HTC Desire 12 Plus: Midrange phone inclined towards design than performance

The Desire 12 Plus performance is not on par with other midrange smartphones. However, it is smooth and sails through easily while performing day-to-day tasks

HTC, a Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer, recently launched the Desire 12+ with modern 18:9 aspect ratio screen and dual cameras at the rear. Priced at Rs 19,790, the midrange smartphone takes design cues from the company’s premium U-series. It also features a glass-metal-glass sandwich design, which looks plush and put it in line with other midrange devices. However, is Desire 12 Plus the smartphone to put your money on? Let’s find out

The Desire 12+ looks like a trimmed down version of the HTC U11. The phone’s front is dominated by a 6-inch screen, which fits in a shell of traditional 5.5-inch smartphones. The phone’s back is covered with acrylic glass that shines like a glass, but also it attracts fingerprints that dulls its sheen. Due to plastic properties, the back also attracts scratches, and protecting it using a tempered glass or protective film could be difficult due to its curved design. Speaking of design, the back sports a dual camera set-up on the top left corner and a circular fingerprint sensor at the upper centre for ease of use.

The Desire 12+ is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 system-on-chip, paired with 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage, expandable via hybrid microSD card. The phone boots Android Oreo operating system out of the box, covered under HTC Sense UI. Interestingly, the operating system is kept close to stock, but has some customised elements for enhanced user experience. It is loaded with bloatware such as News Republic app, which consumes internal storage and keeps sending notifications that might bother some. As for the overall performance, the phone’s entry-level processor takes care of day-to-day tasks with ease, but shows inconsistencies with heavyweight jobs.

In terms of imaging, the phone sports a 13-megapixel primary lens paired with 2MP depth-sensing lens on the back, and an 8MP selfie camera on the front. Just like Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1, HTC Desire 12+ relies on a Snapdragon camera interface that covers all the basics tools and utilities, plus some more. Both the rear and front cameras take satisfactory images in good lighting conditions, but struggle in low light. The rear camera supports bokeh and portrait mode, which works well in most cases. However, the object and background segmentation is not up to the mark and focused object shows halos on edges.

Verdict

The HTC Desire 12+ seems inclined towards design than performance. The phone looks plush with the modern 18:9 aspect ratio screen on the front and acrylic shining glass on the rear. Although, the phone’s performance is not on par with other midrange smartphones, it is still smooth and sails through easily while performing day-to-day tasks.