Oppo Reno 10x Zoom Review

Last year, Oppo introduced its first-ever flagship smartphone called Find X which manages to impress everyone with various innovative features. Fast forward to 2019, we now have another interesting and unique smartphone from the Dongguan-based company.

The all-new Oppo Reno lineup consists of two smartphone – the Reno device itself, Reno 5G and the exciting Reno 10x Zoom Edition.

Oppo has integrated some of the interesting and unique stuff into its all-new Reno 10x Zoom smartphone. As the name suggests, the smartphone has a rear-mounted triple camera module with a periscope-like zoom camera. Like any other smartphone of 2019, this one too comes with a true-bezel less experience with a pop-up camera of course to achieve that.

Instead of going with the regular pop-up cameras, the brand decided to use the most outlandish type of pop-up which the brand is calling “shark-fin shaped”.

With periscopic zoom camera, Oppo Reno 10x Zoom competes directly with the likes of Huawei P30 Pro. But, what about the rest of the aspects? Does Oppo Reno 10x Zoom manage to compete with others apart from cameras? We’ll try to find that out in our detailed and in-depth review of Oppo Reno 10x Zoom Edition smartphone.

Oppo Reno 10x Zoom comes in two different storage variant with the base variant featuring 6GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard memory and top-end consisting of 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. In terms of colors, the smartphone offers just two options namely Jet Black and Ocean Green.

The Reno 10x Zoom is up for grabs exclusive from Flipkart for a starting price tag of INR 39,990. The top-end variant, on the other hand, is going to set you back INR 49,990.

At the time of writing this review, there are very few launch-offers on this device and that includes No Cost EMI option on all major credit and debit cards and a 50% discount on Google Home products.

Oppo Reno 10x Zoom comes in a minimal and premium white color box which has the device name written in a silver accent. Opening the box, you will first be greeted by a rectangular section which consists of general paperwork and manuals.

Underneath this, you will find the device itself laying there nicely and wrapped up in the protective film. Oppo was kind enough to throw in a premium hard case which actually looks and feels brilliant.

Apart from the phone and case, you also get a USB Type-C cable, SIM ejector tool and a fast VOOC 3.0 enabled fast charger adaptor. Surprisingly, you also get a pair of Type-C earphones which by the way looks premium and attractive at the same time.

Here is a quick overview of what you’ll be getting inside the box:

– Oppo Reno 10x Zoom 

– VOOC 3.0 fast charger 

– USB Type-C cable 

– Type-C earphones 

– Premium hard back case 

– SIM ejector tool 

– And, some manuals and documentation

Before we jump right into our comprehensive review, let’s have a quick glance over the things which this device brings to the table.

– Display: 6.6-inch AMOLED panel, 1080×2340 pixels, Gorilla Glass 6 

– Processor: Snapdragon 855, 7nm

– RAM & ROM: up to 8GB and up to 256GB

– Rear Cameras: 48MP+13MP+8MP, Periscopic lens 

– Selfie Cameras: 16MP, f/2.0, motorized pop-up

– Software: Android Pie, ColorOS 6.0 

– Battery: 4065mAh capacity, VOOC 3.0 fast charging 

– Weight: 210g

– Dimensions: 162×77.2×9.3mm

With specifications cleared out of the way, let’s jump right into the very first aspect of the device.

Being a flagship phone of the year, Oppo Reno 10x Zoom is expected to deliver on par build and design and as expected, the device manages to live up to our expectations. Oppo Reno 10x Zoom follows the company’s current signature look which can also be found on the Oppo F11 Pro or Oppo R17 Pro.

Like most of the premium smartphones out there, the Reno 10x Zoom comes with a glass and metal sandwich design which absolutely feels premium in the hand. 

The smartphone has curved edges on the back which makes it look modern, sleek and definitely adds up to the overall comfort. Like previous phones, Reno 10x Zoom comes with crescent arcs on top and bottom edge of the device which I seem to like pretty much.

As mentioned earlier, the device comes in Jet Black and Ocean Green. We loved the latter because of its unique yet subtle appearance.

When it comes to the flagship device, Oppo is known for performing various experiments in the design aspect. As expected, the Reno 10x Zoom, too, has few worth mentioning design touches which lets the device stands out from the crowd. First one is the fact that the device has no camera protrusion at the back.

In fact, the entire triple camera module sits underneath the back glass panel giving us a complete flush camera module. Second, Oppo Reno 10x Zoom comes with a pop-up camera in order to provide fullscreen experience. Unlike most smartphones out there, the Reno 10x Zoom make use of an unconventional approach.

The pop-up camera mechanism lifts up at a certain angle or a Pivot Rising structure as the brand calls it. The shark-fin like mechanism consists of a selfie camera at one side and an LED flash on the other. 

