We’ve likely just seen the final flagship phone of the year, as the OnePlus 12 has now been unveiled. Right now though it’s only available in China, so you’ll probably have to wait until January to pick it up elsewhere.
It should be worth the wait though, because there’s a lot to shout about here – albeit largely stuff that OnePlus had already revealed prior to the big launch event.
For one thing, the OnePlus 12 has a 5,400mAh battery, which makes it a good 400+ mAh bigger than most other smartphones (other than the best gaming phones). That battery charges at a speedy 100W too, or a still impressive 50W if you want to go wireless.
A speedy chipset and loads of RAM
This should even have the aforementioned gaming phones beaten for power though, as the OnePlus 12 has a top-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and comes with up to 24GB of RAM. Hardly any phones use that chipset yet – with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra using the previous generation – and almost no phones have that much RAM either.
Storage is similarly generous at up to 1TB, and the OnePlus 12 has a big 6.82-inch 1440 x 3168 AMOLED screen, with a 120Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 4,500nits – which is almost double that of most competitors.
The cameras might not impress quite as much but still sound more than respectable, as the OnePlus 12 has a 48MP main camera, a 48MP ultra-wide, and a 64MP telephoto sensor, with 3x optical zoom. Those, for what it’s worth, are the same camera specs as the OnePlus Open has.
Still not enough water resistance
And then there’s the design, which isn’t a million miles from that of the OnePlus 11 – complete with a large, circular camera block – but there’s more water resistance this year, as the OnePlus 12 has an IP65 rating.
That means it can survive low-pressure water jets, but can’t safely be submerged, so it’s still behind most of the best phones on that front.
If you’re interested in buying the OnePlus 12, you’ll be able to get it in black, green, or white, with prices starting at CNY¥4,299 (approximately $610 / £480 / AU$1,000). This is for the base model with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. As noted above, it’s only available in China right now.
The version with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage costs ¥4,799 (around $680 / £540 / AU$1,030).
There's also a model with 16GB RAM and 1TB storage for ¥5,299 (around $750 / £600 / AU$1,140), and the highest end model with 24GB RAM and 1TB will cost ¥5,799 (around $820 / £650 / AU$1,250) .
Leaks suggest the global OnePlus 12 launch will be on January 23, so that’s when we should find out the international pricing and availability.
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