Oppo has launched its latest upgrade to the Reno 5 series with Reno 6 and Reno 6 Pro. The Reno 6 Pro 5G is Oppo’s new high-end offering.
With a slight design refresh & some upgrades, it certainly does outshine its predecessors in some ways. But you’ll also end up finding many similarities as well.
Is this an overpriced phone when compared to its competitors? Let’s dive into the review to find out.
Design & Display:
From its display to its back panel the phone looks and feels premium for the price. However, that’s not entirely surprising considering that Oppo has a reputation for introducing beautiful and impressive looking phones to the market.
The Reno 6 Pro follows a minimalistic approach with curved edges, an elegant shimmer effect on the back that has a matte texture. In terms of the build quality, the phone is supported by a solid metal frame, that’s easier to hold & feels nice in hand.
At first glance, there are two main elements that catch the user’s attention. The first is the slightly raised quad-camera array and the other is the chromatic pattern at the back, that’s been brought to life using Oppo’s Reno Glow technology. The Reno Glow technology brings a subtly sparkling finish to the anti-glare glass of the device.
The display has narrow bezels that allow you to enjoy an immersive visual experience. This time around with the Reno 6 Pro, Oppo has decided to go with a rather tiny punch hole for the selfie camera.
For those looking to play games on the phone, the Reno 6 Pro 5G offers support for a 180 Hz touch sampling rate & a fast 90 Hz refresh rate.
The Reno 6 Pro has a 6.55 FHD+ AMOLED panel that comes with nice saturated colors as well as HDR10+ & Netflix HD certification. The deep blacks and strong contrast levels are inherent properties of an OLED panel which make multimedia consumption an absolute pleasure!
The device also features a fingerprint sensor that sits within the display.
The Oppo Reno 6 Pro comes in beautiful chromatic hues of Black, Blue & Aurora.
Performance & Hardware:
Over the years we’ve seen Oppo phones lag behind their competitor’s when it came to smartphone performance but the Reno 6 Pro is an exception to that. The phone packs impressive hardware.
It features a MediaTek MT6893 Dimensity 1200 5G chipset which is built on a 6 nm architecture. This hardware makes the Reno 6 Pro a performance-focused device that can breeze through multitasking and power-hungry games equally well. The chipset lags behind many of its competitor phones. However, the daily user experience is well covered when looked at from the performance point of.
Oppo Reno 6 Pro comes with the newer UFS 2.1 which has a faster read & write speed and allows two storage options to choose from. An 8 GB option with an internal storage of 128 GB & a 12 GB option with an internal storage of 256 GB. However, the storage here isn’t expandable.
The phone doesn’t include a headphone jack but we get a USB-C headphone in the box.
The speaker system here is a bit of a letdown, it’s a single firing unit & for this price, there’s no excuse for dual speaker emission which we hope Oppo will look into further down the lane.
Battery:
The phone houses a 4500 mAh battery that allows 65 W fast charging. The Reno 6 Pro 5G also comes with battery optimization features such as super power-saving mode & super nighttime standby. These modes help in maximizing the battery life of the device.
The phone does ship with a 65 W charger. But then it doesn’t include wireless charging support which is a missing feature, especially within this price range.
Cameras:
The Oppo Reno 6 Pro has an AI-powered quad-camera setup. It includes a 50 MP Sony IMX766 sensor assisted by a 16MP ultra-wide-angle camera, a 13MP telephoto lens and an additional 2MP macro sensor. The device also includes a 32 MP selfie camera.
As is the case with most Oppo phones, the company has put a lot of effort into ensuring that the Reno 6 Pro provides a decent photography experience in adequate light. However, the cameras do seem to struggle in low light scenarios.
While clicking photos from the main camera the output is good in almost all scenarios it churns out crisp and vibrant shots when fed with a good amount of natural light, the contrast isn’t very good but the details are accurate and the dynamic range is wide.
However, the performance visibly deteriorates in the absence of natural light. In low light conditions, the phone struggles to capture details and also takes longer to focus.
The phone also includes interesting video features e.g Oppo’s Bokeh Flare effect that is included to elevate the videography experience on the device by adding a cinematic bokeh effect in portrait videos.
If we talk about the 32 MP punch-hole selfie camera, its detail and dynamic range are good, but it produces shots that are a bit over-processed. It tends to artificially brighten up both images and videos making for unnatural looking colors.
Color calibration between the wide, ultra-wide and telephoto lenses is not consistent, which is natural given the different hardware on-board. However, this weighs down on the entire camera experience
Final Verdict:
This smartphone is basically for users who’re very much into an attractive design. Although the phone does have some strong points when compared to its competitors we can’t say you won’t be disappointed.
All in all, we’ll conclude that this is a good phone which is priced in the wrong segment. Things like performance, earpiece, battery, display & 5G support are all great but while picking competition the lacking areas are key ones like the cameras, the software and the speaker system.
The standout feature of the phone is the striking design but if you’re looking to buy a phone with an excellent camera then we’d suggest that there are certainly better phones in this price range.