In order to compensate for these two design changes, the Reno 10x Zoom comes with a weight of 215g making it heavier than the Huawei P30 Pro and OnePlus 7 Pro. At 9mm, the device is relatively thicker and slightly taller too. Fortunately, this doesn’t make this device an unbearable phone.

Since I like lighter and smaller devices, I did find some issues getting used to the heftiness which this phone comes with. If you’re already using a larger device, then the size of the phone will not bother you.

Moving on to the buttons and ports, the device comes with the Power button on the right and the volume rocker on the left side. The power button has a green highlight on it which looks quite attractive. You’ll find the SIM tray, USB Type-C port and speaker grille at the bottom.

Even though the Reno 10x Zoom manages to impress us with its design and build, there are still few things which are missing. For one, the device does not come with water resistance which is something the other devices at this price happily flaunts.

Secondly, the new fin-like pop-up camera attracts more dust because of the large surface area which is something to consider for the long-term.

Oppo Reno 10x Zoom is equipped with a large 6.6-inch AMOLED display which bright, vivid and beautiful all at the same time. Thanks to the negligible bezels and no notch, watching favorites on Netflix gives a wonderful experience.

Since we’re talking about OLED display here, the colors are very bright, crisp and accurate with the deeper blacks and impressive contrast. Even though the device has Full HD+ resolution with 2340×1080 pixels, the display experience on this phone is pretty impressive.

Although buyers would have surely appreciated the addition of Quad HD+ resolution for obvious reasons. 

With pop-up camera mechanism and thinner chin, the brand manages to hit the screen-to-body-ratio of 93.1 percent. If you’re watching movies or streaming any online content, you’ll notice the ‘pop’ which this display has in it. It could have been due to the 60,000:1 contrast and DCI-P3 color gamut both of which add up to offer an immersive experience.

The device does lack the Always-On display feature even though it has an OLED panel. 

If you don’t like the default display settings for some reasons, you can tweak it manually from the settings. You can go from cold to warm color appearance or you can switch between vivid and gentle color options. The latter will, of course, offer a flatter sRGB option with less contrast.

It is worth noting that the competitors like OnePlus 7 Pro offer much better smoother and better display experience due to the fast 90Hz refresh rate.

Overall, Oppo Reno 10x Zoom manages to deliver amazing color contrast, accuracy, and viewing which results in solid experience. Although it does lacks few bells and whistles like an Always-On display and Quad HD resolution. Even though the current display experience is on par, the addition of them will definitely benefit the user.

Under the hood, Oppo Reno 10x Zoom is powered by the Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 855 chipset paired with up to 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB of onboard memory. For graphics, the device is equipped with the latest and powerful Adreno 640 GPU.

The Snapdragon 855 is the most powerful chipset as of now that is manufactured using the latest 7nm fabrication process. It consists of eight cores namely Kry 485 clocked at 2.84GHz for heavy processing tasks, 3x Kryo 485 clocked at 2.42GHz and the remaining 4x Kryo 485 clocked at 1.8GHz for power saving tasks.

As expected, the smartphone manages to deliver fast performance with seamless and smooth experience. The Snapdragon 855 is a very capable processor which can handle even the most graphics-intensive games out there. The app stays in the memory for a long time thanks to the large capacity RAM packed inside.

In terms of heavy multitasking, you will not feel distressed, lag or stutter whatsoever. Instead, what you will get are fluid and fast user experience. In terms of gaming, the smartphone can handle whatever thrown at it. We tried playing Pubg Mobile on it on max settings and the frame rates were consistent throughout the session.

While our extensive gaming test, we never faced any heating issues with this device. This largely could be due to the fact that the company has used three types of heat dissipation methods. It includes graphite sheets, a cooling pipe, and a thermal gel.

For storage, the device comes with up to 256GB of internal memory which is going to be more than enough for the majority of buyers out there. If not, you can always use the MicroSD card to expand the storage.

Oppo Reno 10x Zoom runs on the latest version of Android i.e. Android 9.0 Pie operating system based on the company’s very own ColorOS 6. When it comes to the software, Oppo is trying to improve and enhance the overall UI with every incremental version of ColorOS and you can easily notice that in this device.

]The ColorOS is largely criticized for its iOS-like appearance which has been minimized to some extent with this device. Although the UI still has that Opponess in it, there are few worth mentioning changes.

First and foremost, Oppo has finally included an app drawer in the software which has been missing from it since a long time. You can always switch back to the regular home screen design from the settings. Another major overhaul is the appearance of the drop-down notification panel.

Instead of traditional round icons, Oppo went with the square tiles with rounded corners and I am not a big fan of it. I still very much like the old school rounded icons but that is just my personal preference. 

You get all the basic Android Pie features like gesture navigation, adaptive battery and digital wellbeing on the ColorOS 6 software. There is a smart assistant screen which you can access by swiping right from the home screen. It shows all your favorite apps, quick shortcuts, weather, calendar overview, and various other nifty details.

