OPPO Reno3 Pro review – Lots of positives and a few negatives

OPPO Reno3 Pro is almost a flagship with its high-quality 90 Hz AMOLED display, stereo speakers, SoC Snapdragon 765G and 12 GB of RAM. Let’s take a closer look at it.

Read also: OPPO Find X2 review — The Best Display on the Market?

What is interesting about OPPO Reno3 Pro?

In the era of pricey flagships, OPPO Reno3 Pro looks like a bargain. It turns out that manufacturers do not need to exceed this psychological limit in order to offer a device with excellent technical characteristics and a pretty good camera.

Snapdragon 765G, 12 GB of RAM, 256 GB of storage is a strong set of specs for an expensive phone. What’s more, we get AMOLED 6.5-inch screen with a refresh rate of 90 Hz, stereo speakers, headphone output and four cameras. Add 5G support, and we get almost a flagship. It even feels like a flagship sometimes, which should come as a surprise.

OPPO Reno 3 Pro is cheaper than its competitors. And although this device has compromises in some places, I can say that it is worth every penny spent.

Where to buy OPPO Reno3 Pro:

OPPO Reno3 Pro specs

NETWORK
Technology
GSM / CDMA / HSPA / EVDO / LTE / 5G

LAUNCH
Announced
2019, December

Status
Available. Released 2019, December

BODY
Dimensions
159.4 x 72.4 x 7.7 mm (6.28 x 2.85 x 0.30 in)

Weight
171 g (6.03 oz)

Build
Glass front (Gorilla Glass 5), glass back (Gorilla Glass 5), aluminum frame

SIM
Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)

DISPLAY
Type
AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors

Size
6.5 inches, 103.5 cm2

Resolution
1080 x 2400 pixels, 20:9 ratio (~402 ppi density)

Protection
Corning Gorilla Glass 5

90Hz refresh rate
500 nits typ. brightness (advertised)

PLATFORM
OS
Android 10, ColorOS 7

Chipset
Qualcomm SDM765 Snapdragon 765G (7 nm)

CPU
Octa-core (1×2.4 GHz Kryo 475 Prime & 1×2.2 GHz Kryo 475 Gold & 6×1.8 GHz Kryo 475 Silver)

GPU
Adreno 620

MEMORY
Card slot
No

Internal
128GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 12GB RAM

UFS 2.1

MAIN CAMERA
Quad
48 MP, f/1.7, 26mm (wide), 1/2.0″, 0.8µm, PDAF, OIS
13 MP, f/2.4, 53mm (telephoto), 1/3.4″, 1.0µm, PDAF, 2x optical zoom
8 MP, f/2.2, 115˚ (ultrawide), 1/3.2″, 1.4µm
2 MP B/W, f/2.4, 1/5.0″, 1.75µm

Features
Dual-LED flash, HDR, panorama

Video
[email protected], [email protected]/60/120/240fps; gyro-EIS, OIS

SELFIE CAMERA
Single
32 MP, f/2.4, 26mm (wide), 1/2.8″, 0.8µm

Features
HDR

Video
[email protected]

SOUND
Loudspeaker
Yes, with stereo speakers

3.5mm jack
No

COMMS
WLAN
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot

Bluetooth
5.1, A2DP, LE, aptX HD

GPS
Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS

NFC
Yes

Radio
No

USB
3.1, Type-C 1.0 reversible connector, USB On-The-Go

FEATURES
Sensors
Fingerprint (under display, optical), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass

BATTERY

Non-removable Li-Po 4025 mAh battery

Charging
Fast charging 30W, 50% in 20 min (advertised)
VOOC 4.0

MISC
Colors
Black, White, Starry Night, Sunrise, Classic Blue

Models
PCRM00, PCRT00, CPH2009

SAR EU
0.82 W/kg (head)     1.29 W/kg (body)

Price
$ 656.72

Unboxing and first impressions

OPPO decided to surprise me from the first minutes. It is worth noting that the device arrived in a pretty good configuration.

