realme 12 Pro review: Elegant phone with potential for photography

Last year, I reviewed realme’s 11 Pro and Pro+ Android smartphones, which impressed me with what they offered for their price range. As 2024 ushered in a fresh lineup from the same brand, I was able to test the brand-new realme 12 Pro 5G, too. This model walks the same line in terms of beautiful design while introducing several significant changes under the hood when compared to its predecessor, the realme 11 Pro. Notably, it features new cameras and a different chipset. But does it stand out as a good mid-range Android phone, and more importantly, is it the right choice for you? Read on and find out from this review:

realme 12 Pro: Who is it good for?

The realme 12 Pro 5G is an excellent choice if you:

• Want an elegant mid-range Android smartphone
• Are looking for a smartphone with good cameras
• Need a large battery and fast charging

Pros and cons

These are the things I like most about the realme 12 Pro smartphone:

• Stylish design with vegan leather
• Good main and telephoto cameras, especially in daylight
• 67W fast charging and a large battery
• Bright AMOLED screen
• Competitive price
• Certification for protection against dust or water

There are a few drawbacks, too:

• The chipset is weaker than its competitors
• Color discrepancy between the ultrawide camera and the main/telephoto lens
• Lots of bloatware

Verdict

The realme 12 Pro 5G stands out for its design and cameras, making it an attractive choice for those seeking a phone that not only looks good but can also capture high-quality photos, especially in good lighting conditions. While there are many pros to getting this phone, it’s not without drawbacks; notably, the chipset performance doesn’t measure up to its direct competitors. At launch, you can find similarly priced smartphones that deliver better performance than the realme 12 Pro. Thus, while I can recommend it to those who prioritize looks and cameras, if you’re a gamer or if beefier performance is important to you, you may want to look at other Android smartphones in the same price range. However, realme has a habit of making discounts soon after they launch a new smartphone, and if the asking price gets lower, realme 12 Pro will be even more appealing than it is on its launch day. 🙂

Unboxing the realme 12 Pro

The realme 12 Pro 5G arrives in a vibrant yellow and black box with a minimalist design that showcases the phone’s make and model. You’ll find the smartphone’s essential specs detailed on the bottom of the packaging. The box of the realme 12 Pro 5G The package includes the realme 12 Pro smartphone with a pre-installed screen protector, a 67W fast charger, USB-C cable, transparent case, SIM ejector, manual, and warranty. Unboxing the realme 12 Pro Unboxing the realme 12 Pro 5G feels like a premium experience. realme includes a fast 67W charger and a case, two details that set it apart from many competitors in the mid-range Android market. I like the minimalist design of the box, and I appreciate the fact that the packaging is solid, protecting the contents from unwanted damage during transport.

Design and build quality

Thanks to its design aesthetics, the realme 12 Pro 5G made a striking impression right from the start. This smartphone is the result of a partnership with French luxury watchmaker Ollivier Savéo, known for his work with renowned Swiss watch brands such as Rolex and Piaget. And the realme 12 Pro does indeed stand out with its unique look. The vegan leather on the back of the phone has a smooth, silky texture that’s pleasant to touch, while the camera ring gives off a high-end and sophisticated feel. Moreover, the phone’s back also showcases a vertical dividing segment with a pattern of 3D rhomboids.

