Review Summary
Expert Rating
The Realme 12 Pro series are the first phones in the numbered series from the brand to feature a telephoto camera lens. We’ve already reviewed the Realme 12 Pro+ (review) but as the standard Pro variant comes with an entirely different set of features, it is imperative that we now shift our focus to the Realme 12 Pro. Having spent more than a week with the new handset from Realme, I can now share my experience to help you guys figure out if this phone is worth your consideration. So, buckle up and dive into the detailed review below.
Verdict
Realme 12 Pro does a lot of things right and can easily be described as the best-designed phone in its price segment. The phone’s telephoto camera lets you click impressive shots and in terms of display and charging speed, the phone is as good as the competition. However, if performance is a vital aspect for you, it faces strong competition from the POCO X6 5G, which comes with a better processor.
Design and display
In terms of design, the Realme 12 Pro is not your run-of-the-mill mid-range smartphone by any stretch of the imagination. Improving on the foundation laid down by the Realme 11 Pro, the handset comes with a head-turning ‘Luxury Watch Design’ that has been developed in collaboration with International Luxury Watch Designer Ollivier Savéo. The Submarine Blue colour variant that we received looks gorgeous from all angles and comes with a golden fluted bezel around the camera setup, which gives it a distinct look. With a vegan leather back, the phone is easy to grip and doesn’t accumulate fingerprints, which is a huge relief in comparison to phones with plastic or glass back panels. With a thin curved frame, the handset is easy to hold and carry around too.
Moving on to the display, the 6.7-inch FHD+ (2,412 x 1,080 pixels) OLED panel comes with a punch-hole cutout and a smooth refresh rate of up to 120Hz. Thanks to a 240Hz touch sampling rate and an instantaneous sampling rate of up to 2000Hz, the phone feels quite responsive. While the display panel itself is quite vibrant and ensures you get an immersive experience while watching content, the peak brightness of 800 nits lets you down when you try to use the phone outdoors.
However, it is important to point out that using the phone indoors was quite enjoyable. Playing games such as Battlegrounds Mobile India and EA FC Mobile on the handset was a fun experience with its high refresh rate screen. The phone’s display also supports HDR10 and HLG, which allows streaming video content with a wide colour gamut from OTT platforms. Notably, in low-brightness conditions, the Realme 12 Pro 5G employs high-frequency 2,160Hz PWM dimming, which offers a 4.5 times increase in dimming efficiency compared to conventional 480Hz methods. In effect, this ensures colour accuracy in low light and works towards eliminating flickering. The PWM dimming mode is activated automatically when the screen brightness falls below 90 nits.
Overall, if we keep the peak brightness issue aside, I found the display quality to be quite impressive and despite its curved nature, the phone’s panel provided decent viewing angles.
Cameras
The Realme 12 Pro comes with an IMX882 50MP primary camera with OIS support. Its 1/2-inch sensor features a focal length equivalent to 26mm and an f/1.8 aperture. The brand says this lens is ideal for capturing expansive shots under both daylight and low-light conditions. With the large aperture, the primary sensor is said to permit ample light, improving image clarity. In my experience, the handset clicked some impressive shots in both daylight and low-light conditions. The handset captured details well and the colour reproduction was on point too. While I think the edge detection could have been better, the overall image quality was pretty decent.
The 32MP IMX709 telephoto camera with a 1/2.74-inch sensor on the phone enables 2x optical zoom, which allowed me to click detailed shots despite being some distance away from the subject. There is also a 4x Lossless zoom (In-sensor) feature on the phone but this feature didn’t work for me as well as advertised. The phone also comes with an 8MP ultra-wide camera sensor with a 112-degree field of view. In my experience, I found the shots clicked with this sensor to be slightly on the underwhelming side.