In the original hardboard box, in addition to the OPPO Reno3 Pro itself, you will find a charger and a USB Type-C cable, a transparent silicone case, wired headphones, a SIM card eject tool, various instructions and documentation. I note that the protective film is already attached to the screen.

As you can see, the package is pretty good, considering the price.

Although, when you first get it out of the box, you don’t feel like it’s a mid-ranger. A very interesting smartphone with an attractive design; the phone is rather thin, I would say almost elegant, it fits perfectly in the hand. In fact, I was not only impressed with the device – I was intrigued. It looks and feels expensive, but how good is it in real operation? And, what’s even more important, what did OPPO take out to make it more affordable?

Read also: OPPO Reno2 Z review

Slim body and attractive design

The advantage of Oppo Reno3 is its beauty and size. Although I am sorry that the Reno3 Pro no longer has an immersion screen and a pop-up camera like the Oppo Reno2.

Immediately after removing the device from the box, I noticed for myself not only several positive points, but also some weird stuff. From the very beginning, I was delighted with the design of the smartphone. The gradient of the blue hue, passing from light blue to cobalt, is impressive every time you take the gadget in your hands without a case. The body is also surrounded by a gradient aluminum frame. The display is curved on both sides, and is in perfect harmony with the slim silhouette of the smartphone. At first, all these factors very effectively distract attention from the other elements. But then you start to pay more attention to the little things.

There is no headphone jack, and an island with four cameras looks like it was whipped up at the factory just before assembling the phone. The lenses are located unevenly, and it all looks very… cheap. Not aesthetically pleasing, given that it spoils the overall impression of the design. For me, this is actually the only, but a rather serious flaw in the design of the smartphone.

Although, indeed, everything looks beautiful, especially in black, which should be a boring color. The phone is pretty thin, I would even say elegant. In addition to good design, the front and back of the smartphone are covered with Gorilla Glass 5 and has an aluminum frame. But, like any glass phone, it quickly collects fingerprints. Only the protective case helps, which, fortunately, is included.

Thanks to a slightly smaller screen than most competitors this year, the Oppo Reno3 Pro fits perfectly in my hand. With a size of 160 x 72.4 x 7.7 mm, it is still a big phone, but it is narrow enough. In addition, the low weight – only 171 g – allows you to forget that the smartphone is in your pocket.

As for the buttons, there is definitely nothing special here. On the right, we have the power button with a strip of green.

Buttons for adjusting the volume are placed on the left side. To be honest, for me it is not very convenient, since I always forget where it is..

This is an original, although definitely not the most convenient configuration. Moreover, simultaneously pressing the power and volume buttons makes a screenshot. And since the buttons are located almost parallel on different sides, at first I regularly took screenshots, which was really annoying until I got used to it.

At the bottom, traditionally for modern smartphones, you will find the main microphone, a USB Type-C connector for connecting to a PC, and a charger. On one side is a slot for two nanoSIM cards, not hybrid, so there is no way to expand the memory using the card. On the right is the main speaker.

The top edge contains only the second microphone and nothing else.

Almost the entire front panel is occupied by a display with rather thin bezels. As you already understood, a fingerprint scanner is built into the screen, which is a very modern solution. It pleasantly surprised me, but more on that later.

The design and build quality left a double impression. On the one hand, OPPO Reno3 Pro has a fairly modern design, slim body, high-quality screen with minimal bezels. But then after some time you realize that the case is quite slippery and only the protective cover saves from falling. In addition, the protruding camera unit with unevenly arranged lenses does not look very aesthetically pleasing and spoils the entire design. Although maybe I’m too picky. Maybe it’s unreasonable trying to compare it with the design of the flagships.

High-quality 90 Hz screen

OPPO Reno3 Pro has a screen that frankly surprised me. Let me remind you that the smartphone is equipped with an 6.5-inch AMOLED FullHD+ display with curved edges and a resolution of 2400 × 1080 pixels (402 ppi). The manufacturer says that the screen occupies as much as 93.4% of the surface and has a brightness of up to 800 nits. And there is a lot of truth in this, because the screen really does its job well, even in the sun.