The phone also comes with App Clone feature which lets you use two accounts simultaneously. There are various other small yet useful features in the UI which you can easily explore. 

Personally, I don’t have any major issue with the ColorOS 6 especially on the Reno 10x Zoom. There are still various things which remind me of the Oppo and iOS at the same time. No doubt, Oppo still has a long way to go in order to create a clean yet fluid software experience. The good thing is that the company is on the right track.

One of the key highlights of the Oppo Reno 10x Zoom is its camera and 10x zoom capabilities. The Reno 10x Zoom comes with a triple camera module at the back consisting of a 48MP primary sensor (f/1.7 aperture), a 13MP telephoto lens (f/3.0 aperture) and an 8MP wide-angle sensor (f/2.2 aperture).

For selfies, the device is equipped by a 16MP front snapper inside the pop-up mechanism. The device makes use of the popular Sony IMX586 sensor for its primary camera lens which can also be found on devices like OnePlus 7 Pro and Asus 6z.

The telephoto lens helps with 10x zoom which uses a prism to refract light just like a periscope, hence the name. The device can provide you to up to 60x zoom which is insane. Although it is worth mentioning that this will achieve with the help of software.

For optical zoom, the telephoto lens kicks in at 6x and 10x zoom. Again, both the 6x and 10x zoom uses both optical as well as digital techniques. 

Coming to the image quality, the clicked pictures turns out to be pretty good with crisp and sharp details, good dynamic range and excellent exposure. The photos look a little punchy but that too in a good way. The device comes with an auto stabilizer which basically minimizes the risk of blurry photos.

You can easily switch to wide-angle, 1x, 2x, 6x and 10x by simply pressing a button on the screen. Speaking of the wide-angle lens, the performance is top-notch and the clicked pictures come out to be with a very minimum level of noise and distortion.

Even at 6x and 10x zoom, the photos turn out to be perfect with plenty of details and sharpness. For the newly updated 60x, you will need a very stable hand or simply a tripod.

Just like in daylight, the phone manages to steal the show in lowlight conditions largely due to the ultra night mode. The mode makes use of AI, HDR and multi-frame noise reduction all together in order to churn out brighter, sharper and heavy detailed pictures.

During low-light conditions, you might wanna stick around with the primary sensor only since it offers much better performance than the other two. Speaking of the front-facing camera, the phone works pretty decent with a good level of details and thankfully no overexposure. The camera doesn’t soften the face over and the skin tone looks close to real.

For low-light shots, the selfie camera uses LED flash present on the shark-fin like pop-up mechanism.

Oppo Reno 10x Zoom is fueled by a massive 4065mAh battery capacity with the support of VOOC 3.0 fast charging. When it comes to the battery, Oppo manages to kick the competitors right out of the water with its two-day battery life.

In moderate usage which includes constant text messaging, frequent music playback, media streaming and one or two hours of gaming, we were left with 50% juice on our device at the end of the day.

If you move on to heavy usage with more hours of gaming, your device will still be able to get through the entire day on a single charge. The device is equipped with Full HD+ display which consumes less power as compared to the QuadHD one.

For charging, the device comes with 20W VOOC 3.0 charging support allowing you to charge your device completely from zero to 100% in just an hour or so. Oppo does have a 53W super-fast VOOC charging which can give you full juice within just 35 minutes but the company decided to not include it for some reasons.

Oppo Reno 10x Zoom comes with a primary speaker mounted at the bottom and a secondary speaker in earpiece in order to provide a stereo effect. The audio output is pretty loud and clear without any distortion at the higher or max levels. Although the bottom speaker is much louder than the earpiece, therefore, creating an imbalance.

Also, there is no 3.5-mm headphone jack present on this device. Fortunately, Oppo decided to bundle a free Type-C earphone in order to compensate. Coming to the networks, we faced no issue with the microphone and earpiece whatsoever. 

For biometrics, the device is equipped with an in-display fingerprint sensor which seems to work insanely fast. We can clearly say that it is one of the fastest under-display fingerprint sensors we’ve seen. The surface area has also increased which improved the detection and reliability to a great extent.

There is Face Unlock too which also works quickly since the pop-up mechanism takes just 0.8 seconds in order to open fully. 

Oppo Reno 10x Zoom comes with all the standard connectivity options like dual-band WiFi, Bluetooth 5.0, dual-band A GPS and a USB Type-C port for charging. The device also comes with NFC for mobile payments and one-tap pairing support. For flawless wireless audio experience, the device is equipped with A2DP, aptX HD, LE and EDR.

Pros

– Premium build quality 

– A versatile rear camera module 

– Snappy performance 

– Two-day battery 

– Fast in-display fingerprint reader

Cons

– No 3.5-mm audio jack 

– No Wireless charging support 

– No IP rating