Realme 12 Pro Review: The Best Mid-Range Camera Phone?

Realme has launched the Realme 12 Pro 5G in India at Rs.25,999 for the base variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage. Moreover, the 12GB+256GB model of the phone costs Rs.26,999.

The phone will be available for purchase on Realme India website, Flipkart and major offline retailers. It will go on sale in Submarine Blue and Navigator Beige colours.

The Realme 12 Pro packs the following items inside the box:

• Phone
• Case
• Manual
• 67W SUPERVOOC Charger

Before we talk in detail about the device, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like:

• Display: 6.7-inch AMOLED
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 1
• RAM & ROM: 8GB 128GB, 8GB 256GB
• Software: Android 14 with Realme UI 5.0
• Rear camera: 50MP+32MP+8MP
• Selfie camera: 16MP
• Battery: 5,000mAh
• Weight: 196 grams
• Dimensions: 161.5 x 74 x 8.76 mm

The Realme 12 Pro features a premium vegan leather design on the back created in collaboration with renowned watchmaker Ollivier Savéo. The company claims the design is inspired by the elements of luxury watches, with a camera island representing the dial of a watch.

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Furthermore, Realme has used a thick layer of soft-touch vegan leather, which provides a silky feel that even phones that cost twice as much don’t offer. Even when compared to past Realme phones, the vegan leather used this time is better in quality

On the back, you will find a circular camera module with a large golden bezel surrounding it, which gives it a premium look. A thin metallic strip also goes through the centre of the device for uniformity, but I personally feel it interrupts the phone’s soft touch design.

I would have preferred if Realme had opted for a cleaner look with vegan leather all around, similar to the Narzo 60 Pro. Moving on, you also get Realme branding on the left corner of the device, and the curved sides seamlessly blend into the brushed frame, making the phone comfortable to hold.

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The phone weighs around 196 grams and is just 8.76mm thick. Despite the larger screen, the phone is ergonomic and does not feel bulky.

Regarding ports and placements, the phone has volume rockers and a power button on the right, while the left remains clean. The top portion houses the secondary speaker grille and microphone.

On the bottom, you will be greeted by the USB-C port, speaker grille and SIM tray. The phone also has an IP65 rating for water and dust resistance.

The Realme 12 Pro has a triple camera setup on the back with a 50-megapixel primary camera, a 32-megapixel telephoto, and an 8-megapixel ultrawide angle lens. On the front, there is a 16-megapixel sensor for taking selfies.

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The Realme 12 Pro is the first phone in this segment to boast a telephoto lens. It also uses a new Sony IMX 882 primary lens and supports up to 20x digital zoom.

During the daytime, the primary camera takes good photos that have plenty of detail and accuracy with saturated colours. Furthermore, the images taken with the 2x periscope lens look sharp, but the details get a bit blurry when you zoom in.

The 8-megapixel ultrawide lens can also take detailed photos, but the colour often doesn’t match the primary lens. When it comes to lowlight photography, the details remain sharp, and it does not overexpose the lighting, unlike other budget smartphones.

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Realme has been constantly improving the camera performance with software updates for the device, so it has a lot of potential. During the embargo period, the phone received several updates to improve its camera performance.

The 16-megapixel selfie camera can take good photos during the day with adequate details and accurate skin tones. Regarding video recording, the phone can shoot videos at 4K at 30fps from the primary and 1080p at 30fps from the selfie shooter.

Overall, the Realme 12 Pro has one of the best cameras in this segment that even surpasses the similarly priced Redmi Note 13 Pro+ thanks to the inclusion of a periscope lens.

The Realme 12 Pro packs a 5,000mAh battery with support for 67W fast charging. The phone can easily last 6-7 hours with the screen set to 120Hz on normal usage, which includes scrolling through social media, watching YouTube videos, playing casual games, etc.

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Thanks to the 4nm chipset, you can easily expect the device to last a day, even on moderate usage. The included 67W charger can fully charge the device from 0 to 100 per cent in 48 minutes and 50 per cent in 19 minutes.