Notably, the phone comes with three exclusive movie filters curated by Claudio Miranda, an Oscar Winner for Best Cinematography. These filters have been inspired by his work in popular movies. These are Journey Filter – ‘Life of Pi’, Memory Filter – ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’, and Maverick Filter – ‘Top Gun: Maverick’. While these filters do sound cool on paper, the eventual results were not drastically different than the filters that are most commonly available on other phones and on apps like Instagram.
Realme says that with the OIS support, the phone improves videography output by providing stability. In my usage, I didn’t find that the videos shot with the phone were noticeably stable as there was considerable shake when the video was shot with hand.
The phone comes with a 16MP selfie camera and although it is capable of taking good shots in decent lighting, I wouldn’t say it offers anything that gives it an advantage above other phones in this price segment.
Performance and Software
Realme 12 Pro comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 chipset, fabricated on a 4nm process. This octa-core processor comes with four high-performance A78 cores, clocked at 2.2GHz and four efficient A55 cores, clocked at 1.8GHz. In our testing, the phone managed to get an AnTuTu benchmark score of 5,64,897, as you can see in the screenshot shared below.
In the Geekbench test, the Realme 12 Pro managed to get a single-core score of 930 and a multi-core score of 2,724. While these are decent results, it is important to note that the POCO X6 5G is available at a lower price point despite shipping with the more capable Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 chipset, compared to the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 on the Realme offering.
Moving on to the CPU throttling test where the app runs 50 threads for 30 minutes on the phone, the Realme 12 Pro CPU throttled to 87 percent of its max performance in the test, which is impressive.
Now that we have discussed numbers, let’s talk about real-world usage. I played several demanding titles on the phone and didn’t face any stutter issues or app crashes at any point. My gameplay experience was fairly smooth and with the support for a high refresh rate, using the handset was an absolute breeze. I didn’t even face any major heating issues despite playing demanding games on the phone for more than an hour.
While benchmarks are an objective way of telling whether a particular phone can perform better than the other provided the same set of tasks, I can easily say that you won’t face any issues with the performance offered by the Realme 12 Pro in real-world usage.
Moving on to the software, the handset runs Android 14-based Realme UI 5.0 out of the box. The phone does come with some pre-loaded apps, but also some neat features. For example, Smart image matting lets you easily isolate and share subjects from your photos with other apps. Phonelink lets you seamlessly connect with Microsoft LTW (Link to Windows), simplifying device connectivity with just one click. There’s also File Dock, which lets you recognize and extract content like text, images, and links with a single click. Overall, the OS has some useful features that will increase your productivity.
Battery and charging speeds
The Realme 12 Pro comes with a 5,000mAh battery that supports 67W SUPERVOOC charging. I managed to charge the device from 0 to 100 percent in less than 45 minutes, which meant that I could simply plug it in before getting ready for the office and by the time I was ready, the device was fully charged. This made the process of charging extremely convenient for me, and the 5,000mAh battery capacity ensured that the phone lasted a normal day’s use with ease as it gave me around 6-7 hours of screen-on time.
However, if you play games on the phone, keep in mind that you will have to charge it by the evening. In the PCMark battery test, the phone lasted an impressive 15 hours and 13 minutes.
Final verdict
While the Realme 12 Pro offers good performance, it faces heat from the POCO X6 5G (review), which comes at a lower price point and a better processor. The 12 Pro’s telephoto camera also lets you click some incredible pictures. In most other departments – display, battery, and others, the phone fares well, but doesn’t offer anything that makes it particularly extraordinary. However, its highlight feature is its design, as this is easily the best-looking phone you can buy in this price segment… and that definitely makes worth a closer look.
Editor’s rating: 8 / 10
Reasons to buy
- The phone has a premium design with a vegan leather back and a luxury watch-inspired camera module.
- Realme 12 Pro comes with a vibrant curved display, which is great for binge-watching content.
- The 32MP telephoto camera clicks some impressive pictures.
- The phone can be charged up fully in less than 45 minutes with 67W fast charging.
Reasons not to buy
- The processor could have been better for the price.
- The display’s peak brightness is a letdown.
 | Rs. 23,490.00 | Go To Store |
