The top spec OnePlus 12 phone may not be available to everyone

A green OnePlus 12 and a white OnePlus 12 being used by people

The OnePlus 12 comes in three colors (Image credit: OnePlus)

The OnePlus 12 is a little bit in limbo right now, because it's been officially announced but it's not yet available outside of China – and a new rumor fills in some of the details for those who are eagerly awaiting its international release.

According to well-known tipster @ishanagarwal24 (via Android Police), the OnePlus 12 spec configurations that will be made available outside of China will be 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage, and 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.

If that's correct, that means the very top spec configuration – 24GB of RAM and 1TB of internal storage – will be exclusive to China. That's going to be something of a disappointment to power users who were planning to spend big on this handset.

We're expecting both the OnePlus 12 and the cheaper OnePlus 12R to be launched globally on January 23, 2024, at which point we should get all the details about the spec options and the regional pricing for these handsets.

Exclusive: OnePlus 12R will again start with 8GB RAM + 128GB variant in 🇮🇳 India to keep the prices in check. Other variant is 16/256GB. Blue & Gray colors.OnePlus 12 is getting an upgrade, now starts at 12/256GB in India & other is 16/512GB. Green & Black. Article below. pic.twitter.com/B1JgaiT7vJDecember 29, 2023

What we know so far

We're assuming that the rest of the OnePlus 12 specs are going to be the same no matter which country you buy it in. Those specs start with a 6.82-inch AMOLED display running at a resolution of 3168 x 1440, and with a refresh rate of up to 120Hz.

Under the hood there's a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor from Qualcomm running everything, and the phone is also fitted with a 5,400mAh battery offering 100W wired and 50W wireless charging (up from 5,000mAh on the OnePlus 11).

The cameras on the back are a 50MP primary camera, a 48MP ultrawide camera, and a 64MP telephoto camera that offers 3x optical zoom. On the front we've got a 32MP camera for taking selfies and making video calls.

We know much less about the OnePlus 12R, but it's rumored to be running the older Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, and will be more affordable as a result. We will of course bring you all the announcements as they happen on January 23.

Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you'll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.