In addition, we get a kind of “infinity” effect, which is enhanced by slightly rounded edges. They do not interfere with using a smartphone.

The smartphone comes with a protective film glued to the screen right from the factory. Moreover, the film is quite high quality and I noticed it only after a while. Therefore, I would advise you not to remove it, as it will certainly help maintain the device in perfect condition.

But the main feature of the OPPO Reno3 Pro display is 90 Hz refresh rate, which is set automatically. You can switch to 60 Hz, but, believe me, the difference in quality is very noticeable even with the naked eye. In addition, this practically does not affect the battery life of the device. I advice choosing 90 Hz since it really makes using the phone more pleasant.

This is largely due to the perfect black color and high maximum brightness. But the color rendition is really good. This is especially noticeable with various shades of gray.

You can also count on a decent contrast (the phone supports HDR10+) and a good level of detail. The display has different color settings (delicate and bright). The difference between them is significant – in the “bright” mode the colors are very expressive. The “delicate” (sRGB) mode is more restrained, but the color rendition is very good in it too.

There are some issues though. The fact is that only few videos support the widescreen aspect ratio of the display (20:9). You can either suffer black lines on both sides of the scree, or expand the image to fill the entire screen. However, in my opinion, this is not a good solution in the long run, as it distorts the proportions of the movie or cuts off the content.

I already wrote about the fingerprint scanner above. It’s great, and the only “inconvenience” is that you have to wipe your hands before unlocking the phone.

Now a little about something else. In the upper left corner of the display is the hole of the front camera. It’s trendy – a bit divisive, but effective. Here the camera is located surprisingly deep in the notch. It is almost invisible.

OPPO Reno3 Pro performance. Almost a flagship

The first thing I noticed is how fast this smartphone is. But that should’ve have surprised me, since the smartphone is equipped with the latest mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G along with the Adreno 620 graphics chip. It is an eight-core chipset that boasts a combination of six Kryo 475 Silver cores up to 1.8 GHz and one Kryo 475 Prime core up to 2.4 GHz and Kryo 475 Gold up to 2.2 GHz.

I note that the Snapdragon 765G is the best chipset for a mid-ranger and you can find it only on the newer phones. Its theoretical capabilities are impressive as well. Experts talk about the overall performance, placing the chipset between the Snapdragon 845 and 855. This indicates a really good specifications. In addition, the manufacturer installed 12 GB of RAM (DDR4) and 256 GB of storage.

As for communication capabilities, everything is fine as well. Unfortunately, my model does not support 5G, but the smartphone has support for all cellular networks, including 4G LTE, and dual-band Wi-Fi. There is also an NFC module for contactless payments (Google Pay) and an almost new version of Bluetooth 5.0.

There’s also GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo. The smartphone always determined the location correctly. There are no complaints about the quality of cellular communication either. The connection is very stable.

Benchmark tests prove once again that the OPPO Reno3 Pro is a very fast and powerful smartphone. But I wanted to really test its capabilities.

As it turns out, the device is excellent at everyday tasks. Applications and social networks are smooth and fast.

When it comes to games on Android OS, it’s all good. The most interesting thing about the phone is its refresh rate (90 Hz).

PUBG Mobile runs on maximum settings (HDR). The display here is a real pleasure when gaming.

Asphalt 9 is about the same: the gameplay is smooth, and FPS almost never drop.

There is another important thing that will interest potential buyers. The device never overhears, even while playing.

Android 10 with ColorOS 7

OPPO Reno3 Pro runs on the latest version of Android 10 with the addition of its own ColorOS 7 shell. I never before used ColorOS, but this experience made me once again think that most Android smartphones have become a little boring and repetitive in terms of overlays.

There are recognized masters of their craft, like Samsung, Huawei, and Xiaomi. And the others, although they try to come up with something of their own, mainly draw inspiration from either iOS or other competitors. OPPO did exactly that.

