Apple iPhone 12 vs OnePlus 8 Pro: which is best for you?

We all love a good smartphone, but every year it seems like there’s more and more choice and it’s getting harder to know whether the phone you have is right for you. So, we thought we’d take the two best handsets from our best phones and directly compare them in all the areas that really matter to modern users.

We’ll be looking at battery life, touchscreen display quality and size, memory options, processing performance, connectivity options and more of the Apple iPhone 12 and the OnePlus 8 Pro so you can decide which powerhouse smartphone is right for you. Want something even more up to date, then check out the iPhone 13 and OnePlus 10 Pro. 

APPLE IPHONE 12 VS ONEPLUS 8 PRO: SCREEN

Both the iPhone 12 and the 8 Pro boast impressive touchscreens. The iPhone 12 got an upgrade from the iPhone 11 with a gorgeous OLED screen at 1170x2532 with 460 pixels per inch. The iPhone 12 also supports HDR, so if you’re streaming any content in high dynamic range you can get the most out of it on this powerful little OLED screen.

The 8 Pro isn’t to be outdone by Apple’s device, with its 120Hz QHD+ and HDR10+ certified display. With a resolution of 3168 x 1440, this fluid AMOLED panel is a wonder to behold and makes everything from streaming to gaming an absolute joy.

APPLE IPHONE 12 VS ONEPLUS 8 PRO: CAMERA

In terms of camera options, the 8 Pro comes with a 48MP main camera, a 48MP wide-angle camera, an 8MP telephoto and 5MP photo chromatic colour filter. These combine to offer the best photo and video capture hardware OnePlus has ever offered, made even better by the UltraShot HDR feature that combines multiple shots into one amazing image.

The iPhone 12 doesn’t make huge changes to the camera offerings of the iPhone 12, but it makes a few welcome tweaks. The handset features one wide-angle and one ultra-wide, both with 12MP sensors, making them ideal for night shooting and low light video capture. With a new processor working in the background, there’s far less noise and faster lens correction as a result.

APPLE IPHONE 12 VS ONEPLUS 8 PRO: PERFORMANCE

Apple’s A14 Bionic processor helps deliver one of the fastest and smoothest iOS experiences you can get – hey, if it’s good enough for the iPad Air and the iPhone 12 Pro then it’s good enough for the regular iPhone 12. The support for 5G is the big selling point for this device, with everything from downloading large apps to regular social media browsing transformed by ultra-fast loading and download/upload speeds.

Not to be outdone, the 8 Pro features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 system on a chip, 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM, an Adreno 650 GPU and 256GB of UFS3.0 internal storage space. The result is an ultra-fast Android mobile experience that impacts everything from GPU-heavy gaming to simple web browsing. It’s the faster processor we’ve seen at work in an Android handset to date.

APPLE IPHONE 12 VS ONEPLUS 8 PRO: BATTERY

Smartphones live and die by the performance of their batteries, so it’s great to see Apple and OnePlus doing their respective best to squeeze every bit of juice and longevity out of their devices. The evolution from the OnePlus 7's 4,000 mAh battery to the far beefier 4,510 mAh unit in the 8 Pro, delivering a full day’s worth of power even when you’re using more graphics intensive apps.

The iPhone 12 offers slightly better overall performance in terms of battery life when compared to the previous model in the series, but it’s not quite the upgrade we were hoping with Apple’s latest device. You’ll get a decent day’s worth of use out of it, maybe twice that if you’re careful with your usage, but expect it to be less if you use the camera a lot or you love mobile gaming.

APPLE IPHONE 12 VS ONEPLUS 8 PRO: PRICING AND VERDICT

In terms of price, the iPhone 12 and the 8 Pro are relatively similar. If you’re looking to purchase the handset of either model outright, you’re looking at somewhere around £699/$799 for the iPhone 12 and around £799/$899 for the 8 Pro. Considering the sheer number of features, the performance credentials and the sheer quality of their respective components, these are well worth the price of admission. You’ll likely be able to get some competitive deals on 18 and 24-month contracts as well.

Both the iPhone 12 and the 8 Pro are incredible handsets and represent two of the best mobile computing options out there on the consumer market. From their crisp and vibrant screens to the myriad in-built features, the only real difference comes down to whether you’re committed to the iOS family or whether you’re a devote of all things Android. Either way, you can be certain the phone in your pocket is an absolute beast.