Realme 12 Pro Review: A Blend of Good Design and Good Cameras

Realme’s latest pro offerings in the number series for the year, the Realme 12 Pro and the Realme 12 Pro+, are official. The Realme 12 Pro+, which we’ve reviewed already, manages to get a lot of things right, including the cameras—a concern we had with its predecessor. Its sibling, the Realme 12 Pro, isn’t any different and looks promising with a telephoto lens and IP65 protection.

Starting at Rs 25,999, the Realme 12 Pro faces stiff competition in the market from brands like OnePlus, POCO, and Redmi. But does it do enough to be your next smartphone? And with a price gap of Rs 4,000 with the Realme 12 Pro+, is it the more value-for-money option?

We try to answer that in this Realme 12 Pro review.

What’s Good?

Let’s start by addressing what’s good about the Realme 12 Pro.

The first aspect has to be the design. While Realme has kept the design of the Realme 12 Pro series similar to the Realme 11 Pro series, there are some subtle changes. We’ve talked about them in detail in our Realme 12 Pro+ review, but to summarize, the back panel looks cleaner than before, and the camera module, which is now bigger, has a golden ring around it, reminiscent of the jubilee bracelet on certain luxury watches. What’s also improved from last year is device protection. Realme has added IP65 protection on the Realme 12 Pro, which offers adequate protection against dust and water.

Another area where the Realme 12 Pro shines is the display. It features a 6.7-inch display with an FHD+ screen resolution (2412×1080 pixels). The viewing experience is excellent, owing to good sharpness and colors. The screen also gets sufficiently bright—with a peak brightness of 950nits—and you wouldn’t have any problem using it outdoors unless you’re using it with the Sun just above your head. It’s also a high-refresh-rate screen, with support for 120Hz, which allows for a snappy user experience. Combined with good-sounding stereo speakers, this makes the Realme 12 Pro a good device for content consumption.

Speaking of battery life, Realme has packed a 5000mAh battery on the Realme 12 Pro. In my use, the phone would easily last about 7 hours with moderate use on a single charge, which is pretty good. And when it ran out of charge, the bundled 67W charger came in handy. It takes the charger around 55 minutes to charge the battery from 0 to 100%.

Finally, coming to imaging, Realme has managed to get many things right in this department, too. The phone sports a triple-camera setup, which includes a 50MP (f/1.8) Sony IMX882 sensor, a 32MP (f/2.0) telephoto lens, and an 8MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide lens. On the front, you get a 16MP shooter for selfies.

Speaking of performance, the primary camera clicks good photos in daylight. The shots come out well, with a good amount of detail and sharpness. While it manages to reproduce colors accurately most of the time, there are situations where they may appear a little over-saturated.

Low-light shots are decent and have plenty of details.

Telephoto is a nice addition to the Realme 12 Pro. You can get some good-quality shots at 2x zoom in daylight and good-lighting conditions. What’s also nice is that there’s no noticeable color shift in images at 1x and 2x.

However, sharpness could sometimes take a hit when it begins to get dark.

Portrait shots from both the primary and telephoto lenses come out decent in daylight conditions.

Lastly, there’s the front-facing camera. It clicks decent selfies in daylight and in good lighting conditions. The colors, skin tones, and contrast levels are maintained quite well.

What’s Not So Good?

Coming to what’s not so good—and could’ve been better—on the Realme 12 Pro, we first have performance. Realme is using a Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 processor on the Realme 12 Pro. While the processor isn’t bad, it isn’t the best when you factor in what the competitors in this price range offer.

In day-to-day use, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 on the Realme 12 Pro performs decently well. It can handle everyday tasks like clicking pictures/shooting videos, catching up on social media, browsing the internet, editing pictures, and casual gaming without any problem. However, you shouldn’t expect the same performance with demanding games.

Similarly, multitasking isn’t the best experience either. On multiple occasions, the background apps on my phone would go out of memory. For instance, when I had a bunch of tabs open in Chrome, with Feedly, Flipboard, YouTube, Snapseed, and Lightroom, among other apps running in the background, I had to wait a couple of seconds for some of the apps to reload the content. This was more apparent while gaming. It would’ve been nice if Realme offered a 12GB RAM option on the Realme 12 Pro.

Another aspect that isn’t very pleasing about the Realme 12 Pro is the software experience. The Realme UI 5.0 (based on Android 14) is pretty good with functionality and customizability. But what spoils it is the pre-installed bloatware and unsolicited suggestions/recommendations throughout the entire interface. Although the situation has improved compared to last year’s offering, it’s still not ideal.

While the camera performance is generally pretty good on the Realme 12 Pro, there are a some shortcomings. For example, the ultra-wide camera is average (and not the best). Even though the shots come out with sufficient details, they can sometimes appear washed out. Similarly, the color shift is also apparent, and you may occasionally see some artifacts around the corners in some pictures.

In low-light and night-time shots, the pictures come out a little too soft.

Edge detection in portrait shots is another issue I have with the device. Although it’s non-existent in good lighting, the story is completely different in low-light and night-time shots, as both the cameras mess up it up a little too badly.

Lastly, the cameras on the Realme 12 Pro also struggle a bit in night-time shots. Even though the colors are maintained throughout, and noise isn’t an issue, the shadows often feel a bit underexposed. Using the night mode does fix this in most scenarios. But it isn’t always useful, as sometimes you’ll notice that it simply bumps up the exposure a little too much, which induces some noise, making you want to use the picture shot without night mode instead.

Should You Buy the Realme 12 Pro?

Realme offers the Realme 12 Pro comes in two configurations: 8GB + 128GB and 8GB + 256GB. The two variants are priced at Rs 25,999 and Rs 26,999, respectively.

For that price, you get a device with a striking design, a great display, good overall cameras, and an all-day battery life. However, you do have to make some compromises in terms of performance and software. As such, whether you should buy the Realme 12 Pro or not boils down to what you want in a device.

Buy the Realme 12 Pro if:

• You want a phone with an eye-catching design
• You want a curved display
• You want good camera performance
• You want a phone that has a telephoto lens
• You want all-day battery life

Don’t buy the Realme 12 Pro if:

• You want the top-notch performance
• You want the best multitasking experience
• You want uncompromised low-light and night-time camera performance
• You want a clean software experience

On the other hand, if you’re looking for alternatives, there are a few notable ones you can consider. These include the OnePlus Nord CE3, Redmi Note 13 Pro+, Motorola Edge 40 Neo, and the POCO X6 Pro. While the Realme 12 Pro+ is another option worth considering, what you’re essentially getting by paying Rs 4,000 extra is a slightly improved performance (with better multitasking capabilities) and better cameras.

Buy Realme 12 Pro