OPPO Reno8 Review – Stylish Looks With Capable Camera

Oppo has expanded its Reno series by launching the Reno8 5G and Reno8 Pro 5G. Starting at Rs 29,999, the Reno8 has a lovely design, a 90Hz AMOLED display, and high-quality cameras.

The OPPO Reno8 5G is available in only one variant in India. The phone sots Rs. 29,999 for 8GB RAM and 128GB storage variant.

It is offered in two colour options: Shimmer Gold and Shimmer Black. You can buy the phone online directly from OPPO’s website or Flipkart.

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The OPPO Reno8 packs the following items inside the box:

• Handset
• 80W Charger
• USB Type-C Cable
• Sim Ejector Tool
• Protective Case
• Documentation

Before we talk in detail about the OPPO Reno8, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like:

• Display: 6.4 inches AMOLED
• Chipset: MediaTek Dimensity 1300
• RAM & ROM: 8GB RAM 128GB Storage
• Software: Android v12
• Rear camera: 50MP + 8MP + 2MP
• Selfie camera: 32 MP
• Battery: 4500 mAh
• Weight: 179 grams
• Dimensions: 160 x 73.4 x 7.6 mm

The OPPO Reno8 5G is a pretty stylish smartphone with a sleek profile of just 7.67 mm. The Reno 8 5G’s sides have been flattened by Oppo to match with the current design trends. Because of this, using it with one hand is simple and comfortable. The corners are rounded, so they don’t bite into your hands when you’re using the phone.

I have the Shimmer Black variant with me for review, although customers can also look at other colour options. While Gorilla Glass 5 protects the screen, the back is built of silky, shimmering plastic. Although it’s plastic, it doesn’t feel cheap in the hands, rather feels a bit premium. Since the back has a matte finish, it does not attract any fingerprints.

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The side frame and the backside are one solid piece. There is no separate camera unit on the back, though; it is seamlessly integrated into the back panel with elegant curves. Not to forget, the OPPO Reno8 feels very light in the hands, weighing just about 179 grams.

Talking about the buttons and ports, the right side has the power button while the left side holds the volume buttons. The button placement was pretty nice and I could reach them easily. You will find the Type-C port, speaker grille and SIM Tray slot at the bottom. Sadly, there is no support for an SD card.

Overall, OPPO has done a great job in the design department. The phone looks simple yet stylish and has a great in-hand feel.

Let’s talk about the highlight of the OPPO Reno8, its camera. The Reno8 features a triple camera setup on its back. It includes a 50MP Sony IMX766 primary sensor, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens, and a 2MP macro sensor. On the front, you will see a 32MP camera for taking selfies.

It comes as no surprise that the primary camera performs admirably. The main camera’s photos were extremely detailed and captured accurate colours. The daytime images were clear and sharp, with vibrant colours and a good dynamic range.

Skin tones appear natural without any unnecessary brightening, and portraits of people look beautiful in general. Despite the lack of a dedicated telephoto lens to capture the zoomed shots, the 2x shots from the primary camera look quite good.

The portrait shots have excellent detail and enough sharpness. The colours remain lively, and the background blur effect was nicely done with accurate edge detection.

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The standard 8MP ultrawide sensor performs well given the price. You get good clarity and dynamic range. The lack of autofocus is a slight letdown, but it is to be expected at this price.

The quality of the close-up photos was decent, and the phone quickly locked focus. However, the shots were lacking in detail, and the colours appeared undersaturated.

The OPPO Reno8 5G also includes a dedicated night mode for taking photos or videos in low-light conditions. The low-light performance is great, with high detail and natural colours. With the Reno 8, Oppo sticks to its proprietary camera app, which has many modes such as a Pro mode, Extra HD, panorama, slo-mo, time-lapse macro, and a dual-view video mode.

Selfies were pretty good, with lots of detail, a wide dynamic range, and a sharp appearance. Edge recognition is good in portrait selfies, and the bokeh effect is handled nicely. The selfies came to be pretty good no matter the lighting condition.

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You can record up to 4K videos at 30 fps from the back camera while the front can only exord up to 1080p at 30fps. You can also record video with stabilisation, but for that, you need to drop the resolution to 1080p. The 4K video quality was amazing and full of details with excellent colours.

