Oppo Reno8 Pro review

The Oppo has multiple features that are either a marketing ploy or hard facts. So first let’s try to answer some, starting with the MariSilicon NPU that is crammed inside the Reno8 Pro to make night-time videos not look like a podgy mess. Firstly, the MariSilicon NPU is an additional chip that works in tandem with the MediaTek Dimensity 8100-MAX to process night-time videos with better portrait and HDR quality. Think of the MariSilicon NPU as the unpaid intern who, willingly or unwillingly, is made to process any video you take and correct its dynamic range and adjust its brightness and colour balance in real-time. Does it work? Not quite. We shot a video in a semi-dark environment and the result was rather noisy in the darker portions of the video. So the intern lacks the potential for the only thing it was hired to do. The Oppo Reno8 Pro also lacks OIS which means these videos have way too much shake and the end result is half-baked at best.

That said, In the stills department, the 50MP main camera (Sony IMX766) is fairly competent but confuses us with its camera quality. Sometimes the Oppo Reno8 Pro will take remarkable photos beating all and every competition and sometimes it’ll mess up. A simple point-and-shoot can either give you Apple iPhone 12 Pro beating photos or sometimes blow up the exposure and have blurry focus like a ₹30K smartphone camera. The computational smarts are not consistent. When compared to the Nothing Phone (1) and a secret mystery smartphone soon to be launched in India, the Oppo Reno8 Pro lacks proper white balance and skin detection. The whites are slightly blown and the blacks are rubbed to a smudge. Bear in mind that this is still a great camera. We’re just nitpicking here and comparing it to the two major smartphone players in the same price range. One of which is yet to be announced at the time of writing.

The 8MP ultra-wide (Sony IMX355) is pretty similar in performance to its peers. It’s got better sharpening and contrast than the Nothing Phone (1). There’s a bit of noise but again, our nitpicky brain is trying to tear down the camera’s performance. For an average user and most likely the aforementioned Instagram addicts, these things will barely hamper the experience of using the Oppo Reno8 Pro’s cameras.

Things are good after the sun goes down. It’s capable of taking very crispy shots with enough artificial lighting to keep the subject nice and visible. Although sometimes the camera can be inconsistent and blurry in night mode. You may have to tap on the subject or anywhere in the frame to get the camera to focus. We got only one useable and beautiful shot of a cat at night from the six attempts. Outdoor night shots also produced a lot of colour fringing around the edges so as long as the subject is in the centre, you should be fine. The Reno8 Pro will thrive in dimly lit indoor areas. So your Friday night pub crawl will look just great but venture out into the dark and the noise and colour fringing will creep in.

The 2MP macro camera is best left untouched. Meanwhile, the 32MP front camera has no control over tricky lighting situations and the skin colour is always made brighter and whiter than you look. If you have a fair complexion, the front camera will try to be less of a miracle worker.

Miracles or not, the rear of this smartphone is truly likeable. It’s not too nerdy like the Nothing Phone (1) nor is it too lame. There’s a streamlined design around the camera bump with a smooth 75-degree micro-arc that blends the camera module with the rear panel. The micro-arc is also positioned so that your fingertip can easily rest while holding it.

Oppo has really polished its design over the years. It’s getting better with every iteration of smartphones. The metal sides, the slick rear and the top glass, all have been put together neatly and tucked in like a newborn. It’s impressive and surprisingly feels lightweight. Especially when you consider that it's got a 4,500mAh battery and the weight distribution is among the best we’ve seen in a smartphone.

Speaking of which, the battery charges with the bundled 80W SuperVOOC charger. If used with the bundled charger, the Oppo Battery Health Engine kicks in and monitors the whole charging process like an airport sniffer dog. It controls the charging current and voltage in real-time and is said to be safer than others. How much of that is true? Only time will tell.

So if you spend your waking hours trying to bring the battery percentage down to single digits, performance is plenty on tap and also plenty capable of draining your battery. On the spec sheet alone, the Oppo Reno8 Pro has all the innards to keep this going as long as you want. There’s 12GB RAM (standard with Android smartphones these days) but it’s also DDR5 RAM which makes it more capable than the older generation. The UFS 3.1 256GB storage keeps the Reno8 Pro slick on the inside too. Not to mention the MediaTek Dimensity 8100-MAX keeps the whole phone smooth for your most unreasonable demands. On Geekbench 5, we got a multi-core score of 3,507 meanwhile the Nothing Phone (1) scored 2,880. The Nothing Phone (1) also costs ₹8K less for the matching RAM variant so some things are forgivable for the newcomer.

It’s good for gaming, but we would rather shoot photos and watch Netflix because Oppo didn’t talk about any fancy cooling happening inside here, and from what we can tell, this is aimed at everyone with a dressing sense. It can also get slightly hot if you run Call of Duty: Mobile and other demanding games.

Although, games look good on this display. Its got a 6.7in AMOLED display with HDR10+ and 120Hz refresh rate. All things considered, you won’t find problems with its slick performance and the display but when you pit it against the benchmark of smartphones, the difference is quite apparent. There’s a wee bit of boost to saturation and the highlights are uncontrolled. The colours appear brighter and unnatural. HDR content is the same as well.

Oppo has not banished all the annoying bloatware from its UI. You can, thankfully, sit and uninstall the many apps that come preloaded, but it’s weirdly always pushing news into our notifications from the default browser app. Something which we never gave permission to do so. Even the advertisement-looking wallpapers are really tucked away in the UI for you to hunt and turn off. We still think it’s progress. The default keyboard, Message and Phone apps are stock Android which is truly great to see (and use).

There’s no IP rating and you won’t find wireless charging here so make sure you stay away from the pool.

In the pool of smartphones that just don’t stop flooding our desks, the Oppo Reno8 Pro is not as much of a hard sell as the Nothing Phone (1). It’s much better in performance but it also costs some extra dosh to rake in your interest. You do get a charger and cover in the box, so the cost difference is slowly shrinking between the two smartphones. It’s also aligned to interest people who want something elegant to hold and behold, and so far the Reno8 Pro manages that exceptionally well.

The MariSilicon NPU was not as exciting as we thought it would be and you can feel the pinch even harder because of the absence of an OIS. Everything else about the Reno8 Pro is apt for the price.