The realme 12 Pro is elegant In terms of colors, realme offers the 12 Pro 5G smartphones in two versions, both inspired by the world of watches: Submarine Blue and Navigator Beige. I am reviewing the Submarine Blue version. 🙂 Color versions available for the realme 12 Pro 5G Both color versions maintain the same weight and size: 190 grams (6.70 ounces) and 161.47 mm (6.34 inches) in length, 74.02 mm (2.91 inches) in width, and approximately 8.75 mm (0.35 inches) in thickness. The blue realme 12 Pro model A 6.7” OLED screen dominates the smartphone’s front, extending edge to edge with very slim bezels and rounded corners. The screen is protected by 0.55 mm of double-strengthened glass, which is slightly curved at the sides. The only thing interrupting the phone’s display is a tiny top-center notch housing the selfie camera. The realme 12 Pro 5G has a large OLED screen The realme 12 Pro 5G has a plastic frame with a glossy finish that looks elegant but is prone to collecting fingerprints. The phone’s left edge lacks any features, as all buttons, speakers, and ports are located on the other sides. The left side of the realme 12 Pro The power button and volume rocker are located on the upper right side of the device. Despite their ultra-slim design and lack of distinctive texturing, these buttons are slightly raised and have different lengths, making them easily identifiable by touch alone. The right edge of the realme 12 Pro 5G On realme 12 Pro 5G’s top edge, you’ll find just the secondary microphone and an earpiece speaker grille. The top edge of the realme 12 Pro 5G The smartphone’s lower edge is the most crowded: the SIM tray is accompanied by the main microphone, the USB-C port, and the primary speaker. The bottom edge of the realme 12 Pro Last but not least, it’s worth mentioning that the realme 12 Pro also has an IP65 certification. This means the smartphone is protected against dust and low-pressure liquid jets from any direction. Note that this doesn’t mean you can submerge the phone in water! The realme 12 Pro features an elegant and modern design that you don’t usually get in mid-range Android devices. Its smooth curves, symmetry, and vegan leather give you the impression that you’re looking at a premium device that’s both beautiful and a delight to hold in your hand.

Hardware specifications

The realme 12 Pro runs on a Qualcomm SM6450 Snapdragon 6 Gen 1, an octa-core chipset introduced on September 6, 2022. This SoC (System on a Chip) is fabricated using a 4-nanometer manufacturing process. It features four Cortex-A78 cores clocked at 2200 MHz, four Cortex-A55 cores operating at 1800 MHz, and an Adreno 710 GPU (graphics processing unit). The phone uses a Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 chipset Regarding storage and memory, the realme 12 Pro smartphone can have either 8 or 12 GB of RAM and 256 or 512 GB of internal storage. The sample I received for this review had 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of ROM flash storage. The operating system and preinstalled apps took up almost 30 GB of the internal memory. Storage available on the realme 12 Pro 5G The realme 12 Pro 5G is a dual SIM smartphone, accommodating two nano-SIM cards that operate simultaneously in dual stand-by mode. It’s worth noting that the device lacks a micro-SD card slot, meaning you won’t have the option to expand its storage capacity. Therefore, ensure you get a model with sufficient built-in storage to meet your requirements. The realme 12 Pro is a dual-SIM phone The generous 6.7-inch curved display of the realme 12 Pro uses an AMOLED panel with a 2160 Hz PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) ultra-high frequency dimming feature. This ensures the preservation of color accuracy and prevents flickering, particularly in low-light conditions when the screen brightness is reduced. Thanks to an FHD+ resolution of 2412×1080 pixels and a 20:9 screen ratio, the display offers an excellent pixel density of approximately 394 pixels per inch (ppi). Additionally, the screen offers a dynamic refresh rate that can reach 120 Hz, a 240 Hz touch sampling rate, and the capacity to show over 1 billion colors, covering the entire DCI-P3 wide color range. With a maximum peak brightness of 950 nits (800 nits globally), these specifications are excellent for a mid-range smartphone like the realme 12 Pro 5G. The screen has a refresh rate of 120 Hz The realme 12 Pro includes a triple-camera setup on its back and a single front-facing selfie camera:

• A 50MP primary wide camera based on a Sony IMX 882 sensor, featuring an f/1.8 aperture, phase-detection autofocus (PDAF), and Optical Image Stabilization (OIS).
• A 32MP telephoto camera based on a Sony IMX709 sensor, with an f/2.0 aperture and support for PDAF, OIS, and 2x optical zoom.
• An 8MP ultra-wide camera with a 112˚ field of view and an f/2.2 aperture.
• A 16MP wide selfie camera with an f/2.4 aperture.

