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Intro
At the very end of 2023, we got the final big flagship for the year — the OnePlus 12, which launched in China in December and went global in January 2024. As expected, it was packed with exciting features, particularly in the camera department and boasting a fast, lightweight interface. It was coming in a market that already had the iPhone 15 Pro Max which, as usual, was the phone to beat.
But the OnePlus 12 has the advantage of offering a lot of phone for a comparatively low price. It is powered by the cutting-edge Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, has those Hasselblad enhanced camera lenses, and comes in a thin and pretty package.
As our tests reveal, the iPhone 15 Pro Max does ultimately come out on top in performance. But the OnePlus 12 was no disappointment.
Nowadays, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is out and the 15 Pro models have been discontinued. And OnePlus is gearing up to launch the OnePlus 13. So this review is either a blast from the past, or you are looking at clearance / second hand phones and wondering which one would be better. Well, welcome to our full iPhone 15 Pro Max vs OnePlus 12 comparison!
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The OnePlus 12 looks very similar to the OnePlus 11 — a soft rectangle with nicely rounded corners, a display that curves towards the edges and a back panel that mirrors that movement. The metal frame is thus on the thin side. We wouldn't call the OnePlus 12 hard to grip — it does fit nicely in the hand and feels thin and balanced. Though, some will definitely prefer a girthier frame to hold on to — like the flat sides of an iPhone.
The 3-way mute switch that OnePlus is known for in Android land is back. This one toggles between ring, vibrate, and silent, adding an extra step over Apple's ring and vibrate options. Its movements are tight, it's clicky, and it's easy to get addicted to fidgeting with it.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max is, as we know, that stark-looking rectangle with a titanium build. Flat front, flat back and — for the most part — a flat frame, though we did get a slight bevel to it so it doesn't feel as sharp as before.
Also, the iPhone 15 Pro series did away with the simple hardware mute switch on the side and now has an Action button — fully customizable to launch apps, Shortcuts, or the camera. Or, you know, it can still mute the phone. Missed opportunity here — the Action Button can only do the one thing you set it to do, so don't go daydreaming about setting a Camera shortcut on long-press and mute on double click.
Apple still relies on Face ID for biometric locking, whereas the OnePlus 12 will use an under-screen fingerprint scanner. Both options are quite advanced and quick nowadays — the OnePlus 12 is quick to unlock with a simple tap on the scan area. Though, it's still picky when your finger is wet / too dry / smudgy.
The OnePlus 12 is up in two color options — the flagship finish you will be seeing in all promo materials is the new Flowy Green, which looks almost like a liquid frozen in time. Then, there's the Silky Black, with the back glass having a disctinct grippy texture applied to it. The iPhone 15 Pro Max colors, we already know them, are Black, Blue, White, and Natural Titanium, with the latter dominating the marketing materials and seeming to be the audience fave as well.
On the bottom, we get USB C ports — now standardized across the industry. And both support USB 3 transfer speeds, welcome to 2024!
As for what's in the box — OnePlus uses special SuperVOOC chargers to get its incredibly fast charging speeds. So, it includes the 80 W wallplug in the box, making sure you can enjoy the optimal charging! The iPhone... comes with a nice braided cable!
The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set(area)of colors that a display can reproduce,with the sRGB colorspace(the highlighted triangle)serving as reference.The chart also provides a visual representation of a display's color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The 'x:CIE31' and 'y:CIE31' values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. 'Y' shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while 'Target Y' is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, 'ΔE 2000' is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.
The Color accuracy chart gives an idea of how close a display's measured colors are to their referential values. The first line holds the measured (actual) colors, while the second line holds the reference (target) colors. The closer the actual colors are to the target ones, the better.
The Grayscale accuracy chart shows whether a display has a correct white balance(balance between red,green and blue)across different levels of grey(from dark to bright).The closer the Actual colors are to the Target ones,the better.
The OnePlus 12 has a large 6.82-inch display with sharp QHD+ resolution (3216 x 1440 pixels) and a dynamic refresh rate between 1 Hz and 120 Hz. Something that is standard on phones nowadays — if you are scrolling about, it goes up to 120 Hz for a smooth experience, if you are stuck watching a YouTube video, it's simply 60 Hz, and the Always-On display feature only uses 1 Hz to conserve battery.
This is also very much what we see on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Well, not the size and resolution — the iPhone is slightly smaller at 6.7 inches, with a resolution of 2796 x 1290 pixels. This means the iPhone 15 Pro Max has a PPI density of 460. The OnePlus 12 hits 517 PPI, for what it's worth. Nothing to worry over, both of these phones are super sharp-looking, no individual pixels to be seen.
But, shockingly, the OnePlus 12 beats the iPhone 15 Pro Max (and any other smartphone in the market) with peak brightness — listed at 4,500 nits! That is insane, as the iPhone 15 Pro Max is listed at 2,000 nits and we already consider that to be very, very bright. But let's not forget that "peak brightness" means a tiny area of the screen for a limited period of time. That's for HDR video. For casual, everyday use, we measure average picture level (APL), which gives us a better idea of how bright the display gets when reading emails or taking photos.
