Oppo Reno 5 Pro 5G
Two-minute review
After a short sabbatical, MediaTek has once again joined the high-end smartphone race with the launch of its Dimensity 1000 Plus platform. In a time when most flagships got more expensive, these new Dimensity chipsets helped revive the affordable flagship space. The Oppo Reno 5 Pro is the first smartphone in India of that new species.
Launched on January 18, it is the successor to Oppo Reno 4 Pro from last July. It brings significant upgrades to aspects like the performance, display, camera features and design, without having to get a lot more expensive.
The first we noticed about the Oppo Reno 5 Pro was how good it looks and feels in the head. Not only is it relatively lightweight and sleek, but the new Astral Blue colour and finish is truly unique and pretty. Compact phones like these are rare these days.
The ergonomics are also improved by the new curved display on the front, which now refreshes 90 times a second – an increasingly important feature on modern smartphones. It handles palms well, gets bright enough and has great colours, too.
Much to our relief, the Dimensity 1000 Plus does feel like a proper flagship chipset in day to day use. It doesn’t break a sweat even during heavy gaming or long durations of videography, just what we’d expect from a high-end smartphone today. However, some apps seem to need a bit more optimization to make the most of this processor.
Oppo made a big deal of the video recording capabilities of the Reno 5 Pro before the launch. While the results are subjectively better, especially for social media purposes, they aren’t particularly groundbreaking or way better than other flagships. On the other hand, photography is definitely its strong suit.
Lastly, it also supports Oppo 65W fast charging technology, which is amongst the fastest we’ve seen on market. A simple short top-up will be sufficient to last you for hours.
The Oppo Reno 5 Pro has no major issues in the user experience. Yes, the battery life could’ve been better and the cameras could’ve been more consistent, but those aren’t really deal-breakers. What could discourage potential buyers is its asking price, which is not the most competitive. However, if you’re looking to get a phone under Rs 40,000 from the offline market, and the strengths mentioned above suit your preferences, then it might be a good deal.
Oppo Reno 5 Pro price in India
The Oppo Reno 5 Pro is priced at Rs 35,990 and is available in a single 8GB + 128GB configuration. Colour options include Starry Black and Astral Blue. It is now available openly on Flipkart.
At that price, it competes with the Xiaomi Mi 10T, the OnePlus 8, the Realme X7 Pro, the Vivo V20 Pro and others.
Design
This is the prettiest phone we've held.
If one were to take a poll about what a smartphone should feel like when held, the most popular answers will include sleekness, even weight distribution, have a good grip, look classy and premium and be somewhat recognizable. If that sounds like you, you’ll love the Oppo Reno 5 Pro. It ticks all those boxes and then some.
Made using the “Reno Glow” technique, it has a nice shimmering effect that isn’t usually seen on smartphones. Based on the ambient lighting, it gradients between white and blue with specks of glitter throughout. It looks fairly classy and a little ostentatious. Moreover, this texture makes it very easy to grip and hold without slipping. The finish is also great at repelling fingerprints.
The ergonomic experience is further augmented by the 173 grams of weight and 7.6mm thickness — it’s one of those phones that can easily be slipped into skinny pockets without getting uncomfortable. With Gorilla Gass 3 protection on the back, you will not have to worry about scratches either.
On the top left is the rectangular camera housing, with three symmetrical lenses and a smaller fourth sensor. They barely protrude and will not rock while placed on a table.
Display
The back blends in perfectly with the front of the Oppo Reno 5 Pro, thanks to the slightly curved display. This is the first phone in the series to offer that. The curves further aid in the handling experience by making the phone more contact, without introducing any ghost touches.
We get a 6.5-inch Super AMOLED display with a 20:9 aspect ratio, 1,100 nits of peak brightness, HDR10+ certification and more. Gamers will appreciate the jump to 90Hz refresh rate and 180Hz touch response rate.
There’s nothing to complain about here either: the display is plenty sharp and vivid, with great viewing angles and ample brightness for outdoor visibility. The interface has been well-optimized to make use of the higher refresh rate to seem smoother.
Towards the bottom, there’s an optical in-display fingerprint scanner that works perfectly well. For others, there’s 2D face unlocking which was instantaneous too.
To make the best use of the AMOLED display, the phone supports a wide variety of Always-on Display screensavers, which can be further customized. Very intricate patterns can be designed with ease.
Performance
Whenever there is a major leap in semiconductor technology, the transition can be choppy. After many years, OEMs are returning to MediaTek for flagship smartphones. Naturally, there was some nervousness around this move, as MediaTek had a bit of a bad reputation in the premium space.
