Genshin Impact is one of the most popular games in the world and perhaps China’s major video game export, but even knowing that I’m surprised that fellow countryman OnePlus has built a £699 version of its 12R smartphone (£649) Genshin Impact Edition. Not only that, but the phone is based on a character from the game – the purple-haired Keqing – who I imagine must have been chosen to be the face of the brand after a lot of research.
The Shenzhen-based company offered to send over a device for review, and I thought it might be a fun way to check out one of the most affordable phones powered by last year’s high-performance flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset – and Take a look at what one of the most unusual gaming pairings I’ve ever seen actually offers fans in terms of performance, design, and additional features.
design
The OnePlus 12R Genshin Impact Edition has a bold look that takes the already pretty high-end look of the phone in the regular 12R and makes it even more eye-catching. The purple “Electric Violet” color captures the light well, especially the jeweled look of the rear camera array, and the purple look also extends to the metal frame surrounding the device.
This is certainly a slippery phone to hold, so you’ll probably want to use a protective case – although given the work that went into creating a unique look, a clear design is certainly the only right choice. The phone is also IP64 water and dust resistant, which is good, but not competitive with current IP68-rated flagship phones.
As well as the ph one itself, you get a whole host of themed accessories – stickers, pins, cases, chargers, USB cables, SIM eject tools, and even a whole set of miniature backgrounds, character stands and a chibi-sized phone holder for taking photos If you’re a fan of Genshin Impact’s excellent artwork, especially the celebratory portrait on the back of the case, this is a pretty good value-add if you have the space to display it all.
exhibit
While its exterior design has changed significantly from the regular OnePlus 12R, the display on this Genshin Impact version remains the same. This means the refresh rate of the 6.8-inch 1264×2780 LTPO4 AMOLED screen can vary from 1Hz to 120Hz, providing a responsive gaming experience without affecting battery life as it sometimes did with earlier 90Hz and 120Hz models. Touch responsiveness is also very high at 1000Hz, which should give some benefit to responsiveness – I actually don’t have any complaints.
The screen is also very bright, with a rated peak HDR brightness of 4,500 nits and support for Dolby Vision. Arguably, the screen is the real highlight of this device, easily overpowering outdoor sunlight or delivering impactful highlights in HDR content.
Below the screen is an optical fingerprint sensor, which in my experience is fast, although the punch-hole selfie camera also offers facial login functionality and is generally faster.
camera
The OnePlus 12R comes with the same 50-megapixel Sony IMX890 sensor as last year’s OnePlus 11 flagship, but behind this there’s a more modest 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens and a largely useless 2-megapixel macro mode just to make up for the numbers. . There is a 16-megapixel wide-angle lens on the front.
The main camera is strong, delivering results on par with iPhones, Pixels, and Galaxy smartphones from a few years ago, but the OnePlus feels a few steps behind the best of 2024’s competition. Optical image stabilization and binning from the large Sony sensor allow for very detailed 12.6-megapixel photos, especially in good light, and the color adjustment and dynamic range were excellent for my eyes. There’s also a choice of full 50-megapixel stills, RAW HDR photos, and video up to 4K 60Hz.
The camera interface here will feel very familiar to Pixel users, with some extra options for retouching faces and applying filters, but there are fewer AI tools than on recent Google flagships.
I wouldn’t say the OnePlus 12R is a great camera phone, but that’s not a weakness either, and the performance feels reasonable considering the price.
Performance and software
The OnePlus 12R is one of several phones we’ve recently tested powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, a flagship chipset that debuted in 2023 but has seen quite a few (Western) release dates pushed to 2024. used in mobile phones. The chipset is paired with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, so you’re at least getting a better phone than the base-spec 8GB/128GB OnePlus 12R sold elsewhere.
Performance here depends heavily on which performance mode you use, with the 12R Genshin Impact Edition typically recording single-core scores of around 1,000 and around 2,000 in high-performance mode. This high-performance mode is automatically enabled if Champion Mode is enabled in the phone’s game launcher, or can be toggled manually in settings, and as you’d expect results in reduced battery life and increased heat output.
