Realme, a subsidiary brand of the well-known Chinese smartphone manufacturer OPPO, made its debut at the CES 2024 exhibition in Las Vegas. The company arranged a separate presentation of the new Realme 12 Pro+ 5G smartphone for journalists.
To be honest, I did not expect anything remarkable from the event. Realme has been working in the niche of high-quality budget smartphones for a long time, but even the company’s top products were inferior to flagships such as Samsung or Apple. But a recent presentation surprised me. The company showed a budget model with an excellent camera, and I will talk about it below.
The preview of the devices was preceded by a roughly hour-long presentation, during which the company’s speakers talked about the brand’s new philosophy. Realme decided to play big and was going to jump right into the top league of smartphone manufacturers. The main idea is that the company now wants not only to make good smartphones, but also to set trends themselves.
With the new device, the company hopes to reach the category of teenagers and young users, for whom a smartphone has a cool camera, preferably with optical zoom and more. And not for all the money in the world.
So, what is special about Realme 12 Pro+. The main thing in the new device is a camera with a periscopic lens. It is powered by a 1/2-inch 64-megapixel OmniVision OV64B sensor. The company claims that the sensor of the Realme 12 Pro+ is at least 2.6 times larger than that of the iPhone 15 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, and this allows it to capture almost twice as much light. This also gives an advantage when shooting at night – more light, therefore, more detailed and saturated photos.
The smartphone looks stylish and fashionable. Swiss watch designer Olivier Saveu worked on the appearance of the camera unit and edging. The camera unit really resembles an expensive watch in some ways. The polished circle-dial with a fluted edging of golden color, and the vertical strip that rolled over from the previous version, against the background of blue or white eco-leather look very nice.
The smartphone also comes with a 50-megapixel primary camera with a 1/1.56-inch Sony IMX890 sensor (like the OnePlus 11), f/1.8 aperture, and optical stabilization. There is also a 0.6 x ultra-wide-angle camera and a 32-megapixel front-facing camera, the company did not provide details about them.
The test model had 12 GB of RAM, 512 GB of storage, a 6.7-inch screen, a 5,000 mAh battery, 5G support, and a mid-range Snapdragon processor, the exact model of which the company asked not to reveal until the official release . I can only clarify that, according to the company’s speakers, the processor is compatible with Realme’s new technology – MasterShot Algorithm. With its help, you can save photos in RAW format, which was previously available mainly on flagship devices.
Realme 12 Pro+ uses the proprietary Android shell. At first glance, the system menu looks nice, the smartphone is not overloaded with unnecessary software at the start, the system works smoothly and without delays.
Below, several photos taken with the smartphone – in normal mode, portrait mode and with the use of optical zoom. For comparison, the company installed the iPhone 15 Pro Max on a tripod in the test room, and at first glance, the photos taken on Realme looked definitely not worse, and in some places even more interesting. But this, of course, will have to be checked already in a leisurely mode and in different conditions.
And an example of a video taken with a smartphone.
The company does not say when the smartphone will go on sale or even approximate prices. The smartphone is expected to be released in the first half of 2024. Then we hope to conduct a full review of a clearly interesting device, compare the quality of photos with top flagships, and check its performance.
For now, it can be argued that we got an extraordinary smartphone that many will definitely want to buy due to its attractive design, cool camera and, most likely, a moderate price tag.
