Oppo Reno 5 Pro 5G Review: A complete offering from Oppo that packs in the best of everything!!

The Oppo Reno 5 Pro packs in the best of everything with the new Dimensity 1000 Plus.

Oppo has been playing a good position in the market with its budget and flagship smartphones. Out of these, the Reno series has always provided a mixture of well-balanced internals with a striking design. It has some flagship features like the cameras where Oppo has always focussed more and now the software has been much improved with each version of ColorOS.

The Oppo Find X2 Pro (Review) was a great flagship from last year and the Oppo Reno 4 Pro continued the same path by providing some great features at a lesser price tag like an excellent design, good cameras, and had to support for 65W fast charging.

The Oppo Reno 5 Pro posses some very exciting specifications like a beautiful design, a higher refresh rate AMOLED display, a good set of cameras, has the powerful Mediatek Dimensity 1000 Plus chipset that supports 5G. Can this offering from Oppo set the benchmark for the affordable flagship smartphone in the market?

Let’s find out in the full review.

Oppo Reno 5 Pro Design:

The Oppo Reno series has a striking design and it is the same here with the Reno 5 Pro. It is the slimmest smartphone in its price segment as it is just 7.6mm in thickness and weighs 173grams which makes it much lighter. The design aesthetic remains the same as the Reno 4 Pro.

The back of the Reno 5 Pro has a matte finish which looks great but does catch some fingerprints. This back also shines when moving the smartphone around and we noticed some mixed color patterns also. This back provides grip well and looks stylish too. To the sides, we have a plastic frame running to keep costs low.

Talking about the back, Oppo has provided two color options that include Astral Blue and Starry Black and out of these two, the Astral Blue looks better in my opinion. The camera module is rectangular that houses the quad cameras on the top left corner at the back looks good and Oppo branding at the bottom right corner.

To the sides, the right side has the power button and to the left, we have the volume buttons which feel tactile when clicking and provide a nice touch. To the bottom, we have a USB Type-C port, a primary microphone, a single loudspeaker grill, and a dual SIM card tray.

Sadly, Oppo has removed the 3.5mm headphone jack from the Reno 5 Pro and there is no dedicated microSD card slot for storage expansion. To the top, we have a nice design of metal with the “Designed for Reno” logo with a secondary noise-canceling microphone.

To the front, we have a curved display with a punch-hole camera at the top left corner. There are no bezels since the display curves on both sides. The speaker lies just on top of the display.

There is no IP68 rating, but Oppo has put P2i coating at the back, so it splash-resistant. Overall, Being a Reno series smartphone, the Reno 5 Pro is a smartphone that exudes quality and richness and feels like a smartphone from various segments above.

Oppo Reno 5 Pro Display:

The Reno 5 Pro has the same display as the Reno 4 Pro which is 6.55 inches. To the front, we have the Panda Glass for protection and the back has Gorilla Glass 5 for protection. So we are having the same curved display as we saw on the Oppo Find X2 Pro and the Reno 4 Pro previously.

There is a 6.55 inches Full HD+ (1080×2400 pixels) AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 19.5:9. This display refreshes at 90Hz, so scrolling through webpages, playing games felt much smoother on the smartphone. You can switch between 60Hz and 90Hz simultaneously when needed. Since this is an AMOLED panel, the viewing angles are great.

The color reproduction of the display is good and has support for HDR10+ makes it livelier while watching videos on Youtube or any third-party apps like Netflix, Prime, etc and the Widevine L1 is present also. The peak brightness is at 1100 nits and the display is pretty bright under direct sunlight and the brightness will not create an issue in the dark as there is an Eye Comfort mode.

The touch sampling rate is 180Hz which means responses are smooth while multi-tasking and Oppo have provided a slider in the display settings to choose from cool, warm, and default color temperature. There is also an OSIE visual effect that boosts the color on the display which you can use also.

Oppo’s Always-On display works extremely well and you can customize it according to your liking. There is also edge lighting which lights up the edges of the display whenever any notification comes. Oppo has well taken care of the display with the addition of these features making it a worthy one.

Oppo Reno 5 Pro Performance:

The Reno 4 Pro was powered by a mid-range Snapdragon 720G and this is where the Reno 5 Pro has stepped up the game in terms of performance. You are now getting the latest Mediatek Dimensity 1000 Plus chipset which provides flagship-like performance and supports 5G.

