I've had my 12R for over a week so here's my impressions so far.....
#1 Battery, Battery, Battery!!!!!!!!!
Battery life is absolutely crazy on this thing..... Average after a day's use seems to be around 85-90%, and 70% (ish) after a couple of days. On top of that, charging with the included 80W brick is super fast as well.
I suspect the way the "always on" lockscreen works is a big part of that. Rather than being always on, it has a "raise to wake" setting so if it's stored face down (as I typically do) I don't believe the screen is active. Ok, further observation.... the "Always on" screen doesn't appear to be always on regardless of screen position up or down. There's a time-out and the screen goes blank until you either pick the phone up or double tap the screen (which brings you to the login screen).
#2 Brightness!!!!
No comparison between this and my previous S20 FE 5G. Typical setting is somewhere around 20%, and easily viewable in full sunlight.
#3 Memory/Storage!!!!!!
I may be an outlier, but the way I use my phone requires more than 128GB storage and most phones no longer have SD card options so the 256GB on this is a godsend. No issues storing all of my MP3s as well as being able to download all of my Amazon Music playlists in the highest format so that I'm not using cell data while driving. 16GB ram is also something I'm pretty stoked for... tons of room for background tasks without having to triage what I'm using.
Swapping from my previous phone was damn near seamless. The install gave me the option to copy all of my files / apps / configs from my Samsung (pretty sure over bluetooth). Seems to have done a good job of bringing over app data from the Samsung so that all I needed to do was enter my username/password and my data was there on the new phone.
Performance specs are available on the net so I won't bother posting any benchmarks. Suffice to say it's got last year's flagship snapdragon processor so it's got plenty of grunt. Not sure how big of a difference in battery life it would make, but it has a "performance mode" toggle (defaulted off) which seems to provide a significant boost to both single core and multi core benchmark numbers. Geekbench SC 1043 / MC 4012 with toggle off and SC 2034 / MC 5488 with toggle on. That said, I leave it in the defaulted "off" position and the phone is still smooth as silk.
Cell radio seems to be giving me better connections than I had with my Samsung. Both Wifi Calling & VoLTE are working on the Koodo network, and many reports of them working on both Telus and Bell networks without any hoops to jump through. Not so sure about the Rogers network through
OS is their version of Android 14 (Oxygen OS) which seems relatively light on proprietary non-vanilla content. Oneplus has promised 3 years of version updates + a 4'th year of security updates. (Definitely not an issue with me.... I have a hard enough time keeping a phone around for 2 years let alone 4). The only complaint I have so far is the lack of an option to automatically launch an app whenever a particular BT connection is made. The fingerprint reader seems to work fine, but in most cases I don't get a chance to use it as the phone's already been unlocked by face recognition.
Physically it's just slightly longer than my S20 FE 5G. The round camera bump is going to take a bit of getting used to (all of my previous phones had the camera integral to the body), but other than that, I still find it small enough that one handed use is functional. The only non-standard feature is a physical 3 position switch for normal/vibrate/off audio options.
And finally price..... Oneplus has a long running "recycle any phone" rebate of $150 (applied at checkout without confirmation of phone) and typically another $100 off of their listed $799 MSRP so the going rate from their website is usually $550, but if you sign up for their email/text marketing you'll get a coupon for another $40 which drops it down to $510 + tax.
#1 Battery, Battery, Battery!!!!!!!!!
Battery life is absolutely crazy on this thing..... Average after a day's use seems to be around 85-90%, and 70% (ish) after a couple of days. On top of that, charging with the included 80W brick is super fast as well.
I suspect the way the "always on" lockscreen works is a big part of that. Rather than being always on, it has a "raise to wake" setting
#2 Brightness!!!!
No comparison between this and my previous S20 FE 5G. Typical setting is somewhere around 20%, and easily viewable in full sunlight.
#3 Memory/Storage!!!!!!
I may be an outlier, but the way I use my phone requires more than 128GB storage and most phones no longer have SD card options so the 256GB on this is a godsend. No issues storing all of my MP3s as well as being able to download all of my Amazon Music playlists in the highest format so that I'm not using cell data while driving. 16GB ram is also something I'm pretty stoked for... tons of room for background tasks without having to triage what I'm using.
Swapping from my previous phone was damn near seamless. The install gave me the option to copy all of my files / apps / configs from my Samsung (pretty sure over bluetooth). Seems to have done a good job of bringing over app data from the Samsung so that all I needed to do was enter my username/password and my data was there on the new phone.
Performance specs are available on the net so I won't bother posting any benchmarks. Suffice to say it's got last year's flagship snapdragon processor so it's got plenty of grunt. Not sure how big of a difference in battery life it would make, but it has a "performance mode" toggle (defaulted off) which seems to provide a significant boost to both single core and multi core benchmark numbers. Geekbench SC 1043 / MC 4012 with toggle off and SC 2034 / MC 5488 with toggle on. That said, I leave it in the defaulted "off" position and the phone is still smooth as silk.
Cell radio seems to be giving me better connections than I had with my Samsung. Both Wifi Calling & VoLTE are working on the Koodo network, and many reports of them working on both Telus and Bell networks without any hoops to jump through. Not so sure about the Rogers network through
OS is their version of Android 14 (Oxygen OS) which seems relatively light on proprietary non-vanilla content. Oneplus has promised 3 years of version updates + a 4'th year of security updates. (Definitely not an issue with me.... I have a hard enough time keeping a phone around for 2 years let alone 4). The only complaint I have so far is the lack of an option to automatically launch an app whenever a particular BT connection is made. The fingerprint reader seems to work fine, but in most cases I don't get a chance to use it as the phone's already been unlocked by face recognition.
Physically it's just slightly longer than my S20 FE 5G. The round camera bump is going to take a bit of getting used to (all of my previous phones had the camera integral to the body), but other than that, I still find it small enough that one handed use is functional. The only non-standard feature is a physical 3 position switch for normal/vibrate/off audio options.
And finally price..... Oneplus has a long running "recycle any phone" rebate of $150 (applied at checkout without confirmation of phone) and typically another $100 off of their listed $799 MSRP so the going rate from their website is usually $550, but if you sign up for their email/text marketing you'll get a coupon for another $40 which drops it down to $510 + tax.
Last edited:
).