Note that while the main and telephoto lens have support for optical image stabilization, the ultrawide and the selfie cameras don’t. The main rear camera setup supports 4K video recording at 30 frames per second and 1080p at 30, 60, or 120 fps with gyroscopic Electronic Optical Stabilization (gyro-EIS). The selfie camera video recording is restricted to 1080p resolution and 30 fps. The rear camera setup on the realme 12 Pro Connectivity-wise, the realme 12 Pro obviously supports 5G mobile networks. It also features Bluetooth 5.2 and dual-band Wi-Fi 6 (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax) across both the 2.4 and 5 GHz frequencies. The inclusion of an NFC chip is region-dependent, but I can attest that Europe is getting it. Furthermore, the device is equipped with an optical fingerprint reader under the display, as well as other usual sensors such as an accelerometer, a proximity sensor, a gyroscope, and a compass sensor. The smartphone has a fingerprint sensor (under the display) The realme 12 Pro gets its autonomy from a large 5000 mAh non-removable Li-Po battery. With such a capacity, I expect the phone to be able to run for at least a full day before having to recharge it. The good news is that the smartphone supports 67W fast charging, and realme bundles the required charger within the phone. According to its official specs, the realme 12 Pro can reach 50% capacity in just 19 minutes, and it can go from 0 to full 100% battery capacity within 48 minutes of charging. Check the next section of this review to see what I got in real life. The phone has a large battery and support fast charging If you’d like to get into detail about all the features and technical specifications, check out realme 12 Pro 5G’s official webpage. The realme 12 Pro seems like a good mid-range Android smartphone. While its chipset may not top the charts, it should be enough to provide a smooth and pleasant experience for everyday use and casual gaming. Moreover, the phone also has some other fairly obvious pros, such as fast charging, a large battery, a beautiful display, and a set of cameras with a good amount of potential for photography. Let’s move on to see how the realme 12 Pro performs in real life. On the next page, you can find out what to expect in daily use, see what this phone’s cameras are able to do, the software you get on the phone, and what the benchmarks have to say about the realme 12 Pro 5G.

The smartphone experience on the realme 12 Pro

The design and build quality of the realme 12 Pro are good, and I liked using it. Its vegan leather exterior is soft to the touch, offering a nice feel and giving you the impression that it will stay secure in your hand. However, to enjoy the smartphone fully, you have to take the risk of not mounting its protective cover. That’s not ideal if you’re not usually careful about scratching or dropping your phone. The vegan leather is nice and soft The screen is quite large, more than enough to make this phone great for internet browsing, reading, or watching videos. It also offers excellent brightness levels and impressive clarity. However, because of its dimensions, this phone might require two-handed navigation for some, like children or persons with smaller hands. The screen is large and bright The realme 12 Pro 5G performs admirably when it comes to the fundamental aspect of smartphones, which is making calls. It’s been ages since I’ve had to critique a phone’s call quality or mobile network connectivity, and the realme 12 Pro continues the trend. My conversations over the phone were great, with clear and crisp audio quality. Phone call quality is good The realme 12 Pro 5G delivers solid performance in everyday tasks, too. Media playback is flawless, and it can even handle gaming pretty well. However, in the case of more demanding games, medium to low settings are required for smooth gameplay. The graphics unit is not powerful enough for high framerates and/or high-quality visuals. Gaming is OK but not amazing The stereo speakers offer a solid audio performance for a phone, with no distortion at high volumes but limited bass. For a better experience, you should always use headphones. The fingerprint reader is accurate and fast, outperforming many of the ones I’ve tested on other similar smartphones. During my time with it, the realme 12 Pro rarely failed to read my fingerprint correctly. However, I did find its placement a bit awkward, being near the bottom edge. The fingerprint sensor is accurate The realme 12 Pro 5G’s battery life is impressive, easily lasting a full day with moderate use and potentially stretching to one and a half or even two days for lighter users. Its 67W fast charging is excellent, filling up over half the battery in just 20 minutes and reaching full capacity in 48 minutes. It’s right on point with realme’s marketing claims. Charging time for the realme 12 Pro In real life, the realme 12 Pro 5G stands out with its beautiful design, vibrant display, and excellent battery life. It charges faster than many, and experience-wise, it’s a strong contender in the mid-range Android market.