This is the first smartphone to have this chipset. The Mediatek Dimensity 1000+ has 4×2.6 GHz Cortex A77 cores and another 4×2.0 GHz Cortex A55 cores built on a 7nm process. It has powerful Cortex A77 cores which make it a performance-oriented chipset and the performance is almost close to the last year’s Snapdragon 865.

All tasks such as opening and closing, switching between applications, scrolling through webpages felt smoother and this is also due to the 90Hz refresh rate also. Playing heavy games like Call of Duty, Gensian Impact felt smoother on the smartphone even at the highest graphics settings.

Previous Mediatek chipsets had heating issues but this is not the case with this chipset. Unfortunately, the Reno 5 Pro is available in one variant i.e. 8GB LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB storage which is of UFS 2.1 speeds. Maybe Oppo could have provided 256GB storage as there is no support for microSD cards but this is what you get.

In terms of benchmarks, the Reno 5 Pro scored 426168 on Antutu v8 and 718 in single-core and 3048 in multi-core tests on Geekbench 5.1 which is almost close to Snapdragon 865 on the OnePlus 8T which is priced slightly higher than the Reno 5 Pro. Even after running multiple benchmarks, there was no CPU throttling and the thermal temperature was maintained well.

Overall, the performance of the Reno 5 Pro feels much better compared to the Reno 4 Pro and if you do a lot of gaming and need that raw performance, this smartphone will get the work done.

Oppo Reno 5 Pro Software:

Like all Oppo smartphones, the Reno 5 Pro has ColorOS 11 with Android 11 out of the box. ColorOS provides all features like a system-wide dark mode and an enhanced dark mode where you can change from three different modes that include – Enhanced, Medium, and Gentle and there are the usual Android 11 features.

There is some amount of bloatware present and you can uninstall them easily which is a big improvement over the previous ColorOS versions. There are some stock applications like a dialler, messages, and calendar. Oppo has the Game Space which provides a good gaming experience as it provides more controls and you can control the touch sensitivity also.

All the icons can be customized and the Media Player feature of Android 11 lets you switch between connected devices in the notification bar, there is a system cloner that lets you create different profiles and the app lock is present for all the applications. The Flex Drop feature lets you size the particular application in a floating window.

The Personalization app provides an Always-On display, app layout, and fingerprint styles where you can tweak using different styles. Overall, the software experience feels really good on the Reno 5 Pro and the most interesting thing is that there is no ad present in the user interface.

Oppo Reno 5 Pro Cameras:

The Reno series from Oppo has always been known for its cameras. The Reno 5 Pro has a quad-camera setup that includes a 64MP f/1.7 main camera, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and a 2MP depth and macro camera (both are for adding up the numbers). On the front, there is a 32MP selfie camera.

The images from the main camera come out with a good dynamic range and look sharper with plenty of details. But at times the main camera tries to over-expose the background. The color saturation is good and the white balance is handled well. There is some amount of noise present which will not be an issue.

At night, the images from the main camera have good details with slightly more noise. The dynamic range is good and the exposure in night shots is well maintained. There is some softness noticed when you zoom into the image, but nonetheless, there is a Night Mode which helps improve dynamic range and reduce noise.

As a result, with the night mode, the images come out sharper and have a better dynamic range. However, the ultrawide camera is the same as the Reno 4 Pro i.e. 8MP which has a 120-degree field of view. The images during the day come out with good details and have above average dynamic range.

There is some softness noticed around the corners when you zoom into an image and the colors do look a bit washed out at times. Similarly, at night, the images from the ultrawide camera have a lot of noise and the colors look slightly over-saturated. The dynamic range is above average but Oppo has paired a Night Mode with the ultrawide camera also.

The dedicated Night Mode tries to bring highlights in shadows, improves the dynamic range but somehow, the noise remains the same. For better results from the ultrawide camera, use the Night Mode for better output.

The 8MP ultrawide camera has autofocus as it doubles as a macro camera also. The macro images have good details and since it has autofocus, you can adjust the distance between the subject and the camera. The images have sharper details and good color saturation. With AI Scene Enhancement, all the images have slightly boosted color.

The 2MP depth sensor is present for taking portraits. The portraits have good edge detection and dynamic range. You can adjust the level of background blur and Oppo provides different filters for portraits also where you can turn the background black and white, change the color tone to warmer or cooler in the background. The main camera does a 2x crop in portraits for better results.

On the front, we have a 32MP selfie camera. The images come out in great detail and the dynamic range is good. The skin tones look natural but by default, the beauty mode is turned. You can also adjust the level of skin smoothening and the resulting image output to 8MP by default.

