The OnePlus 12R is the ultimate mid-ranger, but there’s a catch

You can think of OnePlus’ R series as what the A series is to the Google Pixels and SE to the Apple iPhones. OnePlus has been making them for quite a few years, but they’ve remained exclusive to a handful of Asian markets, so far. This year brought along a pleasant surprise as the OnePlus 12R made it to the US and other international markets, and it once again feels like OnePlus is back to flagship killing. That’s evident from our review of the OnePlus 12R — it punches well above its weight, especially if you factor in its tempting price.

The OnePlus 12R is quite literally a 2023 flagship with a top-notch Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, paired with stellar battery life. Its large screen looks beautiful and comes with some of the best display technologies you can ask for, from LTPO 4.0 to Gorilla Glass Victus 2. While it is the phone to beat among the top mid-range handsets, there is one key area where the OnePlus 12R still has some catching up to do.

The pixel-perfect Google Pixel 7a

It humbles every other phone

We know for a fact that the Google Pixel phones take some of the best photos out there, and that’s even true for the budget Pixel phones. The previous-gen Pixel 6a was for long my go-to second phone that traveled with me just because of its photography chops. The newer Pixel 7a is one phone you can rely on to give consistently good photos. Much of the credit goes to Google’s computational photography mastery, which remains unrivaled. For a phone that costs less than $500, the Pixel 7a can easily give even premium phones a run for their money.

The OnePlus 12R cannot compete with the Pixel 7a’s cameras and neither does it intend to. While everything else on the 12R is top-notch, unfortunately, the cameras aren’t. It comes with a 50MP camera — the same sensor found on the OnePlus 11 and the 11R. And since the phone is slotted a segment below the current flagships, like the OnePlus 12 and the OnePlus Open, it doesn’t get the Hasselblad treatment.

That Hasselblad branding on a OnePlus phone means the colors are tuned to have a certain kind of pop, and the difference isn’t superficial. Without that treatment, the colors from the 12R’s camera look a little washed out, and there is also a tad more inconsistency across photos regarding how it captures colors and handles lighting. In his review of the phone, our Phones Editor Will Sattelberg found that the camera at times takes overexposed shots, which isn’t an acceptable behavior and something OnePlus should tune better in a future update. It isn’t a terrible camera by any measure, especially for a mid-ranger, but don’t expect it to blow your mind.

The OnePlus 12R technically has a triple camera setup, but we’d have liked it better if OnePlus skipped the shoddy 2MP macro lens altogether and called it a dual-camera phone. Anyway, the third, more usable camera in the mix is an 8MP ultrawide lens that comes in handy sometimes, though its low resolution means its photos aren’t that detailed. A dedicated telephoto lens would’ve been more helpful, but that isn’t something you’ll find on phones under $500.

What wireless charging?

The OnePlus 12R has a better trick up its sleeve

One of the most glaring omissions on the OnePlus 11 and the Open was wireless charging. OnePlus made up for that on the OnePlus 12 by including an eye-watering 50W proprietary wireless charging solution, but not on the 12R. It is easier to forgive the OnePlus 12R for skipping the feature considering its price, though the Pixel 7a gets you that convenience. Even though it’s a snail-paced 5W setup, you can put the Pixel 7a on a charging pad without having to worry about plugging in the USB cable, which is something you cannot do with the 12R.

However, the OnePlus 12R more than makes up for that with its wired charging capability that probably no other phone in the US can match — except for its own OnePlus siblings. It supports 80W charging, which charges up your phone at a blazing-fast speed, and the best part is that OnePlus includes an 80W adapter in the box, unlike nearly every other phone on the market currently. So, you will be plugging in the phone only for a few minutes each time, and its marathon battery is quite hard to kill anyway, so the lack of wireless charging isn’t that big of a deal.

OnePlus 12R: The ultimate mid-ranger

Not ‘flagship-class’ but an actual flagship

If you can’t live without wireless charging, don’t pick up the OnePlus 12R. If you want absolutely the best camera experience on a budget, the OnePlus 12R isn’t for you; go for the Pixel 7a instead.

For everybody else, the OnePlus 12R is going to be the perfect phone on a budget. It is such a good deal that even if it’s even remotely possible for you to compromise on the two factors we discussed earlier, then you should. You’ll thank me for that. The OnePlus 12R will be our default recommendation for most people unless they have any specific camera needs or are concerned by OnePlus’ about-turn on the storage speeds it earlier claimed. While the phone doesn’t feel slow by any means, even with UFS 3.1 storage, this blunder does shake the confidence in the brand.

Purring the specs aside for a minute, the phone feels great in the hand, and that display is great for watching your favorite content on the go. And its battery performance is far better than any other phone we’ve tested this year — that alone is worth getting the OnePlus 12R for. The icing on the cake has to be its unbeatable $500 price tag. With the phone getting so many things right, it finally feels like OnePlus is back in the game!