Oppo Reno13 Pro review

The Oppo Reno13 Pro comes in just a few months after the Reno12 Pro, and expectedly doesn’t see a lot of change in the design department. Objectively though, it’s a good-looking smartphone with some flair to it, tempting you to go case-free and show off the back of the device.

The flat back and sides of the Oppo Reno13 Pro go well with the slightly-curved edges on all four sides of the display, and the artistic styling and textures on the back are quite the looker as well. The camera module sees some changes with the two larger 50-megapixel cameras taking up most of the space, while the smaller 8-megapixel sensor and flash unit taking up a bit less room to the side. It looks good, while retaining the design and feel that you’d expect at this price.

ALSO SEE: OnePlus 13 review

A couple of interesting additions are the ‘sponge bionic cushioning’ inside the all-metal frame, designed to make the phone more durable and protect against drops. The Oppo Reno13 Pro is also IP66, IP68, and IP69 rated for dust and water resistance, meaning that it can handle different levels of water exposure including water sprays and splashes, high-pressure and heated liquid sprays, and even full immersion in shallow water for up to 30 minutes.

You get a 6.83-inch 120Hz ProXDR OLED display on the Oppo Reno13 Pro, with a resolution of 2800x1272 pixels and a peak brightness rating of 1200nits. There’s also support for HDR up to the HDR10+ format, making this a fairly well-specified display for a phone in this price segment. 

Don’t expect flagship levels of brightness or sharpness, but this is otherwise an entirely capable display for most day-to-day requirements, and you won’t really notice the differences (except maybe when it comes to brightness levels under direct sunlight). The dynamic refresh rate can adapt to requirements, but there’s no ultra-low level like on flagship phones.

Powering the Oppo Reno13 Pro is the MediaTek Dimensity 8350 chipset, along with a standard 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and the option of 256GB or 512GB of internal storage (UFS 3.1). It’s a decent chipset and specifications that deliver reliable day-to-day performance with most tasks, including multi-tasking, quick switching between apps, and giving you enough drive for the occasional resource-heavy tasks like gaming. ColorOS 15 (based on Android 15) is also nicely optimised for the hardware, and the software package is fairly light and hassle-free on the whole. 

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Perhaps the only complaint with the software is the excessive amount of bloatware that installs itself on the Oppo Reno13 Pro as soon as you set it up. I found myself deleting or disabling apps for a few days after setting the phone up, none of which I actually installed myself, although I did eventually get to a point where the bloatware wasn’t visible anymore. ColorOS is decent for the most part, but there’s room for improvement.

The Oppo Reno13 Pro gets a triple-camera setup at the back, with a 50-megapixel primary camera (Sony IMX890), a 50-megapixel telephoto camera with up to 3.5x optical zoom (JN5), and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera with a 115-degree field-of-view. At the front is a 50-megapixel camera (JN5). OIS is support on the main and telephoto cameras, with autofocus is supported on all four cameras.

Apart from the core capabilities of the camera setup, Oppo is also touting its AI capabilities meant to improve the photography experience. Some of these features are applied during photo and video capture itself, while others can be applied through the AI Editor or AI Studio tools afterwards. These include enhancing clarity, removing glass reflections, unblur, object eraser, and more. 

 

 

 

 

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Another rather useful setting is the underwater photography mode, which lets you use the physical buttons to capture photo and video while the phone is submerged. Combined with the water resistance, this makes the Oppo Reno13 Pro rather well suited to pool and beach photography.

The actual photography experience itself is decent, with the Oppo Reno13 Pro capable of a decent set of tricks in the camera app. 3.5x optical zoom and up to 120x digital zoom make use of AI for stability and capture assistance, and there is also portrait mode and video recording up to 4K at 60fps. I quite liked the results, with the Oppo Reno13 Pro doing a good job of capturing a range of images in different lighting conditions.

The Oppo Reno13 Pro gets a 5800mAh battery, with support for 80W SuperVOOC fast wired charging. I was able to get over a day of use with moderate use before needing to charge the smartphone, and with light use that figure came closer to two days between charges. Unfortunately, there’s no wireless charging, which might have been a useful addition.

The 80W fast charging on the Oppo Reno13 Pro is a huge benefit, with the phone topping up in less than an hour. You can also choose to burst charge - around 30-40 percent at a time - which would take just a few minutes and give you enough battery for a few hours outside.

 

 

 

 

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The Oppo Reno13 Pro is a decent step up for the lineup, with improved design and camera capabilities coming to the latest version. At its price, it’s a decent option to consider at under Rs. 50,000, and the photography and AI capabilities can be rather helpful once you get the hang of them. 

Performance and battery life are good as well, making this a decent all-round device. The bloatware on ColorOS is perhaps the only major complaint here, but the Oppo Reno13 Pro is a well-equipped device with genuinely useful features and specifications for the price.