OPPO Reno5 Pro Review – Looks Great Performs Better

The year 2021 has been great for Oppo as it has released quite a few smartphones in various price segments. Oppo’s Reno series is a powerful mid-range series and it just got a refresh of the Reno5 series just a few months after its predecessors were launched last year. The Reno5 Pro is an older brother to the Reno4 Pro and packs in some impressive specifications that you would love to use. The phone does imbibes the design DNA of the Reno 4 Pro and upgrades a few hardware to make Reno5 Pro 2021-ready.

Recycle Your Old Phone, Get Rewarded!

Here’s a hands-on review of Oppo Reno5 Pro available at your disposal.

You can get your hands on Oppo Reno 5 Pro 5G on its official website or check out Amazon India for that matter. The device with 8GB+128GB storage is listed at Rs 35,990/- (at the time of writing this) which is the sole available storage variant. There’s a 12GB+256GB variant too but it is not available in India. For context, it is $599.99 on Amazon.com. You can select between Astral Blue or Starry Black colour variants, both of which are truly amazing-looking phones.

Before we talk in detail about the OPPO Reno5 Pro let’s see what the on-paper specs look like?

• Display: 
• Processor: 
• Storage: 
• Software: 
• Rear cameras: 
• Battery: 
• Weight: 
• Dimensions: 

Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G is a brilliantly designed smartphone, to be honest. Its tall body makes it easier to hold while the phone is lightweight at 173 grams that ease one-handed usage. I tested the Astral Blue version which is one of the best colourways apart from the Starry Black version available in the market.

On the front, you get a brilliant display with minimal bezels around the edges that mimics its edge-to-edge appearance. On the rear, you get a quad-camera setup which is reminiscent of Oppo Reno4 Pro’s design. The camera setup is rectangular in shape with three giant lenses and a fourth one adjoining to it. The camera bump is raised a bit above the back panel while the circular ring around the lenses is raised just a bit further.

Planning to upgrade? Sell Your Old Phone in 60 Seconds From Home

The back has a textured glass back which is vibrant and vivid thanks to the Astral Blue colourway. Plus, the back panel gets rid of some fingerprint marks and smudges giving you an easy time cleaning the panel.

The display is curved and so is the back panel that allows for better grip. The top is flat with “Designed for Reno” on it. At the bottom, you get a USB Type-C port, a Dual SIM tray, and a single bottom-firing speaker. With that, you should know that there’s no headphone jack here.

Moving on, the power button is located on the right exactly in reach for better usage. There’s a volume rocker on the left opposite the power button making it easy to reach. That’s all about it. I would say it again that Reno5 Pro 5G is probably one of the best-designed Reno smartphones out there.

Oppo excels when it comes to the design on their smartphones but its display takes some credit too. Oppo Reno5 Pro sports a beautiful 6.55-inch Super AMOLED panel with a 90Hz refresh rate and the display is HDR10+ compliant. It is rated to reach 500 nits of brightness on typical max, 800 nits on HDR, and 1100 nits on peak auto max mode. Further, you get a 1080×2400 pixels resolution which translates as 402 PPI.

I am a big fan of the Reno series for a few things and this includes the design and display. The Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G has a 6.5-inch curved display that looks premium. It is a Super AMOLED 3D Curved display with an FHD+ resolution and has a 50 per cent higher refresh rate than the majority of smartphones out there. I am talking about its 90Hz refresh rate which is impressive and in fact, if you are upgrading from a 60Hz display, you will surely feel the epic smoothness while scrolling and animations.

Broke Your Old Phone Screen?

– Affordable Display Replacement at Home

The tall display makes it the best companion for binge-watching or playing games where FHD+ resolution on the Super AMOLED panel makes it a wholesome experience. This includes bright whites and darker blacks. The display is crisp with greater colour reproduction, a ting of saturation among others.

The display gets exceptionally bright making the screen visible even in the harsh sunlight. Next time you go out somewhere, take your Reno5 Pro 5G with you and don’t miss out on those messages or taking a snap just because the screen wasn’t properly visible to you.

Super AMOLED display makes the Reno5 Pro 5G AOD-ready. Yep, you get an Always-On Display with your device which although takes a toll on your battery life, is perhaps something an AMOLED panel brings on-board as a great touch to it.

Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G has a sheer performance thanks to the MediaTek Dimensity 1000+ SoC under the hood. The high-performance chipset has eight cores with four dedicated to high-performance 2.6GHz Cortex-A77 SoC and four dedicated to 2.0GHz Cortex-A55 power-efficient cores. There’s a Mali-G77 MC9 GPU on board as well. The device comes strapped with 128/256GB UFS 2.1 storage and 8/12GB RAM.

MediaTek processors had a reputation for being sluggish compared to their Snapdragon counterparts. Then came the Dimensity line of processors that are changing our outlook towards MediaTek processors. The Dimensity 1000+ 5G integrated into the Reno5 Pro 5G can take everything you can throw at it. I am talking about apps both lightweight and intensive ones and it will take it with a breeze. In fact, I tested a series of graphics-intensive apps including Call of Duty: Mobile and PUBG Mobile, and trust me, it is a wholesome experience.

Check Out: All That You Need To Know About OnePlus 9R FAQs

Playing straight for 20-odds minutes and you might notice some warmth but that’s pretty much the case with every other powerful smartphone without a cooling mechanism in place. Still, I was able to clock in the highest graphics and frame drops on multiple heavy games and played like a pro. There are some titles that don’t allow the highest settings yet due to optimization issues so that’s not something the processor is obstructing.

