OPPO Reno5 Pro 5G Review: A true successor

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We are just 4 months into 2021 and the market has been bombarded with smartphones. Companies are launching at least 3-4 models each month. One such brand doing this is OPPO.

OPPO’s Reno series of smartphones has been a testbed for the brand to bring exciting features and designs. While the earlier generation Reno phones sported radical designs and features, the new Reno5 Pro comes with a more mature look and feel.

Coming in at a sticker price of INR 35,990, just like its predecessor the phone comes packed with some pretty cool features.

We spent a little over ten days with the Reno5 Pro, and here’s our full review.

OPPO Reno5 Pro Specifications

Before starting with the OPPO Reno5 Pro review, let’s have a look at the phone’s specifications.

  • Display: 6.5-inch FHD+ resolution, 90Hz refresh rate AMOLED display
  • CPU: Octa-core MediaTek Dimensity 1000+ Processor
  • GPU: Mali G-77
  • RAM: 8GB
  • Storage: 128GB internal storage, expandable up to 256GB
  • Software: Android 11 (ColorOS 11)
  • Main Camera: 64MP (f/1.7) (PDAF) + 8MP ultra-wide-angle + 2MP depth sensor + 2MP macro
  • Selfie Camera: 32MP (f/2.4)
  • Connectivity: USB Type C, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth v5.1, GPS/ A-GPS, 3.5mm headphone jack, FM Radio
  • Cellular: Dual SIM
  • Fingerprint Scanner: Yes, in-display
  • Battery: 4,350mAh, Li-ion Polymer, 65W SuperVOOC 2.0 fast charging

Box Contents

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Here’s a complete list of items you get inside the box:

  • OPPO Reno5 Pro smartphone
  • 65W SuperVOOC fast Charger
  • USB Type C Cable
  • Earphones
  • Sim Ejector Tool
  • Documentation

Design

We saw OPPO pull a different design on the Reno 4 Pro and the brand has further matured that design on the Reno5 Pro. The phone still had a glass sandwich design with a curved display up-front and 3D back glass. The construction is solid and the phone screams quality.

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This time around the phone is available in just two color choices. The finish in both colors is good and sparkly when the light hits the phone at certain angles. There is gorilla glass on both the front and back. There is a quad-rear camera module and this is where you would notice a difference when compared to Reno 4 Pro. The module is divided into columns, hence cutting down on the actual size of the module.

The module is flushed to the back for the most part. On flipping the phone around, we get to see the gorgeous curved AMOLED display that is one of the highlighting features of the phone.

Moving to the button and port placement, the power button is on the right side while the volume rockers are placed on the left rail. The 3.5mm audio jack, speaker, and USB Type-C port sit on the bottom, while the earpiece is sandwiched between the display and the outer frame.

Display

The Reno series phones are now moving towards the curved display arena. After the Reno 4 Pro, now the Reno5 Pro also packs a fairly large curved display. The phone gets a 6.5-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with a single punch-hole for the selfie camera. This display seemed quite the same as seen on the Reno 4 Pro.

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It has a 90Hz refresh rate and 180Hz touch sampling rate. Given the competition, we would have liked a 120Hz refresh rate but given the jump from 60Hz to 90Hz is more noticeable, we will leave this point up to the buyers. This display ideally is comparable to most budget flagship phones, namely from OnePlus and Vivo.

It gets multiple color profiles available and the phone comes with the vibrant color profile turned on right out of the box. These can be tweaked per your taste by going into the display settings. While the Reno 4 Pro had an HDR capable panel, OPPO didn’t advertise that point. Now here, the brand has gone a little ahead and bumped up the brightness of the panel to 1100nits at its peak. Also, we now have HDR10+ certification and Blue light filter which helps in the overall user experience. HDR kicks in certain apps like YouTube and PrimeVideo while you get 1080p support on Netflix which will be fixed in a coming update.

Overall, the display gets plenty bright, has good colors, and is ideal for content consumption.

Software

Moving to the software, the phone gets the latest version of ColorOS which is now more polished than the previous versions. The phone runs on Android 11 with ColorOS 11 out of the box. For non-OPPO users, ColorOS at its core is basically a decked-out skin on top of Android just like FunTouchOS, MIUI, and RealmeOS. You get a flair of customization options, from changing the themes to wallpapers, icons, and more.

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The UI is packed with features like the Game Mode, Dark Mode, and the OPPO Relax that as the name suggests helps you to relax and focus by engaging the user in meditation and other peace-inducing exercises. With this new build of ColorOS, we got to see less bloatware which is always welcomed. Since the phone packs an AMOLED panel, you get to see Dark mode here, Always On Display with a ton of pre-sets, and Edge lighting – the edge notification lighting we see on OnePlus and Samsung phones.

