Oppo Reno 8 5G – Full Review

The OPPO Reno 8 5G is one of the best midrange phones to consider when it comes to specifications. Sporting the powerful MediaTek Dimensity 1300 Chipset, with an impressive 80W super-fast charging, it costs just under $400. That’s competitive pricing if you ask me.

But having used this for almost a month, how well does it fare especially against the competition? First, off I’ll say the Oppo Reno 8 is a solid device when it comes to design, specifications, and build quality. Its pricing makes it really good value for money as it sports a processor I’d say is more powerful than what we have on the likes of the Redmi Note 11 Pro Plus 5G or Samsung’s Galaxy A53.

Oppo Reno 8 5G Review

This particular one under review is the Global version and might differ in specifications when compared to what we might eventually get in Nigeria. But if you want to get the global version up, you can order it from Aliexpress or Amazon.

Oppo Reno 8 5G Review – Unboxing

The Reno 8 5G comes in the typical OPPO packaging, packing all essential accessories except earphones, because there’s no headphone jack. It comes with an 80 watts super fast charger that can power it up to 50% in less than 15 minutes.

Something interesting I also noticed about the charging is its optimized battery charging feature which reduces the charging speeds at night to avoid overcharging and helps preserve the battery longevity. Basically, if you plug it in overnight it detects you won’t be needing the phone to charge super fast and slows down the charging speed significantly.

Design & Build Quality

On design, the OPPO Reno 8 5G is up there with the finest-designed midrange phones. It has solid build quality with a Gorilla glass 5-protected display and also has a fine textured rear finish which is smudge resistant. Sadly it doesn’t get an official IP rating like the Pixel 6a or Samsung’s higher A series. This is the shimmer gold color, and it does shimmer.

CHECK OUT:

• Vivo Y35- Full Review & Price In Nigeria
• Tecno Spark 10 Pro -Full Review & Price In Nigeria

Its camera bump blends nicely with the rear design as a single panel. It’s actually a triple setup but you have the main and Ultra-wide cameras as the more prominent rings. It’s a fine design, lightweight, and has a nice feel in the hands. Its frame is flat and can stand on a flat surface without support. Unlike most smartphones, the Reno 8 5G has its power button and volume rocker keys separated, with the former on the right frame and the latter on the left. As for ports, we have just USB C and SIM card slots, both at the bottom frame.

RAM, Internal Storage & Stereo Speakers

It accepts dual Nano-sim cards, but no support for expandable storage. It does however, come in two memory options, 128 and 256GB, both with 8GB of base RAM, extendable up to 13GB thanks to RAM expansion.

One thing to note about the Reno 5G which might be a bummer but not necessarily a deal breaker is the lack of stereo speakers. We only get a down-firing mono speaker.

Display Specs

On the display aspect, we have a 6.4 inches Full HD AMOLED display with a left-hole punch style for its selfie camera. It is a vibrant AMOLED display that can get bright up to b It gives you the quality you’d expect of a good AMOLED display.

We have its fingerprint scanner underneath the display as an optical scanner, which sits very close to the bottom.

It is responsive and among the fastest optical fingerprint scanners, I’ve used. The Oppo Reno 8 5G gets a 90hz screen refresh rate which makes for smoother interaction with the UI. Speaking of UI interaction, I’m actually loving the level of customization on color OS so far.

Software

This is running Android 12 and color OS 12.1. Oppo has done a really great job integrating Material-U nicely with ColorOS.

You will find plenty of customization options to tweak this to your satisfaction. The Reno 8 5G as the name implies, is a 5 G-compatible device, but for some reason, I can’t seem to find the 5G option in the settings. Normally I should be able to find 5G as one of the network options but it seems to only have 4G. It’s possible a software update could bring this option, hopefully.

Also, another thing I noticed which is not exactly an issue is Google Assistant’s driving mode. It displays differently here than it does on my other devices. It doesn’t really show the app menu or the option to add driving mode to the home screen as it does on my devices. I’ve ensured my Google app is up to date but it’s still the same.

This is of course nothing major and a Google update can probably fix this. Also, it shouldn’t bother you if you don’t use your phone for navigation while driving.

Processor, Benchmark Scores & Multitasking

As I already mentioned, it is powered by the 6nm MediaTek’s Dimensity 1300 Chipset which is more than capable when it comes to performance. It gets benchmark scores significantly higher than most devices you’ll find at this price point, and it actually has the performance to match. Multi-tasking here is great and I’ve not experienced any bugs or lags of concern.

Gaming with the Reno 8 is a solid experience as you are able to play at really high graphics settings and get consistent performance on frame rates without lags.

Gaming Performance

Something you don’t really see on many midrange devices. I was able to play Call of Duty mobile on very high graphics settings and max frame rate with no noticeable lags. On Apex Legends, while the recommended setting was normal and high frame rate, I was able to play at extreme HD and a very high frame rate, gameplay was smooth and stayed at a consistent 50fps.

You can also play at an ultra frame rate but the graphics quality won’t go past normal. In this setting, you can play at a consistent 60fps. I’ll say from my experience, the OPPO Reno 8 5G has very good gaming performance thanks to the combination of the Dimensity 1300 and a Mali G77 GPU. Another thing I find most impressive about the Reno 8 5G is its battery life.

Battery Capacity

It has a 4500mAh battery which is well-optimized and you can expect at least a day of use. More than once I had to confirm if it was not a 5000mAh battery. Of course, your usage might be different, but in my experience, the battery life actually stands out.

Camera Specs & Video Recording

The Reno 8 5G has a triple rear camera configuration comprising a 50MP main camera, an 8MP Ultra-wide, and a 2MP macro camera. And for its selfie we get 32MP. You will find its camera performance quite impressive for the most part, especially with its rear cameras.

It does a great job with HDR processing and can get you really good-looking shots. You can enable the 50MP high res mode to take sharper photos which will be larger in size. Its Ultra-wide camera takes shots that don’t look stretched and also maintain a similar color profile as the main camera.

In low light, you will get pretty good photos, though while using the night mode you might notice some grain in the skies in some shots, I’d say you’ll be quite satisfied with its low light performance if you use it right. Where you might find some dissatisfaction with its camera is in selfies.

By default, it has this beauty filter turned on that you might want to disable if you prefer your photos with more detail. The selfies might not exceed expectations but you can get a few shots you’d be happy with. The Oppo Reno 8 5G is capable of shooting up to 4k 30fps videos from its rear camera and 1080p 30fps from the selfie camera. I find that it actually does decent in performance even in less ideal lighting conditions.

Final Words

I’m very impressed with the Reno 8 5G and will highly recommend it. If you’re darkly skinned though, you might not fancy its image processing, but I think it’s nothing a little G-cam port can’t fix. It’s priced right and packs much value for money.