realme 12 5G: Style meets Affordable

More often than not, some of the most beautiful and intricately designed smartphones come with a hefty price tag. Aside from high-end materials, these smartphones also feature some of the latest tech, features, and specs. As a result, you get a well-crafted smartphone that looks great and performs very well.

However, that doesn’t have to be the case all the time. Take the new realme 12 5G 28 for example. It’s a great-looking smartphone with more than capable specs, all at an affordable price of just PHP 14,999USD 256INR 21,668EUR 243CNY 1,861.

Table of Contents

 Stylish Design

As you would expect from the new realme 12 30 5G, it adopts the familiar design language we’ve come to love from its predecessor, the realme 24 11, but takes it one step further. Updated design cues make the phone look a lot more premium.

The main attraction of the realme 12 5G is still the large circular camera housing at the top center. However, the layout has been changed into a 2×2 grid design like the realme 12+ 5G and the realme 12 Pro+ 5G, giving the camera housing more symmetry. You also get a smooth chrome bezel that runs around the housing.

The zipper-like pattern that runs down the back of the phone has been retained, but it’s now a bit more discrete. There are no contrasting colors, which helps add a minimalist touch to the phone. At the same time, new colors are available to choose from, like this nice pink colorway.

Performance to Match

Having a stylish phone is one thing. But having a stylish and affordable phone that can perform is another.

The realme 12 5G might be the most affordable model in the series, but that doesn’t mean it’s down in power. Under the hood, the realme 12 5G is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 6100+ processor, and it can be ordered with up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. If you find the storage a bit lacking, you can expand it further via a microSD card.

The Dimensity 6100+ is a relatively powerful chipset that can easily handle day-to-day tasks without issues. These include browsing social media, surfing the net, watching videos on YouTube, sending emails, and more.

Even if you leave apps running in the background, you won’t feel the phone lacks performance. You can even take advantage of the valuable features of realme UI 5.0, to become more productive like Split View and Floating Windows.

For reference, it scored 430910 via the Antutu benchmark and 1235 on 3DMark Wild Life, which are decent scores. But benchmark results are just a piece of the puzzle.

In terms of gaming, the realme 12 5G can easily run light games without any issues. It can even play graphic-intensive titles Genshin Impact, although you have to tweak the settings a bit to have a more enjoyable gaming experience. Still, being capable of efficiently running Genshin on this phone is nice to have.

Nice and Colorful Display

While you can have a very capable chipset under the hood, you won’t be able to enjoy it too much if it’s not paired with a nice display. Fortunately, the realme 12 5G has that as well.

The realme 12 5G features a 6.72-inch IPS display with relatively slim borders and nice viewing angles. Despite being an IPS screen, the colors are still bright and vivid. Users can even choose between vivid and natural color modes in the settings, and adjust the color temperature to their liking.
Speaking of brightness, users have 950 nits of peak brightness to work with, making it easy to use under the bright summer sky. In addition, gamers will also be able to enjoy the 120Hz dynamic refresh rate..

When you aren’t playing games, the 120Hz dynamic refresh rate display makes for smooth animations when going through the menu or watching videos on this phone. You might even want to go through all of the stunning content you were able to capture on this device.

Beyond Capable Cameras

For those who love creating or capturing content, the realme 12 5G has a dual-rear camera setup. The primary shooter uses a 108MP sensor paired with a 2MP depth sensor. For selfies, you do get an 8MP front camera.

There are various shooting modes to choose from, giving users the option to experiment with whatever mode suits them best. Some modes include night, street, portrait, and even dual-view video.

But even if you leave it in the standard photo mode, you’re bound to take nice photos. The phone’s AI algorithm does a great job of balancing out the photos.

As a result, you get sharp images with decent contrast that don’t look unnatural. Even if you zoom in on the photos, you can see the details well. What’s great is that even if you use 3x zoom, there isn’t too big of a drop in quality.

The camera on the realme 12 5G also works great at night. Here, you’ll see more of the camera’s AI algorithm at work to produce decent low-light images. You don’t get too much grain, but at the same time, details are retained.

You can expect similar results when you’re shooting video. The realme 12 5G can record at a maximum of 1080P@30FPS, and while there is no stabilization, you can still get decent content.
For a better idea, check out some of the sample shots we captured in the gallery below.

Long-Lasting Battery

The battery on the realme 12 5G is the standard 5,000 mAh unit, but paired with the Dimensity 6100+, it does last a relatively long time.

Despite being used the entire day to take photos, videos, and even play games, the phone still had enough juice to last another day without needing to be recharged..

To give you a better idea, we ran PC Mark’s Work 3.0 Battery test, which resulted in 16 hours and 58 minutes. This is an impressive result considering that the phone uses the typical 5,000 mAh battery.

This also means you won’t need to recharge the phone quite as well. When you do need to recharge, you have a 45W fast charger to work with.

With the realme 12 5G, you can have a very stylish, affordable, and capable phone. If you’re interested in the realme 12 5G, you can check it out at official realme Philippines stores or online via the realme Philippines website.

Want to pick one up? You can do so by visiting the official realme Lazada and Shopee pages.