Great zoom is usually restricted to flagship phones, but a new mid-range phone uses the OnePlus 12’s periscope camera system.
Periscope cameras are finally enjoying more significant adoption, as Apple and OnePlus join the best camera phones from Google, Samsung, vivo, and Xiaomi in offering this tech.
Now, Realme has launched the mid-tier Realme 12 Pro and 12 Pro Plus, and the latter phone makes a splash by offering a periscope camera too. In fact, you’re looking at a flagship-grade periscope system.Realme 12 Pro Plus: The best camera zoom in a mid-ranger?
The Pro Plus device has the same 64MP 3x periscope camera as the OnePlus 12 (OV64B), complete with a relatively wide f/2.6 aperture and optical image stabilization. We also get 6x in-sensor zoom here, in line with the OnePlus handset.
In our short time with the handset, we thought the phone delivered great 3x images in daytime conditions. We do see a drop in image quality when using the 6x option, but you can still get solid shots that are a significant step above other mid-rangers.
Realme is also touting 120x digital zoom here, but this is just a marketing trick. Expect image quality to fall off a cliff long before that, even in ideal conditions. Although the phone will put up a good fight against flagships like the Google Pixel 7 Pro at long range. Check out the comparison below.
Either way, we’re glad to see a flagship-tier periscope camera on a mid-range phone.
