OnePlus 12R

At first glance, the OnePlus 12R is a bit of a strange one, and it is particularly so as it has been marketed and referred to as a "gaming variant" on several occasions. Let's be clear from the outset that it's not. What it is, is a more old-fashioned OnePlus phone that competes more on price and makes intelligent compromises on various parameters to hit that price point.

Okay, so the OnePlus 12R looks like a standard 12, a smartphone we gave a 10/10, but to hit a price point of just over £650 instead of £850, you have to accept that certain features are sacrificed. There's no wireless charging, all Hasselblad branding disappears from the camera system, the range of lenses is replaced, and you get a slightly older Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC instead of the newer Gen 3.

In benchmarking software (which doesn't always result in usable fps differences in the biggest games) we're talking about a difference of something like 15% in the worst cases, and negligible differences in others. Either way, it's not going to make a huge difference in games like Genshin Impact, Asphalt 9: Legends and PUBG: Mobile.

Okay, so what about the camera? Not only is all the Hasselblad tuning gone, you now get a 50 megapixel 24mm main with optical stabilisation, an 8 megapixel 112 degree ultra-wide and a downright useless 2 megapixel macro lens. You can shoot in up to 4K/60fps and the standardised modes are supported, such as software-based portrait mode and panorama. So are the images good? Yes, they're fine to be honest. If you give the lenses plenty of light they produce decent dynamic range, and although the more distinct Hasselblad tuning is gone, it's not that the images are outright useless, but are probably equivalent to most Motorola cameras, or the Nothing Phone 2. But they can keep the 2 megapixel macro. The results are grainy, and they might as well have spent the resources on giving us a wider ultra-wide.

But other than that, there aren't many sacrifices here. The phone is IP64 certified, you get a 120Hz AMOLED LTPO4 panel that supports HDR10+ and Dolby Vision and can peak at over 4500 NITS. There's up to 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and it charges at 100W through the charger you get in the box.

That means you get pretty much the entire OnePlus package for significantly less by sacrificing just a few features. So, is it worth it? Well, yes, it is, and those who are very budget orientated will probably opt for an R model over the standardised 12.

Make no mistake, the OnePlus 12R is fine for most, but the immediate "WOW" factor of the OnePlus 12 is truly hard to forget. Even though it's significantly more expensive, it's inherently cheaper than the flagships it directly undermines by sacrificing nothing at all. Even if it's partly intentional, the OnePlus 12 is such an important phone for OnePlus that it makes the OnePlus 12R less interesting.

It also doesn't help that OnePlus only offers three years of Android platform upgrades on the 12R, a full year less than the regular 12, but that said, it's really hard to turn your nose up at the rather large savings here. OnePlus is diversifying their portfolio, and they're getting a lot closer to the bullseye this time around than with the awful 10T, although the 12 is so good in its own right that you should probably set your sights on it again instead.