At maximum power, the 12R is in line with other phones using the same chipset, only significantly better than the Honor Magic V2 RSR in GeekBench 6 and the Sony Xperia 5 V in PCMark Work 3.0.
| benchmark | OnePlus 12R | Sony Xperia 5V | Honor Magic V2 RSR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Geekbench 6 single core | 2019 | 2069 | 2030 |
| Geekbench 6 multi-core | 5438 | 5585 | 4928 |
| 3DMark Wildlife Extreme | 3694 | 3725 | 3748 |
| PCMark Works 3.0 | 14075 | 12466 | 14089 |
Beyond its modest peak performance, it’s also important to discuss how performance changes over time, especially as the device heats up during long gaming sessions. This can be simulated by the 20-minute 3DMark Wild Life Extreme stress test, which reports a peak score of 13K, dropping to 8.5K by the 14th minute of the test and remaining there until the end. High-performance mode only improved these scores by about 200-300 points, suggesting we were dealing more with thermal constraints rather than power constraints aimed at extending battery life.
Built on Android 14, the OxygenOS 14 interface is relatively close to a stock experience, with a few annoying pre-installed apps and some genuinely useful features like the Game Mode launcher. This Genshin Impact Edition has a purple theme throughout to match the physical design and supplied accessories, although of course you are free to set a cleaner theme and/or use an alternative launcher if you wish.
As far as the game launcher goes, this includes suggestions for downloadable games, a somewhat dubious list of all the games installed on your phone (which, for me, includes highlights like food delivery service Just Eat and ticketing app Trenitalia), and the aforementioned content champions model. The latter option is interesting because it silences alerts and notifications and increases performance, refresh rate, and touch rate to the maximum to ensure you’re not interrupted during crucial moments in your favorite games.
My Digital Foundry heart also warms with the inclusion of real-time framerate readouts of CPU and GPU utilization statistics in the game overlay, although OnePlus should have included optional FCAT bezels if they wanted a full-fat DF experience. You can even tweak GPU settings, such as enabling VRS, setting MSAA, AF and mipmap LOD bias – it’s safe to say I alerted Alex Battaglia of these exciting possibilities!
Other features include screen recording, floating windows for communication apps like Discord, voice changer, “Ultra HDR”, automatic adjustment of game resolution based on battery and heat, color filters for PUBG Mobile, quick launch of “games you play often” , 4D vibration to “enhance your gaming experience” and more. Some of them are crap, but I wish I had a lot of them on the Pixel 6 I drive every day.
Battery Life
The OnePlus 12R is equipped with a large 5500mAh battery, which proved to be enough for a relatively full two days of use, and comes with a purple power brick and matching USB-C cable. It supports fast charging up to 100W (!) and can reportedly fully charge the phone in just 26 minutes. Wireless charging isn’t included, which doesn’t bother me but might be a deal-breaker for some.
in conclusion
The OnePlus 12R Genshin Impact is an interesting phone that will no doubt appeal to fans of the popular game – especially Keqing fans, as her color scheme reflects the phone’s design, as does the case and many other accessories on offer. Her likeness is reproduced. Considering all this costs £50 more than the OnePlus 12R, which costs £649 off the shelf, I’d say it’s a fair value for what you get.
The OnePlus 12R itself also feels like reasonable Compared to other Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phones we’ve seen recently (most notably the Sony Xperia 5 V), this rival does launch in the last quarter of 2023, but this model will still cost £799 and come with Half RAM and half internal storage. There’s no denying that the 5V has some unique features, including a more compact design, a Micro SD card slot and a headphone jack, but the OnePlus 12R just feels better overall and costs £649.
To be honest, there’s no shortage of phones with the same chipset or the faster Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, but the OnePlus 12R is certainly an interesting choice as it’s one of the most affordable phones offering flagship-level features.
Despite being priced so aggressively, its performance and camera are still competitive, I think it has really useful gaming features, an extremely strong industrial design, and a great display. If this combination sounds appealing, the OnePlus 12R is well worth considering – the Genshin Impact Edition represents a nice extra color option and offers some interesting accessories, but at a slightly higher price.
iGamesNews
Table of Contents
