Realme 12+ 5G review: A Midrange Marvel

I happen to hold the latter with 12GB RAM and the massive 512GB storage space. Having switched over from the Samsung Galaxy A23, this part is a relief as I don’t have to be frugal with space. The file hoarder in me couldn’t be happier. 

Also in the box is a SIM ejector pin, a 67W SUPERVOOC charger, user manual in 15 different languages, and a complimentary transparent jelly case. Realme has also applied a plastic screen protector for you. The box provides everything you need to get started with the phone right away — and you’re saved from buying accessories separately. Basically, down with consumerism.

Design

The Realme 12+ 5G has a glass display with a punch hole selfie camera cutout at the front. On the rear is the round camera island surrounded by the green silicone polymer back that finishes it with a classy look. A silver line runs through the middle. 

I like the slippery smooth texture, although the beige variant will have you worrying about stains and blotches. I spilled tea on my green model and got away with no residue or stains after wiping down with a towel. The leather material didn’t absorb the moisture and it took seconds to dry.

Rounding the edges and sides is a silver plastic frame you really will mistake for premium metal at first glance. It catches the light in all the right ways, and adds to the phone’s elegance. On the left side are the volume and power-slash-lock buttons. At the bottom, you’ll find the speaker grille, USB Type-C port, microphone, and SIM tray slot. Up top is a 3.5mm earphone jack, and another speaker and microphone.

You may notice that there’s no mention of a side fingerprint button. There isn’t one. It’s because Realme has gone with an under display sensor instead. 

Hardware

Performance 

MediaTek’s Dimensity 7050 SoC processor and the Mali-G68 MC4 graphical processing unit (GPU) powers this Realme 12+ 5G. The processor has eight cores, with six cores running at 2.00GHz, while the remaining two run at 2.60GHz. 

The 12GB RAM is a lot to have on a phone, and even more than you’d find on some computers. The fact that you can expand it with up to 12GB extra RAM with enough storage available is incredible. The refresh rate on standard mode plus the base RAM size is insane. You’ll find yourself zipping through applications and features with zero delays. 

I played Call of Duty Mobile, Farlight 84, and The Sims Freeplay. The character movements were fluid, even on the highest graphics and frame rate settings. Having the inbuilt game toolkit on the phone was a lifesaver. I played three rounds of CoDM’s Battle Royale mode and the temperature didn’t exceed warmness, which I must commend the vapor chamber cooling system for.

The toolkit provided screen recording and capturing capabilities, game focus mode, and a voice changer, among other effective controls. You could also switch between low power, balanced, and pro gamer modes. The toolkit will optimize your refresh rate for the best performance.

Battery

The Realme 12+ 5G has a 5,000mAh battery supporting 67W SUPERVOOC fast charging. But you’re only going to get up to 67W throughput if you use the original charger head and cable provided in the packaging. Here’s a rundown of how long it took for the battery to drain and recharge fully:

Draining the battery

Out of the box, the phone already had 56% charge. This was around 5:07 pm. It dropped to 48% around 5:31 pm. Then 25% around 7:11 and finally 1% around 12:10 am. 

From 5:07 pm to 5:31 pm, there was an 8% drop in 24 minutes. From 5:31 pm to 7:11 pm, there was a 23% drop in 1 hour and 40 minutes. From 7:11 pm to 12:10 am, there was a 24% drop in 4 hours 59 minutes.

The total time span from 5:07 pm to 12:10 am is approximately 7 hours and 3 minutes. I’m spazzing out at this point, but here’s the calculation in summary:

8% + 23% + 24% ÷ 7 hours and 3 minutes translates to 55% ÷ 7.05 hours = 7.80.

In summary, the phone had an average battery drain rate of 7.80% per hour and lasted 7 hours and 3 minutes before it ran down. I spent that time switching between browsing, watching movies, and texting.

Recharging the battery

At 1%, I connected my phone immediately and ceased using it. It got to 14% around 12:14 AM and 20% around 12:21 AM. It reached 74% around 12:45 AM. Then finally to 100% around 1:01 AM. The increase from 1% to 14% took 7 minutes. Then, it increased from 14% to 20% in 7 minutes. The next jump was 20% to 74% in 24 minutes.  Finally, it went from 74% to 100% in 9 minutes. In summary, it took a total of 47 minutes to get a full charge on the Realme 12+ 5G. 

Display

The Realme 12 5G has a flat 6.67-inch AMOLED display with Full HD+ resolution (1080 x 2400 pixels) and 120Hz refresh rate. It also has a high screen-to-body ratio that makes the bezels extremely thin. I did struggle to get used to it at first, and suffered accidental touches occasionally. Eventually, it grew on me. 

What’s more interesting is the Rainwater Smart Touch. It’s a feature that scans your screen to detect water, especially during light rainfall, and allows you to use your phone regardless. Normally, I wouldn’t be so quick to test features like it. But the phone does have an IP65 resistance rating, which was reassuring enough. 

I was skeptical that the Smart Touch would work, considering the pre-applied screen protector, and how they typically reduce sensitivity. Surprisingly, I was able to rearrange apps on my home screen, scroll through the app gallery, and open some apps. In my third attempt, typing and unlocking the phone with my thumbprint was challenging as I increased the water droplets. Overall, there was no erratic behavior. So, you don’t need to worry much about your device accidentally texting your entire workspace when it gets wet — or your ex-partner asking to get back together.

The display did produce grainy feedback when I tapped certain UI elements. This may be a software problem. I didn’t experience it until after my first OS update. I’ve also found several reports across device brands concerning the same issue after a software update, which is a relief.