Both of these phones measure around 1,100 nits, which is excellent, and are perfectly usable under the bright sunlight.
Performance and Software
Snap, the magic dragon
The OnePlus 12 has the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 — still built on a 4 nm process, but nonetheless a heavy hitter. It doesn't blow past the Apple A17 Pro, but it hits close enough and has the potential to carry on under heavy loads for longer. OnePlus did talk up the cooling solution it used in the OnePlus 12, but we found that the 3DMark Wildlife Extreme stress test gets it to throttle by cycle 3 (out of 20).
The A17 Pro is a very powerful processor, built on a 3 nm process, but it didn't have a smooth landing. It was plagued with overheating and throttling issues, which Apple had to address with iOS updates. After that, we find that it's pretty quick to lower its clock speeds when we put it under heavy loads. So, the A17 Pro has bragging rights for a single loop of a stress test, but quickly goes into efficient mode when loop 2 starts up.
The OnePlus 12 will come with 12 GB and16 GB of RAM, in storage tiers of 256 GB, 512 GB. The iPhone 15 Pro Max has 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB, all with 8 GB of RAM.
As for software, it's very obvious we are talking about very different beasts here — OnePlus 12 now has OxygenOS 15 with Android 15, the iPhone 15 Pro Max got iOS 18.4 with all the AI features available on the iPhone 16 series. Both systems are quite mature by now, snappy, feature-rich, and supported by most apps. There are some specific niche cases, like video editors or audio apps that don't translate 1:1, and of course, there's iMessage, which is a whole can of worms. OnePlus has committed to 4 years of OS updates, not that far off the 5 years of support that iPhones get.
Though, with giants like Google and Samsung now committing to 7 years of updates, it's possible that Apple may also push its own devices in the future — the thing is that Cupertino doesn't state how long it's going to support a device for, we just go by what history has shown us.
OnePlus 12 did get an AI suite of its own with the OxygenOS 15 update — it has Retouch tools for photos (generative editing), it has some AI tools in Notes where you can polish your writing or organize long notes, or use Clean up to remove filler words from voice recordings. As an Android phone it also gets native access to Gemini.
Apple's Apple Intelligence was updated to everything promised sans the huge Siri update, which was supposed to make the assistant much more conversational and multi-modal. However, the notification summarizing, website and voice note summaries, the writing tools, image generation with Image Playground, as well as generative picture editing are all available on iOS 18.4.
Camera
OnePlus nabs Sony's new sensors
Who has the better stove, though? (Image credit - PhoneArena)
The OnePlus 12 will be coming with the same Hasselblad branding on its lenses as before, but also a new sensor inside — the 50 MP Sony LYT-808, which employs a new dual-layer tech to collect more light. We saw that setup on the OnePlus Open and we quite liked it then.
The other two cameras on the OnePlus are a bit "safer" — an ultra-wide and a 3x telephoto, nothing crazy. Though, OnePlus claims the zoom camera does 6x lossles, in-sensor zoom (by cropping into the high-res 64 MP sensor).
The iPhone 15 Pro Max had an evolution of its own. It has the 48 MP camera from last year's iPhone 14 Pro Max, but also a new tetraprism lens for the zoom camera, providing a 5x magnification jump. This means that, at 2x and 3x, which the iPhone 15 Pro Max still offers as natural steps in the Camera app, it's all digital (ahem, lossless crop-in). But the zoom beyond 5x... is slightly improved?
No matter how you slice it, every sample taken with the iPhone here has slightly better dynamics and better detail preservation. The OnePlus 12 flirts with the idea of burning out the highlights, and it doesn't manage to pull a lot of details from the shadows (check out how dark the bull looks in sample one). We often complain about oversharpening, but with the OnePlus 12, the edges of small details look a bit too soft. It also didn't handle the skintone of Peter very well, giving him a weird pale look. Forgive the Sleeping Beauty shot, it was cold outside and we may have been in a hurry!
When the sun goes down, the OnePlus 12 catches up! Or is it the iPhone 15 Pro Max that falls behind? The iPhone just went too hard with the HDR, brightening up that night sky, which can also result in sume unpleasant artifacting — the tree branches in sample 3 just look unnaturally jagged, with a feint HDR aura around them. The night cityscape of sample 4 just looks more... realistic with the OnePlus 12 — it's dark and contrasty, as one might expect. The subject in sample 2 looks a bit pale on the OnePlus 12 shot, again, but it's fair to say that — in this lighting — chasing skintone is a dream.
The OnePlus 12 is actually killing it with the zoom detail. Sure, it may look a bit hazy or soft-ish, but it's not far from realistic. And the iPhone 15 Pro Max 10x shot looks a bit too processed, no? At 5x, where the iPhone 15 Pro Max uses its native 5x lens, they actually stack up against one another quite close. Again, there's something to be said about the slightly washed-out dynamics of the OnePlus 12, but for detail — it's holding on quite well! And even lower — at 3x and 2x — the OnePlus gives us the sharper image!
