OnePlus 12 revealed promising huge power and rapid charging
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, up to 24GB RAM and 1TB of storage - it's a beast
OnePlus has launched its latest flagship killer smartphone on home turf. Or should that just be plain old ‘flagship’ now? The OnePlus 12 is packing the latest Qualcomm silicon, more memory and storage than the average phone owner will know what to do with, and what promises to be the brightest screen ever found on a phone.
Launched in China ahead of a global release in early 2024, the OnePlus 12 looks like an evolution of last year’s OnePlus 11 on the design front. It’s again made from metal and glass, with a familiar asymmetrical camera bump at the back. The trio of colour options all have different finishes: the white handset is glossy, the black one has the firm’s trademark sandstone texture, and the green has a marble-like effect. The alert slider makes a return, but has been moved to the left side of the phone.
OnePlus has kept curved edge glass for the screen, setting it apart from rivals such as the iPhone 15 and Samsung Galaxy S23, which have moved back to flat glass. The 6.82in screen itself sounds stunning, with a 120Hz LTPO variable refresh rate, AMOLED panel and a retina-searing 4500 nits peak brightness. That’s almost double the next most capable phone, Google’s Pixel 8 Pro.
Inside, a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip brings CPU gains of up to 30% and GPU improvements of up to 25% over the previous generation, while also promising 10% greater power efficiency. It’s kept cool by OnePlus’ new Dual Cryo-velocity cooling system, which has more surface area, more efficient cooling material, and a revised structure to cope when being run flat-out. Add in between 16GB and 24GB of LPDDR5X memory and 256GB to 1TB of UFS 4.0 storage depending on the model, and performance should be nothing if not prodigious.
OnePlus has managed to squeeze in a giant 5400mAh battery, which is a healthy increase over the OnePlus 11’s 5000mAh cell. It’ll charge at 100W over USB-C, and can manage 50W on a compatible wireless charging plate.
Hasselblad has returned to lend a helping hand with the cameras, with a trio of rear lenses promising flagship-grade photography. The 50MP main snapper uses a Sony-developed LYT808 sensor, which has a dual-layer stacked design to really pack in as much light as possible. It’s paired to a 64MP periscope telephoto good for 3x optical zoom, and a 48MP ultrawide. OnePlus has also stepped up its HDR algorithms, which should see image quality ramp up across the board, in all lighting conditions.
Chinese shoppers will be able to take home a OnePlus 12 from the 10th of December. Pre-sale prices start from ￥4299 (roughly £478) for a 12GB + 256GB handset, and climb to ￥5799 (about £645) for the 24GB+1TB model.
There’s no word on exactly when it’ll head worldwide, or indeed for how much. We’re expecting a January event, and prices to be considerably higher once shipping and exchange rates are taken into account.
Tom Morgan-Freelander
Deputy Editor 