The OPPO Reno8 5G comes backed by a 4500 mAh battery with 80W SuperVOOC charging support. Even though this is not the biggest battery pack, it performs well. The phone can last easily for a whole day on casual use and even have some juice left for the other day.

I got about six hours of screen on time, which is not bad for a 4500 mAh cell. My usage involved some gaming, scrolling through my Insta feed, watching videos on YouTube and making some calls.

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The 80W fast charging support further impressed me. And the best part is that OPPO bundles the charger in the box, unlike some other players in the market. The 80W SupreVOOC charger takes about 40 minutes to fully charge the phone from 0 to 100 per cent.

A quick charge of 11 minutes will juice up the battery to about 50 per cent, which will be sufficient for half a day.

The OPPO Reno8 5G features an FHD+ 6.4-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2400×1080 pixels. The display has a refresh rate of 90Hz and a touch sampling rate of 180Hz with a peak brightness of 800 nits.

The display quality is great with deep blacks and vibrant colours, thanks to the AMOLED panel. Now the 90Hz display might be a letdown for some for a phone costing 30K. However, the display feels super smooth and bright enough to use under direct sunlight.

Additionally, the panel is quite touch-responsive, and the content is crisp and sharp. It offers good viewing angles and Widevine L1 support which means you can stream FHD+ content on OTT platforms.

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I watched a couple of episodes of Peaky Blinders on Netflix and the experience was pretty good. It seems to have pretty thin bezels around the display, which offers a great viewing experience, apart from for slightly thick chin at the bottom.

There’s also the Eye comfort mode, which reduces blue light emissions which is especially useful for nighttime usage.

The OPPO Reno8 features a MediaTek Dimensity 1300 chipset which is paired with 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. The phone runs flawlessly on a daily basis. I wasn’t expecting much from OPPO, but the Reno8 surprised me.

The Mediatek Dimensity 1300 chipset is capable of both regular and resource-intensive apps. You can expand the 8GB of RAM using the RAM expansion feature and add up to another 5GB from the internal storage. The Reno 8 can easily handle anything you throw at it. I didn’t notice any kind of lags while using the Reno 8 and the apps also opened quickly.

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Moving on to gaming, the OPPO Reno8 performed really well. I tried a couple of demanding games like COD Mobile, Apex Legends and Genshin Impact. All the games ran well in medium to high settings.

Call of Duty ran smoothly on High graphics and High frame rate settings. Now I won’t say there were no lags cuz there were, but they were very minor. I didn’t notice any heating issues with the phone even after having long gaming sessions; thanks to the Super-Conductive VC Liquid Cooling System which keeps the phone cool.

Coming to the numbers, we did some benchmark testing. The device scored 454 in single-core performance and 2680 in multi-core performance in Geekbench 5.

The OPPO Reno8 runs on ColorOS 12.1 skin which is based on Android 12. ColorOS 12 is an improvement over previous versions, including a new UI and smoother animations. ColorOS 12.1 interface allows for a number of customisation and personalisation options, as well as a number of useful features.

In my experience, the UI runs smoothly and without any lags or shutters. Oppo’s Theme Store app offers numerous customisation options. You can also change the accent colours so that it matches your wallpaper colour.

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Oppo has added a new feature called Air Gestures. This feature allows the user to engage with the smartphone via hand gestures without the need to touch the screen. This feature didn’t function as I had expected and I felt it was gimmicky.

The phone comes packed with a bunch of pre-installed bloatware such as Dailyhunt, FinShell Pay, Josh, Moj, HeyFun, Netflix, Linkedin, Byju’s, Paytm, Snapchat, and some more. The good thing is that you can easily uninstall most of these apps.

OPPO will deliver two years of major Android updates along with three years of security updates for the Reno8.

The Reno8 5G features only one bottom-firing speaker. The single speaker was loud and had good bass and clarity, but I wish they’d added a secondary speaker on top.

Talking bout the connectivity, the OPPO Reno8 comes with 5G connectivity and support for 12 5G bands. These include N1, n3, n5, n7, n8, n20, n28, n38, n40, n41, n77, and n78. Other connectivity options are Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS and NFC.

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The Reno8 comes with an in-display fingerprint scanner which was really quick at unlocking the phone. It is located somewhere near the chin and was pretty reliable and responsive. You can also use the face unlock feature which works equally good.