One month ago OPPO unveiled its latest flagship phone for South Africa in the form of the Reno12 Pro 5G.
We are terming it as the flagship phone for the region, as outside of the foldable N2 Flip 5G, this is the most premium and best specced smartphone that the brand has made available locally in 2024 to date.
A more apt categorisation of the device would be a premium or ultra mid-range device, as it does feature some elements of a flagship phone, but is also missing a few, like a top-tier chipset. While it is not going to cost close to R30k, the Reno12 Pro 5G is not a cheap phone by any means, retailing for a recommended R18 999 depending on the retailer.
As such, it finds itself in an odd space, much like last year’s OPPO Reno10 Pro+ did. In our review we noted how it was a great smartphone, but was a little overpriced (~R21 999 at the time) when compared to other devices in a similar specification and price bracket.
Does the Reno12 Pro suffer from the same issue?
We spent the past couple of weeks with the phone to find out. Here’s what we learned.
Thing of beauty
We start with design, as always, and here OPPO has quickly gained a reputation for making its devices stand out from the crowd.
Case in point, the Reno12 Pro features a Futuristic Fluid Design as OPPO terms it, which in the Nebula Silver colourway of our review unit, serves up Dali-esque ripples on the rear cover to make the phone eye catching. There’s a ribbed finish to the camera housing too, with the generic plastic cover provided in the box also a little unique with a fluted glass-style design.
It’s all these little touches that help distinguish OPPO’s phones in a sea of Android devices that can often look quite similar. At the very least, this makes you feel like you’re getting something a little more different and premium from the rest.
The rest of the phone is as expected – a large 6.7″ display with narrow bezels and a punch hole for the front facing 50MP selfie lens.
The full range of specifications for this phone are as follows:
| OPPO Reno12 Pro 5G | |
| Display | 6.7″ FullHD+ AMOLED |
| Processor | MediaTek Dimensity 7300-Energy |
| RAM | 12GB + 12GB (extended) |
| Storage | 512GB |
| Battery | 5 000mAh (80W SUPERVOOC fast charging) |
| Rear Camera | 50MP wide-angle, 50MP telephoto, 8MP ultra-wide |
| Front Camera | 50MP selfie |
| Connectivity | 5G, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.4 |
| Colours | Nebula Silver, Space Brown |
| RRP | R18 999 or from R749 per month on contract |
Situational AI
Shifting to the software side of things and the Reno12 Pro also happens to be the first OPPO AI phone to be launched in the country. It will be the first of many, according to OPPO, with the focus here being very much on the photography side of things and the editing of images.
Here we put the AI Eraser 2.0 to good use, and out of all the AI features embedded so far, it has proved the most useful. There’s also AI Best Face for group shots and selfies, so that if your eyes are closed, AI can correct it digitally. This feature works, but is not where we found the most value out of the AI experiences just yet.
Other helpful AI features include the ability to transcribe recordings, although this is very much dependent on the quality of the recording. For journalists who may be recording at busy events or noisy environments, the quality and accuracy of the recording is impacted, but we noted that as an issue of the Transcribe Assist on Samsung’s Galaxy AI-powered S24 Ultra at the beginning of the year too.
As such, there is still some work to be done on the initial suite of OPPO AI capabilities.
Solid performer
Switching to performance now and here the OPPO Reno12 Pro 5G cannot be faulted. It is quick and responsive, showing no sings of strain wheel we were multitasking or putting the device through its paces with the aforementioned AI functions.
This echoed what we found during benchmarking, with the Reno12 Pro 5G scoring 1 048 and 3 021 on GeekBench’s single-core and multi-core tests. This is far more than the realme 12+ and Huawei Nova 12i that we tested earlier this year, but interestingly less than the Reno10 Pro+ we reviewed last year.
Also worth pointing out is that the Reno12 Pro has the extended RAM functionality that is proving quite popular among Android OEMs these days.
The default setting is 12GB of native RAM, with an additional 4GB of RAM via the onboard storage, which can be toggled to up to an additional 12GB of RAM. We did not feel the need to do so during our testing, but such a function would be helpful if you planned to do a lot of mobile gaming on this device.
As for the camera performance, once again the OPPO phone performed impressively. Here a pair of 50MP lenses (wide-angle and telephoto) are found on the rear, along with an 8MP ultra wide-angle included to complete the trio. The mix proved capable of handling a number of photography environments, although we found accessing the Hi-Res mode which captures at the full 50 megapixels difficult at times.
Still though, if you are wanting an all-around solid camera performance, the Reno12 Pro has been duly appointed.
Last worth mentioning on the performance side of things is the battery life.
The massive 5 000mAh unit onboard served up two full days of use and then some before a trip to a charging port was needed. When that did happen some 48 hours-plus, the benefit of SUPERVOOC cannot be overstated, as less than an hour later, the Reno12 Pro was ready to go a full two days again.
Final verdict
In terms of performance, the OPPO Reno12 Pro yields as solid an experience as you can expect. It is fast when needed, copes well with multitasking, and has a great camera and battery that makes you feel like you have a truly premium smartphone in-hand.
Crucially, however, OPPO has learned from the Reno10 Pro+ and priced this device at a more reasonable price point. It therefore makes it feel like you are getting close to flagship performance for an upper mid-range price tag.
That in our books is value for money, and one of the key reasons why this phone shines. The fact that it has a great design, and some handy AI editing features too, serve as bonuses.
For cost savvy Android phone users then, the OPPO Reno12 Pro 5G is a device well worth considering.
FINAL SCORE: 8.5 OUT OF 10.
Originally Published on: www.htxt.co.za