Oppo Reno12 Pro 5G review: Well-rounded mid-range phone with nifty AI features
The Reno12 Pro is a solid mid-range release, but can be expensive at P34,999, when compared to its more value-oriented competitors
The Oppo Reno12 Pro 5G wants to make generative artificial intelligence (AI) more accessible by bringing some features previously exclusive to flagships on a more affordable mid-range release, and to an extent, it does live up to that promise.
The device has some nifty AI-powered photo editing features that can arguably rival Google’s own efforts with the Pixel. Besides that, it also features a relatively good display, an attractive design, decent cameras, and a long-lasting battery.
Perhaps the only thing that’s holding the Reno12 Pro back is its price. At P34,999, it’s fairly expensive, especially when you compare it to its competitors, some of which are bona fide flagship killers with more capable hardware. Then again, I like the implementation of the AI features here enough to say that the price is almost worth it if you’re into those as well.
One of those features is AI Eraser, which allows you to easily remove unwanted people or objects from your photo without the need for a dedicated photo editing software. You can find it among the tools at your disposal in the Photos app, and using it is pretty straightforward. Smart Lasso and Paint Over lets you manually select the objects you want to remove, while Remove People lets the AI do all the work.
Here’s one example of AI Eraser at work, with the before photo on the left, and the after photo on the right:
AI Eraser is also similar to a tool also used in the more expensive Samsung Galaxy flagship phones, so it’s nifty to see something like it trickle down to a more affordable device – although it would certainly be worth the time to compare just how well the feature performs, compared to the OPPO mid-ranger.
For the most part, the feature works as advertised, and the AI is indeed smart enough to recognize people. However, you can’t expect to get good results all the time. When you have a busy background, for example, the AI can struggle reconstructing the part of the photo where removals were made. Still, it’s a useful feature to have if you want a quick and simple way to enhance your photos.
Another useful feature is Smart Image Matting, which lets you cut out subjects of your photos and use them as stickers that you can send to other people or put on top of another photo. You just tap and hold the subject that you want to cut out, and the AI will automatically outline and separate it from the background. After that, you can choose whether to copy it, save it as another photo, or add it to your gallery of stickers.
Meanwhile, AI Studio is a pre-installed app that can dramatically transform your photos in fun and creative ways. You select the photo you want to transform, then you select a template or filter, and you wait a couple of seconds for the AI to generate your new photo. It’s a fun feature that you can play around with, though the limited number of templates available make it much less versatile than other AI-powered photo generators.
I also want to mention that the feature is not free as it requires you to sign into your MyOppo account and pay credits each time you want to generate a photo. Again, Samsung’s flagship has similar generative AI features, and Samsung’s currently offering these for free.
Reliable main and tele shooters, attractive design
When it comes to the actual photography experience, the Reno12 Pro’s triple-rear setup mostly pleases. The 50MP, f/1.8 main lens can capture decent-looking photos with good dynamic range. It performs very well in well-lit and sunny environments, with details coming out crisp and sharp. Oppo’s image processing software, however, can sometimes oversaturate brighter colors and make them look more vibrant than they are in real life. It’s not enough to make those colors look unnatural, but it’s worth pointing out all the same.
The 50MP telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom also performs very well, with photos coming out almost as good as what you get from the main lens. You generally get clean photos with a good amount of detail. In some shooting scenarios, photos can look a tad bit underexposed when compared to those taken with the main lens, but the difference is not huge. As far as the zoom is concerned, you can get good quality until 2x zoom, with 5x being hit or miss.
The 8MP ultra-wide lens is the weakest member of the trio. It does its job of expanding the frame and fitting more into the photo, but that usually comes at the cost of details. Photos captured in this mode also come out looking more unnatural compared to the two other lenses.
For selfies, you get a 50MP front-facing lens with phase detection autofocus. It can capture good-looking portraits rich with detail and color, which should be more than good enough for social media needs.
Outside of photography, the Reno12 Pro has a pretty attractive design, highlighted by an eye-catching finish for its rear that Oppo calls Fluid Ripple. Moreover, the body is relatively thin and light, making it easy to grip and very pocketable. Up front, it has a 6.7-inch AMOLED panel with 120Hz refresh rate. It’s a great display for the price, one that’s both vibrant and bright.
Inside, the phone is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 7300, a mid-range octa-core chipset, paired with 12GB of RAM. It also has a 5,000mAh battery which supports Oppo’s 80W SuperVooc fast charging solution. You can expect to get at least a full day of heavy usage thanks to the battery’s resilience and chipset’s improved energy-efficiency.
Everything considered, the Reno12 Pro is a solid mid-range release. It’s well-rounded and comes with a bunch of cool AI features. At the same time though, its price puts it in direct competition against more value-oriented releases like the Xiaomi 13T Pro, to name one example. That phone is slightly more expensive at P37,999, but it has a faster chipset and Leica-branded lenses.
The Reno12, the base model especially priced at P24,999, is also in competition with the similarly priced Samsung A55 phone, and one thing it has going over it is its inclusion of the aforementioned AI features – which have not trickled down yet from the Samsung flagships to the cheaper A series phones.
In my opinion, you can’t go wrong with either of the two, with each one bringing a unique experience to the table. It’s just that if you want to get the most bang for your buck, these are options you have to weigh.
Alternatively, if cameras aren’t as important to you, you can get the same Reno12 experience for less by opting for the base model, priced at P24,999. It has the same 6.7-inch panel, MediaTek Dimensity 7300 chipset, and 5,000mAh battery of its higher-end counterpart, but replaces the 50MP telephoto lens for a 2MP macro lens and the 50MP selfie lens for a 32MP lens. – Rappler.com