A detailed look at the OnePlus 12 ahead of its global launch

OnePlus has officially launched the OnePlus 12 in China, and its highest-specced model comes with more RAM than I had in my desktop gaming PC until very recently. Although the flagship smartphone’s base model comes with 12GB of RAM alongside 256GB of storage, opting for the highest-end version gets Chinese buyers 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. OnePlus is yet to confirm configurations when it launches internationally in “early 2024.”

The phone’s RAM isn’t the only eye-catching spec. Charging speeds are also speedy, with support for 100W wired fast charging and 50W wireless charging (a feature that was missing entirely from the OnePlus 11). Based on our experience with the previous OnePlus 11, that 100W fast charging is likely to translate to 80W in the US. The OnePlus 12’s battery has a rated capacity of 5,400mAh.

In terms of cameras, the OnePlus 12 has a triple rear setup consisting of a 50-megapixel main, a 64-megapixel periscope telephoto with a 3x optical zoom, and a 48-megapixel ultrawide. Naturally they’re Hasselblad-branded once again, and joined by a 32-megapixel selfie camera. Powering the phone is Qualcomm’s latest flagship processor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. 

Available colors include green, white, and black, and the phone carries an IP65 rating for dust and water resistance, an incremental step up from the IP64 rating found on the OnePlus 11. In practice that means that its protection from dust and other solid particles is the same, but that it should now be protected against jets of water, rather than just splashes.

OnePlus is yet to confirm an exact date for the phone’s international launch beyond “early 2024,” but rumors suggested we’ll see a launch in late January. In China, the phone starts at ¥4,299 (around $606) for its entry-level model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, rising to ¥5,799 (around $818) if you want the complete 24GB RAM / 1TB storage experience. International pricing is yet to be announced.