The AI scene detection helps improve the noise and tries to boost the color levels. The selfie portraits come out really well with proper background blur and the edge detection works well. But still, the dynamic range is average and there is a fair amount of noise present.

The one area where Oppo is focusing on the Reno 5 Pro is in the video department. The Reno 5 Pro has a new feature called AI Highlight Video. This works almost similar to AI Scene Enhancement where it boosts the color in the background while keeping the noise lower.

The 64MP camera can record 4K videos at 30fps. However, there is no support for 60fps but still, the videos shot at 4K have good color saturation and dynamic range. There is no OIS, but Oppo has provided the Ultra Steady Video 3.0 using which you have less shakiness but tends to crop the video for better details.

There is 1080p at 60fps and 720p can go up to 960fps for slow-mo videos. The videos from the ultrawide camera come out with good details and dynamic range. The EIS kicks at 1080p for a much-stabilized video. There is a portrait mode video also where you can adjust the background blur and different filters for portraits.

The videos at night come out with much better details and the color saturation works well with the AI Highlight Video turned on. The noise is pretty lower The AI Highlight Video feature keeps the exposure in check and improves the dynamic range to a larger extent. It also removes some noise and also improves the contrast.

There is a Dual Video Mode which takes videos from both the front as well as the rear simultaneously and this video is restricted to 1080p. The videos from the front camera come out with good details and the dynamic range works well too. There is lesser noise and HDR videos try to over-saturate color in the background.

The portrait videos work well too with the front camera and there is also support for slow-motion videos at 240fps at 1080p and there are a lot of customizations provided by Oppo on the front camera.

Overall, the cameras feel much more improved compared to the Reno 4 Pro and is a true camera-centric smartphone at the price it is offered at.

Oppo Reno 5 Pro Battery Life:

The Reno 5 Pro sports a 4350mAh battery which can easily last for two single days with normal usage. With the chipset being built on the 7nm process and ColorOS 11 battery optimizations, Oppo claims that the smartphone provides good battery life.

With the display being set to 90Hz, the standard screen on time was around 6-7 hours, and coupled with heavy usage that includes playing heavy games like Call of Duty for 3-4 hours, streaming Netflix, and also using social media, the smartphone easily lasted for one single day with 20-30 percent left.

In terms of battery optimization, there is a power-saving mode provided by Oppo and also comes with an AI charging feature which helps the battery charge efficiently during the night which is similar to Deep Customization on OnePlus smartphones.

Coupled with the Reno 5 Pro is the 65W SuperVOOC 2.0 charger inside the box. Thankfully, it is present as most manufacturers like Samsung and Apple have been removing chargers from the box. The supplied charger charges the Reno 5 Pro from 0 to 100 percent in 30 minutes where the first 0 to 50 percent comes in just under 15 minutes.

There is no support for wireless or reverse wireless charging and these won’t bother much as the supplied charger is enough to juice up the smartphone in some time. The battery life feels good on the Reno 5 Pro and will get the job done.

Oppo Reno 5 Pro Audio Quality:

The Reno 5 Pro comes with a single speaker at the bottom which is adequately loud. The loudness levels are good but still when you are playing games, the sound feels a bit muffled and in crowded places also.

There is support for Dolby Atmos for enhanced sound output but sadly, you miss out on the 3.5mm headphone jack but there are a set of wireless earphones and Earbuds that provide good sound quality.

Verdict:

The Reno 5 Pro feels like a complete package as it has got the best internals, a gorgeous design with a slimmer profile, a 90Hz OLED display, and support for 65W SuperVOOC charging. On the other hand, the cameras are very good and ColorOS has been improving with each iterartion.

The smartphone is also powered by Mediatek Dimensity 1000 Plus which performs almost closer to the Snapdragon 865, thus providing a flagship-level performance and handles all heavy games with ease. But if you are a heavy gamer, then you can strech your budget and get the OnePlus 8T (Review) or the Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro that have the Snapdragon 865 chipset.

There are some downgrades like the removal of a 3.5mm headphone jack and when you compare ColorOS with either OneUI or OxygenOS, then those maybe the better option for software. The cameras are average

In terms of battery life, the Reno 5 Pro does a good job and you get that massive 65W fast charger inside the box giving you that quick charging capability. So sum it all up, the Reno 5 Pro is a smartphone which is meant for people who want a perfect smartphone will all the bells and whistles.