realme 12 Pro+ 5G Review: Not just an Eye-candy!

In August 2023, realme Philippines made waves in the local mobile scene with the launch of the realme 11 Pro+ 5G, captivating the attention of many with its stunning design and impressive features. Now, realme Philippines has raised the bar yet again with the introduction of its successor, the realme 12 Pro+ 5G. Today, we are thrilled to present our top five favorite features of this device.

They have similarities in design, but the latest realme 12 Pro+ 5G offers a more luxurious look along with some top-of-the-line additions to its overall spec sheet. Let’s see if the realme 12 Pro + is a solid successor to the realme 11 Pro+. 

Design and Construction

When it comes to design, the realme 12 Pro + is eye candy. This is probably my number 1 choice when it comes to realme smartphone design. Looking at its back, it still carries a vegan leather design, an appealing golden strip that runs horizontally on its back. 

Compared to its predecessor, it has a more protruded camera module with a glossy finish and its design resembles a timepiece with a gold accent around the module. The device is also thicker and heavier compared to the realme 11 Pro+ but it still feels comfortable to the hand since it offers a softer texture without losing its grip.

If you are too cautious or you are worried you might damage the leather back, it comes with a case that you can use to protect it from any damage. It also comes with IP68 dust and water resistance which is a good addition that is not available on its predecessor. 

Around its frame, it has a dual speaker one on the top and one at the bottom. The power button and the volume rockers are located on the right side while underneath you get the sim tray with a dual sim slot and no dedicated slot for expandable storage, a microphone, and the USB C port for charging. 

realme 12 pro+ speaker 2

realme 12 pro+ speaker 1

realme 12 pro+ volume rocker

Display

Switching to its front, the realme 12 Pro+ 5G showcases a 6.7″ FHD+ Curved OLED display which is quite impressive. You get a wider view, good color accuracy, and decent vibrancy. So, binge-watching your favorite shows is great on this device.

It comes with a 120Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate, ensuring smooth responsiveness, and a peak brightness of 950 nits. This display ensures seamless usage even under direct sunlight, providing clarity and visibility even when using the device outdoors further enhancing the overall user experience.

Additionally, the device incorporates a 240Hz touch sampling rate, ensuring swift and precise responses to every touch, Moreover, the realme 12 Pro+ 5G offers an IP65 rating for its display protection, with double-reinforced glass, ensuring durability and resilience against everyday wear and tear. It also has a 93% screen-to-body ratio and a bezel-less design facilitated by its curved display. With this, users are treated to an expansive viewing area that maximizes the visual experience.

Cameras

Moving forward to its cameras, just like its predecessor it carries a triple camera setup but instead of a 200MP main shooter, the realme 12 Pro + carries a smaller 50MP Sony IMX890 OIS sensor. However this time, it comes with a 64MP periscope lens and an 8MP ultrawide. 

The cameras offer impressive color distribution with a wide dynamic range, good sharpness, and details. Although it tends to have deep shadows and deep blacks. 

One of my favorite features of this smartphone is its x3 portrait mode. It delivers a much more impressive sharpness and details to its results. It has a clean subject-to-background separation that is comparable to DSLR outputs. 

The flexibility of its portrait mode is what astonishes me. Even with the lack of a macro sensor, the portrait mode is more than enough to deliver close-up shots worthy of social media posting without the need for post-processing. Even at night, the quality of portrait shots is great, with no visible noises. It has solid sharpness, details, and clarity. 

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If you use the night mode feature, the outputs are also good. It has vibrant colors, with good details and sharpness. There are some visible noises in the background but the overall quality is still decent. Although you have to stay still for about 2 seconds to capture a clear and visible image.

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For its selfie, it has a 32MP front-facing camera, that offers good details and sharpness. It has a true-to-life skin tone but with inconsistent highlights. 

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For its video recording, it can shoot videos up to 4K@30FPS with ultra steady mode turned off. 

Software and Performance

Under the hood, it runs on a 4nm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2. Our review unit comes with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Its RAM is also expandable up to another 12GB via RAM expansion so that’s a total of 24GB of RAM.

Out of the box, it is powered by an Android 14 with realme UI 5.0. As always, it comes with pre-installed applications upon opening the device, but all of those can be uninstalled, and if you are too lazy to do that well it will still take you some time to use up all the 512GB of storage so you won’t have to worry about that. 

Gaming on the realme 12 Pro + is good. It has exceptional performance with both MOBA games and FPS games. Genshin is also playable with little frame drops and stuttering but all in all, it can handle either title. 

Here are some of its benchmark results:

Antutu Benchmark V10 – 651,669

Geekbench CPU – 824 (Single-core) ; 2,733 (Multi-core)

Geekbench GPU Open CL – 1,756

Geekbench GPU Vulkan – 2,165

3D Mark (Wildlife) – 3,073

Video Loop Test – 21 hours and 7 minutes  (50% volume, 50% brightness)

Battery

For its battery, it is backed by a 5000mAh battery capacity, that is then paired with 67W SUPERVOOC charging. During our video loop test, our battery lasted for about 21 hours and 7 minutes. As for charging, juicing up the 5000mAh battery from 0 to 100% took us about 38 minutes which is good. The efficiency of its LTPO display gives us more time to use the device even with maxed-out brightness and volume. 

Conclusion

Overall the realme 12 Pro+ 5G is a solid upgrade from the realme 11 Pro+ 5G. Despite it having a smaller main shooter or 67W charging instead of the 100W they still compensated it with a more battery-efficient display, a more flexible camera, and a much more luxurious design. The other sensors on its cameras are also not just for show, but they deliver a post-worthy quality. 

The realme 12 Pro + 5G is priced at Php25,999. Starting on March 7 up to March 15 you can get it for Php21, 999  on realme official Lazada, Shopee, and Tiktok shops. If you are planning to upgrade to realme 12 Pro + we hope that this video helped you decide. 

So that is our review of the realme 12 Pro + 5G! Should you want to know our top 5 favorite features of this device, you may read it here.