The European premiere of the OnePlus R series smartphones recently took place. We’ve already shared our first impressions of the flagship OnePlus 12, and today we’ll talk about its simplified version, the OnePlus 12R. The new model offers good performance, the largest battery among all OnePlus devices (5500 mAh), and an effective cooling system.
Productivity
The OnePlus 12R is suitable for users who enjoy gaming on their smartphones. Under the hood, it features the Qualcomm Snapdragon Gen 2 processor with eight cores, manufactured using a 4nm process, 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage. It also includes a new Trinity Engine system, utilizing six OnePlus technologies to enhance the processor’s performance, as well as the phone’s RAM and storage.
Screen
The OnePlus 12R features a 6.78-inch AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a resolution of 2780×1264, and a density of 450 pixels per inch (ppi), supporting Dolby Vision and HDR 10+. The display shows up to one billion colors, and the peak brightness reaches 4500 nits (up to 1600 nits in regular mode – the phone automatically adjusts one of 8192 brightness levels for convenience). The screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2.
The OnePlus 12R, like its higher-end counterpart, features the Aqua Touch function. The phone “senses” when water droplets or the user’s wet fingers touch the screen, preventing erratic behavior. This ensures that the screen remains responsive without glitches or delays even when wet.
We have already had the opportunity to test this, and in this case, the 12R functions just like the regular 12.
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OnePlus 12R Battery
The OnePlus 12R is equipped with a 5500mAh battery, the largest among all OnePlus smartphones to date. It supports SUPERVOOC 100W charging technology, allowing the phone to charge from 1% to 100% in just 26 minutes!
Additionally, the Battery Health Engine technology in the OnePlus 12R ensures extended battery life. The OnePlus 12R can withstand up to 1600 cycles, meaning you can charge and discharge the smartphone daily for four years.
Cooling
The OnePlus 12R features the most advanced cooling system among the company’s smartphones—the Cryo-Velocity Cooling System, composed of two vapor chambers. The smaller chamber absorbs heat directly from sources such as the processor and evenly distributes it. The larger vapor chamber absorbs heat from the smaller one, allowing it to quickly dissipate and cool to a liquid state. Together, these chambers have a surface area of 9140 mm² and are made from a new type of graphite with a thermal conductivity exceeding 1700 W/mK..
Design of OnePlus 12R
Thanks to a higher aluminum content and an additional metal frame, the R-series innovation boasts the most robust casing among all OnePlus models.
The device is available in two colors: Cool Blue and Iron Gray. Both options adhere to the IP64 standard for water and dust resistance (basic splash protection). The Alert Slider, allowing users to easily switch between modes for convenience, is now located on the left side.
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Cameras
The cameras here are slightly simpler than those on the OnePlus 12 but still decent. The primary lens is a 50MP Sony IMX890 with OIS, the ultra-wide is 8MP covering 112 degrees, there’s also a 2MP macro module (arguably less necessary), and a 16MP front camera. How well the smartphone performs in photography will be seen once we get it for a detailed test.
OnePlus 12R vs OnePlus 12
In conclusion, a brief overview of how the simplified version differs from the flagship. Firstly, the 12R does not support eSIM. Secondly, it has a lower screen resolution – 1264×2780 instead of 1440×3168. The chipset is the previous-generation Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 instead of the current Gen 3, but it’s still a very capable processor that will last for a long time.
The model is available in one memory variant – 16/256 GB, whereas for the OnePlus 12, there are configurations of 12/256 GB and 16/512 GB. Fortunately, the storage type remains the same – speedy UFS 4.0. The main camera on the 12R is simpler, and the ultra-wide camera is also less advanced (lacking autofocus, hence the additional 2MP macro lens, which is somewhat unnecessary in the 2MP version). There’s no telephoto lens at all, whereas the OnePlus 12 features a periscope lens with a very good optical zoom. Additionally, the flagship has color tuning from Hasselblad, a feature absent in the younger model. Recording in 4K format is also unavailable, and the selfie camera is only 16MP instead of 32MP, so there are quite a few differences in this aspect.
What else? The Bluetooth version is 5.3 instead of 5.4, but that’s unlikely to be a problem. Both smartphones support Wi-Fi 6 and are Wi-Fi 7 Ready. The older model has USB Type-C 3.2, while the younger one has only 2.0. In the meantime, the battery in the 12R is slightly larger (5500mAh compared to 5400mAh), and it charges just as quickly. As you can see, the design is slightly less interesting, and the Cool Blue version of the OnePlus 12R tends to attract fingerprints. And that’s all!
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