Following the realme 11 series of smartphones, the all-new realme 12 series is available in three models—the realme 12 Pro+ 5G, realme 12+ 5G, and realme 12. In this review, let us focus on the realme 12 and find out what it offers.
Arriving in the familiar yellow packaging, the realme 12 comes with a 6.67-inch E4 AMOLED display, a new generation of OLED technology. Equipped with an E4 AMOLED display, the realme 12 offers a typical brightness of 600 nits and a maximum of 2000 nits. These brightness levels are necessary when viewing content or capturing images under bright sunlight. With AI Protective Film Touch and Rainwater Smart Touch features, the realme 12 also offers optimized touch performance even when used with a tempered glass screen protector or wet with droplets of water or mist. Because an E4 AMOLED display is thinner than other display types, it is more energy efficient. Therefore, in the case of the realme 12, the display contributes to the battery life.
The realme 12 display features 2400 × 1080p FHD+ resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, 100% DCI-P3 color accuracy, and 92.65% screen-to-body ratio for better viewing and crisper, more vibrant images. The non-curved display is held by a smooth, sturdy body with rounded corners. The flat sides of the body provide a good hand grip for enhanced maneuverability. The power and volume buttons strategically sit on the right side. The realme 12 is available in two color variants--Skyline Blue and Pioneer Green. The latter, featured in this review, has a frosted finish and does not attract fingerprints and smudges easily.
Looking at the back, the realme 12 adopts the line design element that passes through the slightly protruding circular main camera system. The rear camera system consists of a 50MP Sony LYT600 OIS camera (1/1.95" sensor size, f/1.88 aperture), a 2MP mono camera (1/5" sensor size, f/2.4 aperture), and a flash. The main camera also supports 1080p video recording. Meanwhile, the 16MP front pinhole camera is located above the display. The front camera can also record 720p videos. By default, the images captured by the main and front cameras of the realme 12 have realistic colors and do not look unnatural because of post-processing. Self-portraits shot using the front camera look decent with minimal smoothening effect on the skin.
The realme 12 comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 685 4G Mobile Platform, which consists of an octa-core CPU (two Arm Cortex-A73 cores at up to 2.8GHz and six Arm Cortex-A53 cores at up to 1.9GHz) and an Adreno 610 GPU. The realme 12 also has 8GB RAM and 256GB onboard storage, which can be expanded via microSD (up to 1TB). In terms of operating system, the phone runs on realme UI 5.0 based on Android 14. With these hardware and software components, the realme 12 scored 352336 in AnTuTu Benchmark.
Connectivity-wise, the realme 12 has a 3.5mm audio jack on the top side and a USB-C port on the bottom. The USB-C port, which supports 67W SUPERVOOC charging, is adjacent to the SIM/microSD tray slot. The tray can support two nano SIM cards or a combination of one nano SIM card and one microSD card. Wireless connectivity options include 4G, Wi-Fi 5 (IEEE 802.11ac), and Bluetooth 5.0. The realme 12 also comes with a 5000mAh battery.
Carrying a price tag of ₱13,999, the realme 12 can be a convincing offering for consumers such as students and young professionals. If you are looking for a reasonably priced smartphone with a good design, brilliant display, decent camera performance, and can handle day-to-day tasks, the realme 12 might be the right one for you.