realme has been making waves in the smartphone industry with its value-packed devices that punch above their weight class. The company’s latest release, the realme 12 Plus 5G, looks to continue that trend with a mix of stylish visuals, photography prowess, and good performance.
Design and Build Quality
Just like its more premium sibling, the realme 12 Plus 5G proudly sports a design inspired by the premium watch world. From its polished sunburst backplate, gold accents, and to its vegan leather finish, the realme 12 Plus 5G stands out for the right reasons.
It’s got fairly slim dimensions, tipping the scales at only 190g while measuring 7.87mm thin. Unlike the Pro+, you only get an IP54 rating for water and dust resistance.
While I do prefer the boxier look with flat sides, the sides on this phone are of a metallic finish, which makes them very prone to fingerprints. It can also feel a bit sharp on the edges when holding the phone.
If you’re not a fan of wireless earbuds, this has a headphone jack up top well as dual stereo speakers that produce a well-balanced sound with a decent amount of bass for a smartphone speaker, clear vocals, and sparkly treble.
Display
The 6.67-inch FHD+ E4 AMOLED panel has all the essentials covered – vibrant colors, deep blacks, and wide viewing angles. It can also ramp up the brightness to 1200nits peak and 2000nits in sunlight mode. Having a 120Hz refresh rate allows for buttery smooth scrolling and gameplay. With Minimal bezels that surround the display, you get an immersive full-screen experience that’s a treat for watching content.
Since it’s a flat display, no part of any content “spills” over to the sides, and your swipe input becomes more consistent in terms of responsiveness. There’s also an in-display fingerprint sensor, which is very responsive. I do wish that the detection area was a bit higher though.
Cameras
realme 12 Plus 5G uses a 50MP Sony LYT600 sensor with OIS. It promises sharp and vibrant daylight shots, along with capable low light performance even without the dedicated Night mode. There’s an 8MP ultra-wide unit as well, and the very familiar 2MP macro lens. There’s also a 32MP Sony IMX615 front camera. In general, this is a very flexible setup, though I would personally swap out the macro lens in favor of a depth sensor or telephoto lens.
In terms of video, the main rear camera maxes out at 4K 30fps, while both the ultrawide unit and the front camera maxes out at 1080p 30fps. We’ll save the verdict for the full review, but please have a look at some of the shots taken by the realme 12 Plus 5G.
Performance and Software
The device is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7050, the same chip that powers the realme 11 Pro+ 5G, the brand’s midrange contender last year. And while it isn’t the most powerful chip today, the performance you get is still very good for day-to-day use. There’s also up to 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. Not as generous as the Pro+ variant, but still plenty enough for a lot of users. Unlike the Pro+, this has a microSD card slot, so you can add even more storage if you want.
We’ll save the gaming benchmarks for the full review but know that this will run Mobile Legends on HFR – Super + Ultra Graphics setting with no issues, while Diablo Immortal runs decently at high settings + 30fps.
realme 12 Plus 5G runs Android 14 with realme UI 5.0 on top. The redesigned UI offers the same vibrancy with its rounded icons, and a generally very colorful theme.
What’s not pleasant however, is the amount of pre-installed apps and shortcuts still present. Again, you can remove or uninstall, but it would be just nicer to just be able to pick which one to install when you set up the phone for the first time.
Battery
Like the Pro+ 5G, realme 12+ also houses a 5,000mAh battery. While the hardware is different, I expect an almost similar level of battery life from the device, which is around 1 to 1.5 days of light to moderate use with the same use case – social media updates, email, Spotify, YouTube, and a bit of photography as well.
The device supports 67W SUPERVOOC Charge technology, so topping off the battery shouldn’t take too long. Zero to full only took around an hour.
realme 12 Plus 5g: Initial Thoughts
So far, I can say that those who prefer the boxier form factor and a flat display will love the realme 12+ 5G. The design looks great, the performance is, in my opinion, more than enough for a 2024 midranger. As for its cameras, we still have to put a verdict on quality, but on paper, it’s a flexible package, though you will miss out on the 120x zoom of the Pro+. Thankfully, this phone charges just as fast.
There’s still a lot to test here, so we can’t give a full verdict just yet. Do stay tuned to gadgetpilipinas.net for our full review.
Emman has been writing technical and feature articles since 2010. Prior to this, he became one of the instructors at Asia Pacific College in 2008, and eventually landed a job as Business Analyst and Technical Writer at Integrated Open Source Solutions for almost 3 years.