The Oppo Reno 5 Pro is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 1000 Plus chipset. This is a 7nm platform with eight cores, integrated 5G modem and the Mali G77 GPU. What do these mean for users?
On synthetic benchmarks, the Dimensity 1000 Plus scores are on par or better than the competition.
Well, the phone performed well in almost everything thrown at it. Lighter tasks were obviously a breeze, but even gaming was handled surprisingly with excellent stability and little heat. Some games do not support the highest graphics/frame rate options, but that seems to be due to a lack of optimizations and not insufficient processing power.
While we weren’t able to test the 5G capabilities, call quality, data speeds and Wi-Fi reception were all rock solid.
In short, most users will not be able to tell it apart from other flagships. It should last for a few years, and the inclusion of 5G makes it even more future-proof. The last piece of the puzzle is if the chipset is not supported by devs in the longer run, but it’s too early to comment on that.
Software
Out of the box, the Oppo Reno 5 Pro runs on Android 11 with Color OS 11.1 on top. It’s good to see the phone boot to the latest version of Android from the get.
Color OS isn’t a light skin, but it gets a lot right. There are quite a few useful customization options around the interface to tailor the experience as per your liking. Moreover, these are not intrusive, so you can ignore them altogether.
Color OS has really matured over the last few years, and is one of the best Android skins now.
For example, not only does it offer a system-wide dark mode, there’s also an option to choose how dark we want it to be, ranging from pitch black to lighter shades of grey. The icon style, shape, size and design can also be customized. The quick toggles on the top can be rearranged as well.
Navigation gestures make the cut too, but instead of going back with a swipe from the sides, it uses a swipe form the bottom. Getting used to it wasn’t difficult, but we believe inward swipes from the sides are more user friendly.
Battery
Even with such a svelte figure, the Oppo Reno 5 Pro manages to house a 4,350mAh battery. Combined with the software skin and the 7nm chipset, the phone lasted us throughout an entire day with ease, clocking 5 ot 6 hours of screen-on time daily. Very rarely were we able to kill it by night.
But if you manage to do so, the 65W Super VOOC 2.0 charging is here to save the day. Using the included adapter, the phone can be recharged completely in about 35 minutes. A simple 10-minute top-up would give more than 35% juice, which is enough to last for a few hours.
Camera
Here’s where things get a little underwhelming, only because of the tall claims made by Oppo. There’s a quad-camera array on the rear, with a 64MP primary camera (from OmniVision), an 8MP ultra-wide lens, a 2MP macro camera, and a 2MP mono shooter. On the front is a 32MP selfie camera.
For photos, the primary camera works well to produce accurate exposure, temperature and pleasing colours, with great dynamic range. However, it looks like these are achieved via the software route as images seem over-processed when zoomed in.
The ultra-wide lens does a good job at producing a wider field of view, but the dynamic range and contrast are lacking. The other two cameras were pretty difficult to master.
The big talking point is the inclusion of the new Full Dimension Fusion (FDF) system, which is basically a set of algorithms that are supposed to smartly analyze the frame and produce better videos. Most of Oppo’s marketing and keynote revolved around this too.
The thing is, in most cases, the only thing the AI would do is create brighter or more dynamic clips, and nothing extraordinary. Since it’s a software-driven solution, inherent drawbacks such ass higher motion blur and smoothening also creep in. In simpler words, the resultant footage will look great for social media or hobbyist uses, but pixel-peepers are unlikely to be satisfied.
Verdict
The Oppo Reno 5 Pro has no major cons that make it a difficult phone to recommend. What works against it is the stiff competiton from the likes of Xiaomi, Realme and OnePlus, all of which cover the basics and excel at certain additional aspects.
The biggest competitor is the Realme X7 Pro, which uses the same chipset, but offers a larger battery with 65W charging, 120Hz refresh rate, while being significantly cheaper.
Buy if...
You want a good-looking phone
The Reno 5 Pro is amongst the best-looking smartphones of the season while being extremely functional with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, a grippy texture and no fingerprint accumulation.
You're tired of bulky phones
It's no secret that compact phones are an endangered species. However, the Oppo Reno 5 Pro, at 7.6mm and 173g offers a very comfortable experience, in hand or pocket.
You have charging anxiety
The only thing worse than a dead battery is slow charging. Thankfully, neither will be an issue with the Reno 5 Pro. Short spurts of charging are enough to last through the day.
Don't buy if...
Cameras are the top priority
If you're big on photography, there are better phones in this segment such as the Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro, the Google Pixel 4a and the iPhone SE.
You want the best gaming experience
While the Dimensity 1000 Plus is a very capable processor, high-end games don't seem to like it a lot. As things stand right now, phones with Snapdragon chipsets are better suited for gaming.
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