Performance

This is where the new Reno5 Pro shines when compared to the Reno 4 Pro. The phones come powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 1000+ SoC which is a 5G capable chip from MediaTek. The phone supports multiple 4G and 5G bands and is somewhat future proof at least for the first wave of 5G.

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The Dimensity 1000+ from MediaTek is somewhat comparable to the likes of the Snapdragon 855+ in terms of benchmarks and performance. This reflects in the day-to-day performance as well. The Reno5 Pro worked quite well under normal to harsh testing conditions. During our extensive testing of the phone, we didn’t really notice any significant lags or overall sluggishness in the UI.

The RAM management on the Reno5 Pro was on-point and the brand has indeed worked quite extensively on improving the ColorOS 11 experience. We did do some gaming and games like PUBG, and Asphalt 9 ran fine on medium to high graphics settings very smoothly. The call quality too is great and the audio from speakers as well as the headphone jack is loud and clear. While we found the in-display fingerprint scanner a little bit slow in registering the fingerprint, it worked reliably well.

Camera

The OPPO Reno5 Pro comes with a quad-rear camera module with the main camera being a 64-megapixel sensor with f/1.7 aperture, assisted with an 8-megapixel wide-angle shooter with f/2.2 aperture. There’s also a 2-megapixel unit for macro shots and another 2-megapixel unit for Bokeh. As for the front, the phone boasts a 32-megapixel shooter with a slightly wider lens.

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The Reno series these days has been leaning hard on the camera performance which has been the case with other OPPO smartphones as well. Giving in to that trend, the Reno5 Pro also introduces a slew of camera features like the new ‘AI Highlight Video’ mode, picture-in-picture mode for videos, and many more. The app on the other hand gives you standard OPPO features within it.

The images taken by the main sensor are sharp, have lots of detail, and bear natural colors. The dynamic range is excellent, as well. However, the low-light performance is just average as the phone clicks only usable pictures with soft details and inaccurate colors. For taking darker shots, we would recommend switching on the Night mode that helps in achieving good results.

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The wide-angle camera, while not as good as the primary sensor, produces decent results. The other two lenses are useless for some serious photography and in our opinion are placed on the phone just to validate the quad-rear camera notion. The front camera impresses as well with the main 32-megapixel Sony IMX616 sensor pumping out consistently well selfies that have plenty of detail in them. The skin tones are on the richer side.

Moving to the video capability of the phone, this is where it shines. The phone lets you shoot videos in 4K60 fps though the footage is not stable. For better results, we would be suggesting bringing the resolution down to 1080p because this is when the stabilization feature kicks in. In the video to we can kick in the AI Highlight Video feature that brings up the highlight in the dark scenes and can be useful for scenes with harsh lighting as well.

Battery

The Reno5 Pro packs a 4,350mAh battery under the hood. During our testing, the phone lasted for a full working day with a screen on time ranging from six to seven hours on medium to heavy usage. Our heavy usage included a bit of gaming, content consumption, usual texting, and high camera usage.

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While the capacity on this phone is slightly higher than the outgoing model, OPPO needs to bump up the battery capacity a bit more. When using the phone up to its true potential you could get into trouble with a faster depleting battery but to combat this, the brand has bundled a fast charger in the box. Using OPPO’s proprietary SuperVOOC 65W fast charging tech we were able to charge the phone to 50% in under 20 mins and a full top-up was done in a little over 40 minutes.

Pros

  • Great display
  • Great Battery life
  • 65W Fast Charging

Cons

  • Battery capacity could be an issue for some users

Verdict – Should you buy it?

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While the OPPO Reno 4 Pro had an underpowered processor to do the heavy lifting, the brand has corrected that mistake on the Reno5 Pro. The new model has a premium design, a vivid display, decent battery life, and a more than able processor. All this coming at the same exact price as the outing model.

For INR 35,990, the Reno5 Pro for us is an extremely good buy considering the fact that you could get this phone offline for even less than the quoted price. While the phone has certainly gained so much when compared to the last-gen model, it still has some room for improvement. We would have liked the display refresh rate kicked up to 120Hz to match the current trend and a pair of stereo speakers could prove a great addition to that gorgeous display.

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About the author

Yogesh Brar

The guy recommending you tech products & living on the Internet. Or you can connect with me on Twitter: twitter.com/heyitsyogesh

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