apps I do find useful like Facebook, Netflix, and maybe Shopee and Lazada.
Performance and Benchmarks
Under the hood, the OPPO Reno12 F runs a MediaTek Dimensity 6300 chipset with a Mali G57 GPU. Our review unit comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB. RAM can be virtually expanded by up to 8GB for a total of 16GB. And for the storage, you can expand it further via a microSD card slot.
In terms of performance, it can easily handle your everyday apps without any issues. Even though I left several apps running in the background, YouTube didn’t lag, or slow down nor did I experience any framerate drops. The same can be said for other apps I was using like Chrome to browse the net.
However, if you plan to game on this phone, that’s a different topic altogether. I mainly played Blue Archive, which is a relatively light game to run. Still, I was experiencing a lot of framerate drops during the battles, even though there wasn’t a lot happening on the screen. For reference, the graphics settings were maxed out and the phone was set to Pro Gamer mode.
For more graphic-intensive titles, I played Genshin Impact, but given the experience I had with Blue Archive, my expectations weren’t high. While the Reno12 F ran the game without any issues, I did have to set the graphics to low to have a more enjoyable gaming experience.
With the graphics toned down, I did have a good experience playing Genshin. Still, you will experience the occasional slowing down and FPS drop, especially when you’re using multiple skills, battling several enemies at once, or exploring new areas.
What I did like about the phone was that it didn’t heat up at all. Whether I was playing Blue Archive or Genshin, the temperature of the phone was steady. It didn’t even feel any warmer than it normally does.
For those of you who want to check out the numbers, the benchmark scores of the Reno12 F are listed below.
AnTuTu – 455476
AnTuTu Storage – 38292
3DMark Wild Life – 1371
Geekbench 6
Single Core – 783
Multi Core – 2014
GPU OpenCL – 1406
GPU Vulkan – 1421
PCMark Work 3.0 Peformance – 8024
Battery and Connectivity
In terms of battery, the OPPO Reno12 F packs a standard 5000mAh battery pack. It’s the usual battery pack you’d find in any smartphone today, and as we always say battery life is dependent on the user. But surprisingly the battery of Reno12 F lasts a very long time, and it shows in the benchmarks.
Using the PC Mark Work 3.0 Battery Test, we were able to achieve a result of 16 hours and 38 minutes, which is very impressive. For reference the test was done at 50% brightness, zero volume, and in airplane mode.
For the gamers, I played Blue Archive for an hour starting at 100% battery and afterward, I still had 87% battery life left, which is a great result. So even if you’re not going to be playing games, you will still have enough battery for the rest of the day.
For connectivity, you get the usual suite which includes 5G, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC, and GPS.
Conclusion
For the price of PHP 18,999, you get what you pay for the OPPO Reno12 F. It has a decent set of cameras, a very long battery life, a great display, and a beautiful design. But after seeing what the Reno12 5G and the Reno12 Pro 5G are capable of, I can’t help but find this phone lacking a lot.
Sure you save money with Reno12 F. It is PHP 6,000 cheaper than the standard Reno12 5G after all, but is the downgrade in hardware worth it? Personally, I don’t think so. The chipset isn’t that powerful, and the cameras are great only in the day or well-lit conditions. If you could save up a bit more, you have a more capable phone at your disposal.
More importantly, at this price point, there are a lot of options available to choose from, making it tough for the Reno12 F. Nonetheless, it’s a decent phone and overall, it’s that. But again, if you really want this phone, who am I to stop you?
What do you think of the Reno12 F though? Is it a phone you’ll choose or would you rather save up for the Reno12 5G and the Reno12 Pro 5G? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
What we liked:
* Beautiful display
* A stylish design
* Very long battery life
What we didn’t like:
* Lots of bloatware
* Gaming performance is lacking
OPPO Reno12 F specs:
6.67-inch FHD+ (2400 x 1080) OLED display
120Hz refresh rate
AGC DT-Star 2 glass protection
MediaTek Dimensity 6300 chipset
Mali-G57 MC2 GPU
12GB RAM
256GB UFS 2.2 storage
microSD card support
50MP main camera
8MP ultrawide sensor
2MP macro sensor
32MP front camera
USB Type-C
ColorOS 14
5,000mAh battery
45W fast charging support
Fingerprint sensor (in-display)
Face unlock
IR Blaster
IP64 rating for dust and water resistance
~187 grams (weight)
Olive Green, Amber Orange (colors)
