Now that the OPPO Reno8 Pro 5G has been launched in Malaysia at the price of RM3,499, I can finally talk about my experiences using the phone these past few weeks.
As with any new smartphone, the Reno8 Pro comes equipped with several key improvements compared to its predecessor, the OPPO Reno7 series, which was released only half a year ago in February 2022.
With that in mind, the first thought I had when I was handed the phone was, what improvements can OPPO jam into the Reno8 series in such a short amount of time?
Judging by the fact that they invited me to Gopeng, Perak to test out the phone’s lowlight photography performance however, it’s safe to assume that most of the improvements were focused on its camera.
Sleek and seamless design
Starting off with the design, I noticed at the back of the phone was what OPPO called the Seamless Unibody Design, where the back was a single piece of glass instead of two separate parts like other smartphones.
The phone has a boxy shape softened by rounded corners, similar to that of Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy S22 series smartphones.
On the front, it has a 89% screen-to-body ratio, which makes the bezels quite thin and premium-looking.
Flipping the phone over to its sides, you’ll find the power button with a small indent on the right side, and a pair of volume buttons on the left. Pretty standard for a phone design.
Unfortunately, other than the USB Type-C port, the Reno8 Pro does not come equipped with a 3.5mm audio jack slot.
While you could buy a USB Type-C to 3.5mm adapter which is relatively inexpensive these days, the fact that it does not come with one out of the box is a little inconvenient for those of us who are still on team wired headphones.
OPPO did include a silicon case and a factory-applied screen protector at least, which offer some protection for the phone’s finish.
As of now, the Reno8 Pro is only available in two flavours, namely Glazed Green and Glazed Black. Knowing OPPO, they might release more colourways in the Malaysian market in the near future.
Lowlight-capable camera with OIS and EIS
One of the main standout features of the Reno8 Pro is the fact that it comes equipped with a 50MP IMX766 image sensor, as well as an 32MP IMX709 image sensor at the front that was developed in collaboration between Sony and OPPO.
To elaborate on why this is important, the IMX766 comes equipped with both Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) and Electronic Image Stabilisation (EIS) to ensure that images remain sharp even while taking pictures on the move.
The IMX709, on the other hand, helps ensure optimal lowlight picture-taking performance due to the larger pixel size that allows it to take in more light.
In addition to the camera sensors, the phone also comes with the MariSilicon X Neural Processing Unit (NPU) which was developed in-house to improve HDR performance, and skin beautification (which can be turned off).
The phone also has a 2MP macro camera and a 32MP front-facing selfie camera.
The camera was quite responsive, and the pictures it captured were not underexposed. In good lighting, there’s no doubt that the Reno8 Pro performs excellently, so then I took it into Gua Tempurung.
I did notice that when it came to subjects that were too dark, I still had to keep the phone motionless until it was done capturing the image as moving the phone before it was done caused the images to look blurry.
When taking pictures while walking around the cave, the images remain relatively sharp, likely due to the IMX766’s OIS and EIS feature.
When switching the camera over to Night mode, the device is able to capture more detail, particularly in darker sections of the cave.
The drawback of using this mode is that taking pictures can be quite slow, as the phone has to capture multiple images at the same time at various exposure and combine them to produce a single well-exposed shot.
After slightly over 950 steps of stairs later, we reached the end of our tour just before Tour 3 of Gua Tempurung.
We were not allowed to proceed further because it’s a little more dangerous, and the phone does not have a water and dust-resistant rating.
On a separate trip, I went to Petaling Street located in the heart of Kuala Lumpur to have a go at street photography.
This time, I used the Pro mode exclusively to manually set the ISO and shutter speed to achieve a specific look.
Despite that, I felt that launching the camera app from the lockscreen by double tapping either volume buttons felt a little sluggish, which caused me to miss a few opportunities to take a nice picture.
As for the selfie camera, I like how it automatically switches to wide-angle mode when it detects more than one person in frame.
On top of that, the selfie also supports Night mode, but be sure to turn off the beautification mode if you prefer something that looks a little more natural.
Capable hardware for a mid-ranged phone
| Chipset | MTK Dimensity 8100 |
| RAM | – 8GB – 12GB |
| Internal Storage | – 128GB – 256GB |
| Display | – 6.62-inch AMOLED Display – HDR10+ – 120Hz – 1080 x 2400 resolution – ~89.0% screen-to-body ratio |
| Camera | – 50MP, f/1.8, wide, Sony IMX766 – 8MP, f/2.2, ultrawide – 2MP, f/2.4, macro – 32MP, Sony IMX709 |
| Battery | – 4500mAh non-removable battery – Up to 80W fast charging – Reverse wireless charging |
When testing the phone using synthetic benchmarks, it managed to score around 7,590 points on 3DMark Slingshot, placing it at the top 95% of all smartphones tested to date.
With 3DMark Wildlife, on the other hand, it was placed at the top 82% with a score of 5,597 points.
The Reno8 Pro scored 834 points on Single-core performance and 3,401 points on Multi-score performance on Geekbench 5.
Benchmarks only tell a fraction of the story, though. The 120Hz display, on top of the ColorOS 12.1 operating system that was optimised to run on the Reno8 Pro made the phone feel smooth and responsive.
While on the topic of smoothness, the fact that our unit comes with 12GB of RAM allowed me to quickly switch between multiple apps without lagging.
The phone also comes with the RAM expansion feature, which uses spare internal storage as virtual RAM for the device to offload less intensive tasks to.
When it comes to playing mobile games, the phone ran Apex Legends Mobile and Asphalt 9 quite well. Though the device started to lag while playing Genshin Impact on medium settings, it was not so bad to the point it was unplayable.
Throughout my tests, the phone stayed relatively cool and was not uncomfortable to hold. The only moment I noticed that the phone started to heat up was also when I was playing Genshin Impact, but even then, it wasn’t unbearable.
Battery that lasts long and charges fast
During my trip into Gua Tempurung, the phone only went down by about 16% throughout my nearly two-hour-long visit.
At Petaling Street, the phone’s battery went down by 20% because I was taking more pictures and videos over the two-and-a-half-hour visit.
Because it supports the 80W SuperVOOC fast charging technology, I was able to fully charge the Reno8 Pro in around 34 minutes, which is really fast.
But do keep in mind that this is only possible when using a compatible SuperVOOC charger. This is because the chargers are equipped with several safety features to ensure that the phone doesn’t run into issues while charging.
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If you’re looking for a mid-ranged camera-focused smartphone that’s capable of competing against flagship devices double its price, then the OPPO Reno8 Pro 5G is a relatively safe bet.
This is especially true if you find yourself taking a lot of pictures in lowlight situations, in which case the MariSilicon X NPU, Sony IMX766, and Sony IMX709 image processors could make a difference.
Having said that, if you’re looking for something similar to the OPPO Reno8 Pro 5G but don’t need all of its high-end specs, you can opt for the slightly cheaper OPPO Reno8 5G at RM2,399 instead.
