HTC Desire 12s

The HTC Desire 12s comes as a mid-range phone for the crowd that trusts HTC Desire series. Priced at Rs. 14,999, the phone may look good, but it does not come with proper hardware that could complement its appearance.

Scoring low in terms of performance and battery, as well as coming with a poor display, the HTC Desire 12s seems like a failure in the competitive market. The phone may have stood a chance in a budget market, but at this price, there are many better alternatives present.

HTC Desire 12s tries to replicate the design signature of Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. It looks quite regular except on the back. It has two tones of colour that makes it stand out. It is of a polycarbonate build though it has a glass-like effect. The phone has a fingerprint scanner at the back which is at an ergonomic position. The edges of the phone are slightly curved, which makes it easy to slip into your palms and then it sits comfortably in your hand. The HTC Desire 12s is quite lightweight at 150g. It has the dimensions of 154.20 x 72.70 x 8.30mm, which makes it quite thick. However, the problem with this phone is the design is redundant and imitative rather than original.

The HTC Desire 12s has a 5.70-inch screen which has a popular aspect ratio of 18:9. While the display size and aspect ratio is good, the phone arrives with a poor 720×1440 resolution. With the current midrange phones going into the realm of FHD and QHD, a 720p seems like a terrible downgrade. Plus, many phones come with AMOLED Display in this price range. While the colours appear crisp, you will find pixels if you look at the screen carefully. Plus, the display has thick bezels meaning you will not get an immersive experience.

HTC Desire 12s gets its power from an octa-core Snapdragon 435 processor paired with 3GB RAM. For a midrange phone, this processor is abysmal. It is slow and laggy, and you will often end up with a frustrating freeze or slowdown. Multitasking is not recommended on this phone. You can play low-end games on this phone, but you might experiment a few lags too. This phone does not score well when it comes to performance.

As for the cameras, the phone arrives with a single camera on its back, a 13MP camera with an /2.0 aperture. In daylight, the phone can click good photos with precise details. However, due to the aperture size, the low-light images are dark, grainy and poor. In the front, the phone comes with a 13MP camera with an f/2.2 aperture. In good lights, you get decent photos, but there is a bit of visible grain that gets collected in the selfies. However, at this price, the lack of a secondary depth-sensing lens is a great disappointment.

The HTC Desire 12s comes with a decent 3,075mAh battery. It is a suitable battery, and with light use, it can stay alive for a whole day. The lack of HD+ or AMOLED screen makes the phone more power-efficient. Battery is s strong point of this phone. However, it does take some time to charge taking about 2 hours to replenish its battery.

The HTC Desire 12s is an inferior phone. It comes at a midrange price and fails to live up to even budget standards. Arriving with a terrible processor, and poor display, the phone does not have anything that can justify the price that it comes in. It also has only a single rear camera. It is not a value for money phone, and hence, it is not a recommended handset to purchase.