Since it is 5G-supported, Reno5 Pro 5G is almost future-ready so I am talking about using the phone for a few years straight and with 5G in your hands. Overall, Dimensity 1000+ SoC has kept me impressed. Otherwise, I wouldn’t believe a word anyone would say about the Helio line of processors.

Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G runs on the latest Android 11-powered ColorOS 11.1 on top of it. ColorOS 11.1 brings a lot to the table such as customization options and system-wide dark mode among others. It is snappy and the apps load faster on ColorOS and aids in multitasking among others. Thanks to the Dimensity 1000+ SoC under the hood, the interface looks pretty dope. However, it does have a lot of bloatware to take care of.

Cameras are undoubtedly one of the most important factors nowadays. Luckily, Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G has a great camera setup. This includes a 64MP primary camera with PDAF, f/1.7 aperture alongside an 8MP ultrawide snapper at f/2.2 aperture, and finally, two 2MP sensors dedicated for macro and depth respectively. That’s the quad-camera setup at the back. On the front, you get a 32MP selfie shooter with an f/2.4 aperture housed in a tiny punch-hole cut-out. Now, these are just the specs but how does the camera on-board Reno5 Pro 5G perform practically. Here’s everything that you need to know about it.

Let’s follow the usual reviewing one-by-one sensors. Talking about the 64MP sensor from OmniVision, it is impressive and offers much more than good-quality images. I was able to grab good details in the images I captured including landscape shots. The sensor manages to work well with accurate temperature, exposure, and colours and the dynamic range is great, to be honest.

One thing that I found out about the primary sensor is that the images use a lot of post-processing and that makes the images look over-processed sometimes. The primary sensor is not limited to 64MP shooting mode but you can upscale it to 108MP mode which is commendable. But you can check for yourself if the 108MP mode makes the images better or not.

Looking for the Best Camera Phone?

– Vivo X60 Pro Plus Quick Review in 2 Minutes

Next up, we have an ultrawide snapper with a field of view of 115-degree. It is wider although not as much as many other alternatives. In any case, you can capture ultrawide photos and the sensor does its job. But there are some shortcomings too such as the contrast and dynamic range are lacking. It manages to retain poorer details compared to the giant primary sensor.

Further, the portrait mode on Reno5 Pro 5G works well too. There’s a macro sensor too in case you want to shoot your subject up close. It is average being a 2MP sensor but it’s there.

The phone uses a 32MP selfie shooter which is more than enough for all your video calls, selfies, and other requirements. It might not be the best camera but it is indeed good at retaining a good amount of details in the shots. It works in low light too although consider it as decent during some low light conditions.

Reno5 Pro 5G has an AI Highlight Video mode that captures well-lit videos during nighttime and low-light conditions. Other features include So Loop, Dual View, Live HDR, AI Color Portrait among others.

The camera setup on-board Reno5 Pro 5G is impressive, however, it seems like Oppo has once again used some marketing gimmicks to market the device. The Full Dimension Fusion (FDF) which smartly analyzes frames to produce better videos simply dials up the dynamic range and brighter while not doing anything out-of-the-box. As mentioned, it is a software-based solution and thus, has some drawbacks that users will get such as extra smoothening, higher motion blur among others.

Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G comes strapped with a 4,350 mAh battery which is huge, to be honest. I was able to get 6-7 hours of SoT which is great for a phone with a powerful chipset and highly optimized software. I was able to get a battery life of a day and a half on using the phone moderately so I wouldn’t think twice before recommending it for those who want an excellent battery with performance.

Frustrated with a draining battery? Affordable Mobile Battery Replacement at Doorstep

The device also comes with 65W Super VOOC 2.0 which is blazing fast. 10 minutes top-up can juice up the battery to 35 per cent which is amazing. Just half an hour and you get 98 per cent of battery life which is great.

Talking about audio, I would have loved a stereo speaker setup at this price tag. However, Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G opts for a single bottom-firing speaker which is loud and has good sound quality. It will make you feel immersive when playing games or watching movies or listening to music. However, there is no stereo speaker so that’s a bit of a letdown for some.

Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G is a powerful smartphone, to be honest, and has a dedicated array of connectivity features that you would love. It supports Wi-Fi 6 dual-band along with Bluetooth v5.1 with aptX HD, LE, and A2DP. For navigation, the device supports multiple navigation systems including BDS, Galileo, QZSS, Glonass, and A-GPS. There’s a fast USB-C 3.1 port on-board as well. Unfortunately, there’s no headphone jack on-board so that’s a thumbs down for audiophiles.

Network reception on 4G (since 5G is not available in India) is good even if you are talking on your phone from a few floors underground such as in the basement or in parking. The device has a 5G+4G setup which is essentially 4G+4G until 5G isn’t available in India.

Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G is equipped with an under-the-display fingerprint scanner. As usual, it is quiet and has some animations that you can choose from. It is quick and snappy and a far reliable option than the 2D facial recognition system on-board the device which is available in case if you want to switch to the face unlock. Perhaps, I am excited that there’s no shark fin for the front camera which looks like an overdo.

Pros:

• Remarkable camera features
• 5G support
• Impressive light weight design
• Ultra-fast charging speeds
• A quite responsive in-display fingerprint scanner

Cons:

• No dedicated microSD card slot
• No headphone jack is available