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Verdict
The HTC Desire 12s doesn’t make much sense to us, given the fact the HTC Desire 12 Plus is a similar phone with a more powerful chipset, albeit a worse selfie camera, that costs less. That confusion begins before we even talk about the non-HTC phones it’s competing with.
The Moto G7 Power, Honor 20 Lite and Realme 3 Pro are all similarly priced devices to the HTC 12s that completely wipe the floor with it from a specs and real-world use point of view.
In turn, in the Desire 12s, HTC has released a phone with poor battery life that is under-powered and delivers a sub-standard camera experience for the price, unless you think selfies are more important than photos taken on the main phone camera.
While its design and screen aren’t bad, therefore, unless you can get this phone at a fantastic price, with such great alternatives available today, it’s a no from us.
Who's this for?
Anyone who doesn’t use their phone much, doesn’t play games on the go and doesn’t need a decent camera experience should be sorted with the HTC Desire 12s. It can make and receive calls, and it looks good in the process.
Should you buy it?
Probably not. The other phones on the market that the HTC Desire 12s is competing with do significantly more and last longer in the process. It falls short of the mark in too many areas and in turn, fails to compete with the rest of the sub £200/$250 smartphone market.
Looking for alternatives? Consider these phones:
Moto G7 Power
The 5,000mAh battery in the Moto G7 Power ensures it lasts all day, and its chipset is powerful enough to handle 3D games. Meanwhile, if you’re picking it up in the UK, you’ll get 64GB of storage for around the same price as the 32GB HTC Desire 12s, making it an across the board better value smartphone.
Read our full Moto G7 Power review
Honor 10 Lite
With its Full HD screen and dual-camera setup, the Honor 10 Lite is a really good-looking phone that has a great camera for the price. Despite not having a powerful chipset, it still outperforms the HTC Desire 12s, and as with the G7 Power, packs in 64GB of storage.
Read our full Honor 10 Lite review
Realme 3 Pro
The Realme 3 Pro is an excellent phone across the board for the price. Its screen is Full HD, so is sharper and generally better than the Desire 12s, it packs a newer version of Android, and like the Honor 10 Lite, features a dual camera.
With over 4.000mAh of battery and very fast charging rounding things off, it’s a great alternative and a great smartphone in its own right.
Read our full Realme 3 Pro review
First reviewed: August 2019
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