Software

Realme’s phone comes pre-installed with Android 14 and Realme UI 5.0 user interface overlayed on it. The brand promised two years of major operating system (OS) updates with three years of security patches. Already, I’ve had to install the version 14.0.0.507 update. It was around 5.8GB, and available from the moment I turned on the phone. The version 14.0.0.509 update came much later. It brought visible changes to the brightness and volume dials in the notification panel, among other improvements. 

There is bloatware, although the system apps take roughly 16GB, which is around 3% of the total storage and isn’t a big deal. Some of the default apps are Google’s, like the phone, browser, and messaging apps. Still, Realme has added its own programs, including the Photos, Camera, App Market, and the Phone Manager that was introduced with the Realme 3.0 update.

You’ll find a number of other preloaded apps you can immediately uninstall like OnePlus’ Zen Space, Booking.com, and Amazon Shopping. Besides the bloatware, I have no issues with the UI.

Tip: You will come across Hot Apps and Games in your app gallery with no options to uninstall them. While they sound scandalous, they’re really just content that the Realme App Market  recommends to you. You can disable them in the App Market. First, open the app. Then go to Me > settings and disable the toggle switch for Hot apps & games.

I also love the customisation features on my Realme. Long pressing on the home screen unlocks access to changing the transitions, using wallpaper carousels and widgets, and doing more. You can even tweak app icons from their shapes to the app name size.

Cameras 

International watch designer and winner of the Meilleur Ouvrier De France award, Olivier Saveo, is the genius behind this phone’s camera concept. Realme also collaborated with the Oscar-winning cinematographer, Claudio Miranda, to bring customized movie filters, the 2.39:1 movie-wide format ratio, and the Cinematic Bokeh Algorithm among other features, to life. All of them combined are intended to copy Olivier’s and Miranda’s expertise.

The selfie camera is at 16MP with a large  f/2.5 and 1/3.0 aperture and sensor sizes. It also has a wide angle focal length of 24mm, and can shoot in full HD at 30 frames per second. The triple rear cameras include a 50MP wide main camera, an 8MP ultra wide-angle camera, and a 2MP macro shooter. There’s also an LED flash.

The phone also happens to be the first in its series to feature Sony Semiconductor Solutions’ (SSS) LYT-600 rear camera with optical image stabilization (OIS). The LYTIA sensors are specifically for mobile devices. In this case, the sensor is larger than usual around 8.2 millimeters diagonally and carrying 50 million pixels. It uses pixel binning technology that allows it to capture images well in low-light conditions. The stacked CMOS design here keeps the image capture layer atop the processing layer. Traditional CMOS usually places them side-by-side.  

With the stacked version, more light hits the sensor, especially at the edges. It improves low-light shots and shortens the distance between the photodiode and processing circuits to increase readout speeds. Translation? Snappier image capture and less blur when things move too fast. 

Putting the camera to the test

The Realme 12+ 5G’s camera delivers impressive performance and image quality. Its main camera snaps with minimal noise, both in bright and dim environments. Image results are well saturated, and objects appear natural. 

Likewise, normal Photo and Portrait modes impress in the daytime with edge detection and lifelike skin tones. Though I’m a horrible photographer, I managed to get decent plant shots and compared the results with my iPhone 11. The results were close, but the Realme phone had more saturation that made the iPhone’s result look dull.

The 2MP macro shooter does what it’s supposed to do. You’ll get a close-up of objects within 4cm. Anything beyond that is buried behind intense pixelation. The camera’s settings menu is rich with controls for tweaking its performance however you prefer. I love the features that let you show your palm or touch anywhere on the screen to shoot. You can also remap your volume button to act as a shutter or zoomer.

In video mode, I shot between 720p to 4K resolution. Frame rate options are between 30fps and 60fps for the 720p and 1080p resolutions. There was minimal noise in both resolutions. 4K resolution stops at 30fps, and it was noiselessly beautiful.  

Benchmark scores

I ran three different benchmark tests for this phone and got the following results:

Geekbench 6

• Single-core score: 884
• Multi-core score: 2244

These scores lag behind many phones, including the Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro.

AnTuTu Benchmark 

As of April 2024, AnTuTu ranked the Realme in 73rd place with a total score of 580544. My test on the mobile app put the 12+ 5G at 605420. Here’s a breakdown of the score:

• CPU: 176485
• GPU: 112506
• Memory: 158136
• User experience (UX): 158293

3DMark

The Realme 12+ 5G scored 2248 on 3DMark’s Wild Life test. It’s a benchmark for the latest smartphones that mocks intensive games for a minute. The score puts it above the Samsung Galaxy A23 Ultra, Motorola Edge 30 Pro, and other remarkable phones.

Conclusion

Normally, I wouldn’t look past a Samsung when phone shopping. They’ve had my heart with the Qualcomm Snapdragon, One UI, long OS support, and the sharp AMOLED displays, among other specs. Initially, I felt hesitant to switch to the Realme 12+ because it fell short on most of those areas and is not a very known brand. But I must say that this model is worth it for anyone looking for a budget or midrange device with premium features.

It brought new features I couldn’t boast of on my previous Galaxy A23. I have an Always-On Display, Rainwater Smart Touch, more home screen customisation, and better memory. The phone also goes neck to neck with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 and outperforms the Nothing Phone 2a, which is quite impressive. It has all the essentials from headphone jack, stereo speakers, good battery life, expandable storage (MicroSD), fast charging, decent screen, and a reasonable price.

Realme launched the base 12 and 12+ models in India at ₹20,999. That’s roughly $255 using the current conversion rates. The phones are available for purchase on the official website, Amazon, FlipKart, and other retail platforms.