The camera experience on the realme 12 Pro

The realme 12 Pro features an advanced triple-camera array on the back, comprising a 50 MP primary camera, a 32 MP telephoto lens, and an 8 MP ultrawide sensor. The primary camera promises superior image quality in both daylight and low-light conditions. The telephoto lens offers 2x optical zoom and 4x lossless digital zoom for detailed photographs of distant objects as well as crystal-clear portraits. Lastly, the ultrawide sensor provides a large angle for capturing landscapes and group photos. The realme 12 Pro includes a telephoto camera The Camera app on the realme 12 Pro 5G is fairly simple and easy to use, and it supports all the common shooting modes. The ones shown by default are Photo, Video, Portrait, Street, and Night. Tapping on More gives you access to the more specialized modes: Pro, Pano(rama), Hi-Res, Movie, Slo-Mo, Time-Lapse, Long Exposure, Dual-View Video, Text Scanner, Starry Mode, Group Portrait, and Tilt-Shift. The Camera app is easy to use The photos I took in daylight were of good quality, with plenty of detail, good contrast, and dynamic range. There’s no obvious noise in good lighting conditions, but the colors tend to be somewhat oversaturated. Photo quality in daylight is excellent The same is true about the photos I took using 2x zoom, which is done optically through the telephoto lens. 2x zooming is optical When zooming in 4x, the photographs remain lossless because the magnification occurs within the sensor, maintaining quality. However, these photos do exhibit some noise, and the colors aren’t as vibrant as those shot at 1x or 2x zoom levels. Still, the overall quality of the images is quite good. 4x zooming is lossless The ultrawide camera also manages to deliver satisfactory results, but there is a noticeable color discrepancy compared to photos captured with the primary or telephoto lenses. Colors on the ultrawide camera don't match the other lens The realme 12 Pro does pretty well in close-up photography, too. The colors are vibrant, and it manages a decent background blur. However, for sharp focus, you’ll need to maintain a minimum distance of about 8 cm from the subject. Close-ups are of good quality Activating Portrait mode allows for capturing detailed portraits with a realistic and convincing background blur. It performs unexpectedly well, even when photographing non-living subjects. 🙂 The smartphone excels at shooting portraits The realme 12 Pro 5G’s cameras are, for lack of another word, reasonable at night, delivering usable photographs with decent clarity. Still, with all lenses - main, telephoto, and ultrawide - expect noticeable graininess and a slight blurriness in shadowy regions. Additionally, there’s room for enhancement in dynamic range and color fidelity. Low-light photo quality is decent If you’d like to see more samples, browse the gallery below. It includes photos I’ve shot with the realme 12 Pro both during daylight and at night, with and without zooming. Moving on to video recording, you should know that the smartphone can record videos in up to 4K resolution at 30 fps. It also offers 1080p recording at both 30 and 60 fps. While optical image stabilization enhances video quality by decreasing shakes, it’s not supported at 4K. Watch the next clip, shot at 4K resolution and 30 frames per second, to get a clearer picture of how good video recordings are. As you can see, the smartphone can capture fine details, produces adequate colors, and maintains good contrast levels. In the next video sample, recorded in 1080p and 60 frames per second, with more movement, you can notice a similar level of quality and how the image stabilization does its job: The realme 12 Pro 5G is a smartphone that offers excellent photo and video recording experience in well-lit environments, even when zooming in or shooting portraits. It has its fair share of struggling during the night, but the results you get are decent. Overall, I’m quite satisfied with this smartphone’s cameras, considering that it’s a mid-range device, not a flagship.

Android 14, realme UI 5.0, and bundled apps

The realme 12 Pro comes with realme UI 5.0, a user interface based on Android 14. While I had it in testing, the phone received a software update that improved security and optimized the Camera app’s performance, network experience, and system stability. As far as I know, realme’s policy remains the same as in previous years, meaning that this smartphone should receive two operating system upgrades and three years of security patches. The realme 12 Pro 5G comes with Android 14 and realme UI 5.0 realme UI 5.0 builds upon Android’s standard interface by adding a series of enhancements designed to offer a more user-friendly experience. This clean, feature-packed UI (user interface) allows detailed customization, from always-on display settings to personalized wallpapers, fonts, icons, and colors. Navigation is straightforward, and you can choose either gesture or traditional button controls. Multitasking includes Split View and Flexible Window options alongside a Smart Sidebar (that’s similar to Samsung’s Edge Panels). I find the latter very useful for quick app access and for its new File Dock feature that lets you simply drag files in open apps to edit or share them. The user interface is clean and customizable During the initial setup of the realme 12 Pro, the phone gave me the option to accept or reject the installation of two recommended apps: Temu and weather24. As I prefer a cleaner system, I declined to install them. However, the realme 12 Pro 5G still installed a lot of apps that I didn’t want or need, apps that weren’t shown in this initial list. Besides the essential apps (like Camera) and the ones from Google that are standard in Android (like Chrome), this is what I got:

