We’ve previously discussed our experience with OPPO’s budget-centric Reno11 F 5G—an alright device that unfortunately does show its limitations—but now we’re getting to the big guns. The Reno12 series has recently arrived, and with it, the headliner OPPO Reno12 Pro.
It’s still a mid-range priced device but touts an emerging trend amongst its features: the debut of generative AI on the company’s devices. OPPO Reno12 Pro joins a growing list of smartphones with AI features implemented; it is no longer limited to premium flagships. But does it truly elevate the experience to that level?
Design and Build
Despite being OPPO’s flagship model of the Reno series, the OPPO Reno12 Pro does feel like an upper mid-range phone. This stems mostly from the device’s build, which uses a plastic frame for the body. Another contributing factor is the look. Our test unit was the Space Brown variant, but in all honesty, it looked more like a traditional black phone about 90% of the time. Unless a light hits it a certain way, the bronze aesthetic is not obvious.
There’s consolation in the fact that Reno12 Pro has an alternative colour variant. The Nebula Silver option does not have a two-tone matte-gloss finish like the Space Brown but instead has a playful, Fluid Ripple Texture that creates wavy patterns on its mirror-like surface. It’s way cooler-looking than whatever we got.
Having said that, the plastic build does have some pros. Weighing just below 200 grams on the scale, the phone feels very light, and it’s a bonus that a device as big as this feels comfortable in the hand. It’s also relatively thin, which makes it easy to slip into tight pockets. The display design is also pretty sleek, with bezels kept to a minimum through the curved glass design and pinhole front camera.
Durability is also not a concern. It has Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2, which makes it much more resistant to scratches, drops, and bends. I couldn’t push its limits, but the phone has fared fine during my daily experience with it—namely, with accidental drops or when sharing pocket space with keys and coins. The Reno12 Pro also comes with an IP65 rating, which brings additional assurance against dust and water.
Performance
OPPO Reno12 Pro’s huge 6.7-inch screen is complemented by the AMOLED panel. Everything looks good on the display, be it photos or videos. Vibrant scenes are highlighted well on the screen, and despite having just an FHD resolution, the details look sharp to the eye. Another boon is the refresh rate, which gets to a slick 120Hz for that extra satisfying motion when scrolling through the menus or playing games.
And while we are still on the display, the OPPO Reno12 Pro has this new feature called Splash Touch. Like me, I’m sure many of you get frustrated trying to wrangle the phone using wet hands, and Splash Touch supposedly makes this a non-issue.
It works as advertised. For the first time, I’ve never had any trouble swiping or tapping on the phone, even with big water droplets on the screen. I hope that bigger companies start to adopt this feature to make it mainstream.
Everything sounds good so far, but this is where the phone stutters a little. Powering the Reno12 Pro is the MediaTek Dimensity 7300-Energy processor. It is a brand-new chip, but its performance isn’t what you might expect from a device with a ‘Pro’ name attached.
Simply put, gaming performance is a disappointment. Not only was I unable to run games like Genshin Impact or Honkai: Star Rail on the highest settings, but even on lowered graphics, I still occasionally caught performance lags. I’m puzzled as to why OPPO has opted against using a chip like Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which is older but provides much better performance.
That being said, everything else worked fine. Apps loaded quickly, and switching between a multitude of them did not cause any noticeable slowdowns—the experience of navigating the phone was smooth. So, if you’re mostly a person who sticks to casual day-to-day use, the Reno12 Pro shouldn’t pose any issues on that front.
Of course, with AI at the centre of the OPPO Reno12 Pro’s new feature set, we can’t end this section on performance without talking about it.
While it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the AI features pioneered by Google and Samsung, the Reno12 Pro does have a decent number of the more useful ones from the pool. Simply open up the Smart Sidebar, and it’ll give you access to the phone’s AI Toolbox.
One of them is AI Summary, which gives a summarised brief of information from the webpage you are currently on. It works decently well, but the formatting can look somewhat disorganised and ugly; everything just looks bunched together into a wall of text despite being bulleted points. On the other hand, the AI Recording Summary looks much better with more neatly spaced text. Why couldn’t OPPO just do the same for both?
