I’ve been a realme convert for about a year now. Last year, I was using the realme 11 Pro+ 5G as my main phone. It was great — faux leather design, heavy 200MP camera. Everything was decent. It was a midrange phone that performed just as well as other flagships at half the cost. The 2024 refresh, the realme 12 Pro+ is exactly that but with a much better camera system.
The realme 12 Pro+ focuses on new Street Mode filters and the periscope camera (so funny that their website says that “next gen imaging doesn’t rely on ultra-high MP” — as this was what the realme 11 series was all about, having a main 200MP camera). Be that as it may, the learnings from the previous model have brought forth a much superior product.
This model that I am using comes with a Snapdragon 7 Gen 2 processor. This isn’t the latest processor in the market today, but given that this device is half the price of the more expensive flagships above USD $1,000, it’s really negligeable (other flagships already use a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2). Besides, the main focus are the cameras — 64MP Periscope camera and the main 50MP Sony IMX890 IOS camera. But specs are … specs. I’m going to pepper this review with photos so you see what I mean.
Street Mode has become my default shooting mode with the realme 12 Pro+. These are shots taken with the Memory filter that mimic oldf Fuji film cameras. I had a lot of fun doing street photography during my quick trip to Singapore two weeks ago.
Here are some airplane window shots using the three highlighted filters on Street Mode — Journey, Maverick, and Memory.
Regular shooting modes produced desirable results. Here are some shots using the 0.6 modes and night shots.
Verdict
The realme 12 Pro+ is a definite looker with a powerhouse camera system. Merely checking the hashtags on social meda (#realme12Series5G) will show you early reviews and what other content creators have done with the huge camera upgrade. The other features blend and work so well with the camera — a decent Snapdragon 7 processor, SuperVOOC charging capability with a hefty 5000mAh battery, 512GB of storage, and 12 + 4GB of RAM.
The pricing is as follows:
realme 12+ 5G
- P17,999 (8GB + 256GB)
- P19,999 (12GB + 256GGB)
realme 12 Pro+ 5G
- P25,000 (12GB + 512GB)