Overall, the Realme 12 Pro offers great battery life lasting a day for casual users and decent power backup even with moderate to heavy usage.

The Realme 12 Pro offers features a 6.7-inch AMOLED curved display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The screen has a peak brightness of 950 nits and 2160Hz PWM dimming support.

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The curved display has a punch-hole cutout and narrow bezels, which give it a premium look. While it still has FHD+ resolution and not 1.5K like the Redmi Note 13 Pro series, it still feels sharp and crisp for day-to-day usage.

Watching content on the curved screen is pure joy, and I enjoyed binging Season 4 of Harley Quinn on it. Moreover, the screen is bright enough to use under harsh sunlight, and I did not face any legibility issues.

Like other Realme phones, you also get an in-display fingerprint sensor that is fast and accurate. In addition, there are dual stereo speaker setups with Dolby Atmos support that are loud enough to fill an entire room.

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Thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate, navigating through the UI feels smooth and fluid. You can also change the refresh rate and display profile from the Settings menu.

The Realme 12 Pro also supports O-Haptics, one of the best implementations of tactical feedback I have seen on smartphones. The haptics feel strong with thoughtful implementation across the user interface.

The Realme 12 Pro is powered by the new Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 chipset paired with up to 12GB LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB UFS 3.1 storage. It is the first smartphone in India to use this 4nm chipset, and it is the successor to the Snapdragon 695.

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When it comes to day-to-day tasks, the phone can easily handle apps like Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and LinkedIn without any issues. Furthermore, thanks to the 12GB RAM and 8GB virtual memory, most apps I opened remained in memory.

Furthermore, even during intensive tasks like gaming, the phone could handle BGMI at Ultra HD at Ultra (40 FPS) or HDR and Extreme (60 FPS. The Adreno 710 can run CODM at High and Max Frame Rates (60 FPS), similar to the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2.

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I also tried demanding games like Genshin Impact, Wreckfest, Hitman Blood Money Reprisal and GTA San Andreas Definitive Edition, which ran okayish, although I had to reduce the graphics due to frame drops and lags. The phone did get slightly warm, reaching up to 37 degrees Celsius, but did not feel uncomfortable to hold in the hand.

Regarding benchmarks, the phone has a Geekbench score of 880 in single-core and 2729 in the multi-core test. Surprisingly, the Realme 12 Pro did not throttle in the 15-minute CPU throttling test despite running the test twice, which is impressive.

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Furthermore, it has an AnTuTu V10 score of 585927 and a stability score of 99.2 per cent on the 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress Test, which is excellent. Overall, the Realme 12 Pro is a decent performer for handling day-to-day tasks and casual games.

Realme 12 Pro runs on Realme UI 5.0 based on Android 14 out of the box. The company has promised two years of OS updates and three years of security patches, which is a bit disappointing for a phone in this segment.

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Moreover, phones like the Poco X6 Pro and Redmi Note 13 Pro offer three years Of OS updates and four years of security patches for a similar price.

Furthermore, the phone has plenty of bloatware and preinstalled apps, such as Rummytime, Agoda, Dream 11, WA Business, Candy Crush, Free Fire, Angel One, Wynk, Meesho, Coffee Run, etc. Thankfully, you can easily uninstall these apps from the Settings. The infamous Hot Apps and Hot Games folder is also present on the device, which you can disable from App Market.

Realme UI 5.0 brings new features such as a File Dock, which lets you store files to share across different apps, a File Capsule that functions similarly to Dynamic Island and the integrity of Microsoft Phonelink in the settings.

Moreover, you can also cut out objects from a photo control app-specific volume apart from under-the-hood changes such as better animations and faster loading time. Realme UI 5 definitely feels more refined but still suffers from the inclusion of bloatware, just like HyperOS.There is also support for up to 8GB of virtual RAM with the RAM expansion feature.

Realme UI should focus on its software department if it wants to provide an all-around premium user experience similar to Oxygen OS. The promise of only two major OS updates could be better for a phone in this segment when competitors offer at least three years of support.