There are others, like AI Speak and AI Writer, which help read text aloud and write captions for social media. But there’s another AI feature that gets its own app. Looking around the home screen, you might notice something called AI Studio. It’s an app that uses AI to generate fun photos of you and your friends in various styles.
The number of options is surprisingly large. You can choose between a solo or group shot and choose whether you want to place yourself in a picturesque locale like Turkey or be depicted as a cool sci-fi action hero. The results are also remarkably good; it looks as though someone has done a great Photoshop job.
But I will preface that creating these visuals isn’t free. Generating one style costs Stars, and I’m unsure how you can earn them. However, creating an account on the app gives you a substantial number of Stars to start with. This feature is mostly just for playing around with for a short time anyway, so you aren’t likely going to use up all of them.
Camera
More and more mid-range phones are receiving decent camera specs, and the OPPO Reno12 Pro is no different. It boasts a triple-camera setup, which includes a 50-megapixel primary camera, another 50-megapixel camera for the telephoto, and an 8-megapixel ultrawide camera.
The photos captured by the cameras are visually vibrant, providing a balanced emphasis on both warm and cool colours. However, under harsh lighting, colours tend to look oversaturated. I was taking a shot on a particularly bright day, and the image looked over-filtered.
Meanwhile, I’m getting mixed results in terms of detail. While it looks sharp at first glance, you’ll notice that photos tend to lack fine detail.
This is especially evident for the ultrawide shots—they showcase a wide area in the frame, but if you zoom in towards the background, it just looks muddy. On the other hand, zooming in has the opposite effect. The OPPO Reno12 Pro artificially sharpens the image for anything above 5x zoom, and it can make things look overprocessed.
Notice how blurry the background is for this ultrawide shot (left). But zoom in (right), the photo is unrealistically sharpened
The big specs aren’t just limited to the rear cameras. The front camera also has a beefy 50-megapixel sensor, and it’s been great for taking selfies. Portrait images are sharp and convey a lot of character in the visuals. If anything, the front camera actually outshines its rear counterpart.
AI features are also available for photography in the form of AI Eraser, which now has a new version 2.0. And it seems like it was a hefty upgrade because the results are outstanding.
Even with big objects or people occupying much of the frame, the Reno12 Pro can remove them and naturally fill in the gaps. Sure, if you take a closer look, you can detect the flaws, but it is up there with even the flagship phones in terms of results.
Battery
I’ve mentioned how thin the OPPO Reno12 Pro is, so it is a pleasant surprise that the device is able to fit in a 5,000 mAh battery inside.
Battery life is excellent here; it’s as simple as that. The MediaTek Dimensity 7300-Energy chip helps the phone boast more efficient energy consumption, and that shows in the nearly two days of use I got out of it. This is with a mixture of social media, photography, and video watching.
Fast charging is also available for the phone is you have an existing PD 2.0 charger or OPPO’s 80W SuperVOOC charger; that should be able to get the device completely up and ready in less than an hour. Unfortunately no wireless charging support here, which isn’t surprising for a mid-range phone though we have seen some devices in this price range that do offer it.
Verdict
So AI — does it move the needle for OPPO Reno12 Pro? While there are useful features like the AI Recording Summary and AI Eraser 2.0, I’m still very much of the opinion that AI tools have yet to reach the level where they improve upon quality-of-life to a significant degree. For now, they remain as something that is mostly fun to play with.
Strip these tools away from the OPPO Reno12 Pro and the phone comes out as a decent, but otherwise unremarkable device. Portrait photos and battery life are the standouts, but you are also getting a somewhat disappointing performance in terms of power.
Perhaps I may be too hung up by the ‘Pro’ name. After all, the phone is priced quite competitively in the mid-range space. But if you are coming in like me thinking that you are getting an absolutely banging value device, you might want to temper your expectations a little.
The OPPO Reno12 Pro is available to purchase through OPPO’s online stores on Shopee and Lazada, as well as other retailers like Challenger.
Photos by Pauline Caoile of the DANAMIC Team.
OPPO Reno12 Pro
Pros
- Thin and lightweight
- Splash Touch is a sleeper feature
- Great portrait images
- Surprisingly good AI Eraser feature
- Outstanding battery life
Cons
- Underpowered performance
- Messy AI Summary UI
- Lack of detail in photos
