OnePlus 12 leaks suggest big upgrades to battery and camera

A render of the OnePlus 12, based on an alleged pre-production model
(Image credit: OnLeaks/MySmartPrice)

The OnePlus 12 is expected to arrive sometime before the end of this year, likely revealing all the tantalizing details about the new phone. Until then we have to rely on rumors, and the latest promises a bunch of details about the OnePlus 12’s battery and camera capabilities.

OnePlus' new flagship slab has now appeared in Chinese regulatory filings (via Digital Chat Station), which seems to confirm some of the phone’s specs. That includes 100W wired charging, the same as the OnePlus 11, the return of 50W wireless charging and a larger 5,400 mAh battery — up from 5,000 mAh.

These specs have been rumored before, but the fact they’ve appeared on official regulatory documents offers an extra level of legitimacy. In other words, it’s pretty likely that the rumors were true.

This isn’t the only OnePlus 12 news that’s popped up in recent days. OnePlus itself is a common source of pre-launch details, and it’s already confirmed that the OnePlus 12 will come with a new Sony Lytia camera sensor. This is a stacked sensor similar to the one found in the OnePlus Open. This design stacks pixels to free up more space and take in more light — resulting in cleaner, brighter photos with a lower risk of overexposure.

While we don’t know the specifics of the sensor featured in the OnePlus 12, the fact it’s referred to as “new” suggests it’ll be a different, possibly upgraded, sensor. Considering how much we liked the camera in the OnePlus Open, aside from its weak low light performance, it bodes well that the OnePlus 12 will use a similar kind of technology.

It’s unclear what kind of resolution we can expect from the OnePlus 12 right now. Previous rumors suggested we’d get a 50MP Sony IMX966 sensor that’s half an inch in size, but that seemingly isn’t the case. 

Sample photos were posted on Chinese social media by Li Jie Louis, the president of OnePlus in China. They do look rather nice, though we won’t get an accurate idea of how the camera will perform in different conditions until we have a chance to test it for ourselves.

The OnePlus 12 is expected to launch in China before the end of the year, with an international release sometime in early 2024. So we don’t have long to wait to see what OnePlus has in store for us, though we can expect it to tease with a bunch more details in the coming weeks.

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Tom Pritchard
UK Phones Editor

Tom is the Tom's Guide's UK Phones Editor, tackling the latest smartphone news and vocally expressing his opinions about upcoming features or changes. It's long way from his days as editor of Gizmodo UK, when pretty much everything was on the table. He’s usually found trying to squeeze another giant Lego set onto the shelf, draining very large cups of coffee, or complaining about how terrible his Smart TV is.