• Amazon Shopping: The known online store’s application for shopping.
• App Market: An alternative to Google’s Play Store for downloading apps.
• Booking: Handy for trip planning and hotel reservations.
• Calculator: Useful tool for math problems.
• Clock: Simply tells the time, as the name suggests.
• Clone Phone: Offers easy data migration from your old device.
• Compass: A straightforward app indicating cardinal points.
• Facebook: The app version of the popular social network.
• Games: A central hub for managing installed games on your smartphone.
• Internet: A web browser with a simple interface. Most people will prefer using Google Chrome instead.
• LinkedIn: The official app for the widely-used business and employment-focused social network.
• Music: Manages and plays your music collection.
• My Files: Useful for organizing files and folders on your device.
• Netflix: The Android app of this popular streaming service.
• Notes: A minimalistic note-taking app with to-do list functionality.
• Phone Manager: Helps monitor smartphone health and perform optimizations.
• Photos: The default gallery app for viewing images.
• Recorder: Records audio using the phone’s microphone.
• Spotify: The application of the popular music streaming platform.
• TikTok: The entry into the popular social network using the same name.
• Videos: Allows playback of locally stored videos.
• Weather: Displays upcoming weather forecasts.
• WPS Office: A mobile office suite application.
• Zen Space: Helps eliminate distractions with features like Deep Zen and Light Zen, which silence notifications for focused work.

realme bundles a lot of apps by default Thanks to its many customization options and overall simplicity, I can say that I like the realme UI. However, I don’t appreciate the excessive number of bundled apps you can’t opt out of during the initial installation.

Performance in benchmarks

Having seen what the realme 12 Pro has to offer in design, specs, camera, software, and user experience, let’s now move on to check its performance in benchmarks: I began by testing the realme 12 Pro with Geekbench. The smartphone got a Single-Core score of 934 and a Multi-Core score of 2640 points. Additionally, the GPU Compute benchmarks ended with scores of 1320 for OpenCL and 1706 for Vulkan. These figures show that the realme 12 Pro 5G is a competent mid-range device for daily use and can also provide a decent gaming experience. Nevertheless, compared to other mid-range Android phones with similar features, such as the Motorola Edge 40 or the Xiaomi Poco X6 Pro, which are similarly priced, the chipset inside the realme 12 Pro falls short in speed for both CPU and graphics. Benchmark results in Geekbench 6 Next, I tested realme 12 Pro 5G’s performance with 3DMark. It achieved a score of 2383 in the Wild Life benchmark and 5421 points in Sling Shot. These results aren’t top-tier, but they’re good enough to indicate that this smartphone can handle casual gaming easily. For more demanding games, it delivers decent frame rates, though you may need to adjust the graphics settings for smooth play. Benchmark results in 3DMark Continuing, I turned to PCMark for Android to benchmark the smartphone in everyday performance and to see how it estimates its battery life under typical usage conditions. The realme 12 Pro 5G achieved a decent Work 3.0 performance score of 11500 points, alongside a remarkable battery endurance of 16 hours and a half! Benchmark results in PCMark Last but not least, I also took a look at the wireless performance offered by the realme 12 Pro. The 5G speed provided by my mobile operator is underwhelming, to say the least, and it’s not worth sharing. On the other hand, my home 1 Gbps internet plan offers a maximum download speed of 940 Mbps and an average speed of 850 Mbps. Using my Wi-Fi 6 mesh routers, the results I got for the realme 12 Pro 5G with Ookla’s Speedtest app were impressive: 734 Mbps in the download test and 628 Mbps for upload. Benchmark results in Speedtest The realme 12 Pro delivers solid performance for productivity and casual gaming. Its battery life is good, lasting up to two days. However, its chipset is less powerful than what you can get on similarly-priced Android smartphones.

What do you think of the realme 12 Pro?

The realme 12 Pro 5G has impressed me with its elegant design and cameras. However, its benchmark results disappointed me a bit and I would’ve wanted more from a smartphone with a mid-range price. But this is my opinion, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this smartphone. Are you considering buying the realme 12 Pro? What other mid-range Android smartphones are you weighing it against? Use the commenting options below to share your perspective. 🙂