Firstly, I’m always fond of Oppo phones. Why? I Like the value they offer and their willingness to take a risk and experiment with new technologies. The Reno 5g is firmly in that basket.
Although the phone has been out for a few months it is still first class in terms of specs Lets get those out of the way firstly.
- Gorilla glass front (6) and back (5)
- Aluminium frame
- Typical size for a modern smartphone
- 6.6 inch amoled
- Snapdragon 855
- 8gb Ram
- 256g Storage
- 3 rear cams, 48mp wide angle, 13 megapixel zoom lens and 8mp ultra wide
- 16mp Front Cam that is hidden and motorized
- USB C, No headphone jack, bluetooth 5.0
- 4065mAh battery with Vooc charging
- Android 9.0 and Color OS 6
BUILD & DESIGN
That’s exhausting and does that equate to anything in the real world. Well for me it does. The Build is very nice and I like the design. Sleek, smooth and smart looking. The back has some obvious branding but i am not fussed by it and if anything it adds to it’s looks. The display looks great even if it is only 360 ppi but is a little lackluster under direct sunlight. The in screen fingerprint scanner is extremely quick and the pop up camera is fun to begin with but quickly becomes something i don’t even think about.
SOFTWARE
This is an area some people struggle with when it comes to Oppo but not me. The Color OS has become more and more a flavour of its own. Gone are the days of Oppo trying to work out if it’s an Apple copy or not. Oppo is an Oppo phone and Color OS is Colour OS. Very Android and apart from a few quirks it’s wholesome.
PERFORMANCE
The performance of the Oppo Reno 5g is not questionable and I did not once have a situation where i was left wanting more out of the Snapdragon 855 and 8gb of ram. One area i was impressed with was the 5G and while Oppo doesn’t provide the 5g service it was one of the first to offer us the ability to use it. While using the 5g on Telstra i was getting between 290 and 465mbs download speeds compared to my LTE connection with Vodafone only getting 111mbs. This was tested through the Ookla app, was not scientific but was definitely an indication of the 5g performance we can expect. The connection was pinging at 18ms and jitter at 40ish. These are all good signs and point to exceptional speeds and quality connections as well. I’m impressed that Oppo delivered this to the market before most of the others and it’s a contender with any other flagship on the market.
Camera
What do you get for a total of 85 megapixels? Awesome photos. Now there are several flagship on the market that take amazing photos and the Oppo Rno 5G is one of the, It’s definitely not the best and I am not going to beat around the bush on that one. But it’s great and used correctly can offer amazing pics. For good lighting point and shoot situations the Reno 5G is awesome. Clear Crisp sharp images that are not overly saturated. Dynamic range is pretty good and sometimes blows out on the highlights. But the Key focus here that the Reno 5g can offer is the 10x zoom. Let’s be clear 10x zoom is fun but if it’s a bad pic then it’s a bad pic. But on a tripod the 10x zoom takes a clear pic and it’s mind blowing to see the difference between the wide angle shot and the 10x zoom shot. The Dual OIs is great but for best results on the 10x zoom or night mode is USE A TRIPOD and anyone who is serious about photography knows this.
The front facing camera takes nice shots and adds that oppo beauty mode to all selfies. The video on both cameras is fine, 4k 60fps is a nice touch even though it’s a little digitized at times. The footage looks great especially when watching it back on a smartphone. SLO MO offers a variable frame rate so if you can use 4k 60 and slow it down in post this will look much better.
Battery
No garbage, I get 2 days battery. Then if i’m in a pinch VOOC charging is very fast and gets me a full charge in about 80 minutes. But I need 1 days battery in this modern world. Even when using the camera and gaming I still got a full day.
Fey features
- 5g
- Camera
- Performance
- Oppo as a brand push to be first and take risks
Areas for improvement
- Design – combining ip68 with a moving camera part
- Display is lackluster
- I am also stuck on no headphone jack.
So the OPPO reno 5g is a great phone. It’s not the best at everything but is really good at some things. I know some people that have completely passed up on Samsung’s, Apples and
Pixels and chosen an Oppo phone and they are completely happy with their decision. This leaves me no choice but to recommend this phone especially if your phone carrier offers 5g.
Seedubs Media 