But let's do one more test. The iPhone 15 Pro Max has a 5x tetraprism lens, and OnePlus says that the 12 can do 6x "lossless" zoom. So, let's compare those two "lossless" zoom steps from each phone:
The iPhone's 5x lens wins here. We get better detail in the beard and hair, better HDR overall, and a more realistic face. The OnePlus 12 shot is not terrible, but does look a bit more washed out in comparison, and looks a bit darker (even though the iPhone burnt out the sun spot in the back, the overall image looks more balanced).
Both of these kind of fall apart for night shots. The iPhone held it together a bit better here, but not by much. The OnePlus 12 6x shot doesn't look so lossless when it doesn't have much light to work with, though.
The OnePlus 12 is pretty good at subject separation, our only complaint is that the background bokeh doesn't look super convincing. The iPhone 15 Pro Max pulls off that very realistic blur. Then, we have the "native" zoom levels for both phones — the iPhone 15 Pro Max can take a portrait at 5x, the OnePlus 12 — at 3x. Let's take a look at that:
Pretty good from the OnePlus 12 — while it didn't improve much with dynamics, the iPhone 15 Pro Max isn't doing so well in that aspect here either. Also, the OnePlus shots look more colorful and vibrant and less oversharpened, especially around the edges where ultra-wide pictures get a ton of post-processing for distortion correction.
At night, the OnePlus 12 applies some more noise reduction. It loses some detail and can look a bit hazy when you zoom in. The iPhone 15 Pro Max, on the other hand, allows for some of the noise to remain, so you get that detail, but a tad grainy.
The OnePlus has a 32 MP selfie snapper, but we definitely ended up with softer-looking selfies than what the 12 MP front camera of the iPhone 15 Pro Max gave us. Also, it seems that high dynamics may challenge it as well, as seen in the group selfie.
Video Quality
Not a bad performance from the OnePlus 12 — we got a good image, nice warm colors, good details, especially with the zoom. The stabilization is also OK, but we can spot the occasional jitter. The iPhone's details are still better. Especially later down the video at night time. Also note how each of these phones deals with the super-noisy environment we shot in — the iPhone is better at filtering the shuffle out and giving us a clearer, more full-bodied voice from the presenter.
Audio Quality and Haptics
Speakers and USB C (Image credit - PhoneArena)
The vibration feedback on OnePlus phones has been awesome for a while now. It clicks, clacks, and lets you know every time you tap on an interface element. As for audio — it's a bit thin, a bit compressed at higher levels. But overally, good for YouTube binging.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max sounds great — it's loud and it somehow manages to project bass frequencies from those tiny speakers, with probably some black magic involves. You can definitely enjoy music on the iPhone 15 Pro Max if you set it up while washing the dishes, for example. But we do think it sounds a bit scooped in the mids, which is not great for some genres.
As for haptics, iPhone had precise vibrations before it was cool, and they still do!
Battery Life and Charging
Is it time for the next step?
The OnePlus 12 is confidently breaking that 5,000 mAh threshold that flagship batteries have been sitting on for the past few years, now coming with a 5,400 mAh battery — an almost 10% increase. Now, we have to wait and see if those 10% will boost battery endurance or of they will be eaten up by the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max, as we already know, has a 4,422 mAh battery and is an endurance champ. Mostly thanks to iOS being able to conserve battery in standby really, really well, but also a modest battery drain when browsing the Web or YouTube.
As you can see from our battery test below — that OnePlus 12 battery is doing some work! With conservative, casual use, you can hit 2-day usage with this phone, but the iPhone 15 Pro Max is no slouch in that area as well.
Charging-wise, the OnePlus 12 comes with that SuperVOOC brick that can top it up super-fast — you can get a full charge in less than 40 minutes. In fact, 30 minutes on the wire gets you up to 89%, which should be pretty much all you need in a day.
Maybe being good enough is good enough? (Image credit - PhoneArena)
OK, so the OnePlus 12 isn't exactly crushing the iPhone 15 Pro Max here. It's snappy and fast, has a nice design, nice display. In terms of camera — it can't beat the iPhone 15 Pro Max, unless we are strictly looking at those zoom shots. But you know what? For a starting price of $799.99, we'd say it does good enough. You get 256 GB of storage at that tier, same as the iPhone 15 Pro Max that retails for $400 north of the OnePlus 12.
Of course, the iPhone is... well, the iPhone — seamless connection to MacBooks, AirPods, allows entry to the Apple Watch, and those Green Bubbles that everyone keeps talking about. OnePlus can't quite hope to contend with an "ecosystem". But, if you are platform-agnostic, there's no reason to not at least look at the OnePlus 12. It packs a lot of value, it looks flashy and sleek, and it may just surprise you! Worth noting — OnePlus has promised 4 years of Android updates for it, so that's not too far off from the iPhone's 5 year update lifespan.
Preslav, a member of the PhoneArena team since 2014, is a mobile technology enthusiast with a penchant for integrating tech into his hobbies and work. Whether it's writing articles on an iPad Pro, recording band rehearsals with multiple phones, or exploring the potential of mobile gaming through services like GeForce Now and Steam Link, Preslav's approach is hands-on and innovative. His balanced perspective allows him to appreciate both Android and iOS ecosystems, focusing on performance, camera quality, and user experience over brand loyalty.
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