The shell contains everything that you might expect. It is not bad, but not original. If you want beautiful icons, you got it, or maybe you want an additional screen with a list of installed programs? Just swipe your finger from the bottom up.

I like the smart sidebar in Color OS. It is enough to press a finger on a part of the edge of the screen to gain access to useful functions activated with one click. This tool has potential and it will definitely find its fans. You can also add the “Game Zone” application to this. It’s software for managing installed games, from which you can activate, for example, automatic rejection of calls during the game. In addition, the control panel itself can be pulled out during the game (by moving from the upper corner of the screen to its center), for example, to quickly start recording the screen. I think this is great for gamers.

Of the interesting, I would mention the Oppo Relax service. With this application you can, for example, perform breathing exercises or listen to the relaxing sounds of nature.

In the three weeks I spent with OPPO Reno3 Pro, I didn’t exactly fall in love with ColorOS 7, although the shell is pretty nice, fast and clear. But I never did enjoy these various desktops and icons. But I admit that I was pleasantly surprised because I don’t remember the last time I saw Android running smoothly and quickly in this class of smartphones.

OPPO Reno3 Pro Camera – Good and bad

It’s time to take a look at the photographic capabilities of OPPO Reno3 Pro. I’ll start with the exact specifications of the main camera.

So we have four lenses:

• 48 MP, f/1.7, 26mm (wide), 1/2.0″, 0.8µm, PDAF, OIS
• 13 MP, f/2.4, 53mm (telephoto), 1/3.4″, 1.0µm, PDAF, 2x optical zoom
• 8 MP, f/2.2, 115˚ (ultrawide), 1/3.2″, 1.4µm
• 2 MP B/W, f/2.4, 1/5.0″, 1.75µm

Looks good, but let’s see them in action.

The camera app in OPPO Reno3 Pro reminds me of Huawei smartphones. The slider on the right allows you to choose a mode, next to it there are switching points between the lenses. On the left you can turn on HDR, flash, increase colors and choose a photo format. As for the professional mode, it looks a bit condensed. You can also adjust ISO, shutter speed, white balance, type of autofocus and perform exposure compensation.

There are also a number of different filters that you can apply to your shots. I will not write much about them, but I will mention eye enlargement and tooth whitening. Some of these effects are truly horrifying.

SEE EXAMPLES OF PHOTOS IN FULL RESOLUTION

I had high expectations for cameras in the OPPO Reno3 Pro, and to be honest, I was a little disappointed. Under good conditions, photos look great. Detailing is satisfactory, basically there is no noise and defects. Only in the  portraits reveal aggressive cropping. This does not change the fact that most photos look pretty good.

Sometimes it’s hard to take a good photo from close range. The process seems rather complicated due to artificial intelligence, which sometimes activates macro mode, and sometimes just recognizes the scene. However, you can turn it off.

Wide-angle photos also look pretty good. You may feel a slight decrease in quality, but in my opinion, it is still an acceptable level. And most importantly, the geometry of the photos is not much deformed.

The quality of photographs taken at night with the Ultra Night mode is not particularly impressive. To be honest, I expected more. Sometimes it seemed that the camera in this mode just makes bad pictures.

But still, progress in mid-range smartphones in night mode is pretty noticeable. It’s great – soon even the affordable phones will be able to make decent photos at night.

In front, on the left, in a small hole, there’s a camera with a 32 MP matrix (f/2.4, 0.8 μm). It guarantees beautiful selfies, and is also ideal for video calls. There is even bokeh effect.

By the way, you should pay attention to the phone’s video capabilities. Reno3 Pro can record 4K at 30 fps with ultra-stabilization (it uses OIS and EIS). There are two modes: normal, with better image quality and less stabilization, and Pro with a wider picture and more stabilization. The latter measures the digital correction of the image and crops the frame, but sometimes it allows for interesting effects. The mode is good enough, especially for this price, although it is inferior to stabilization in the more expensive flagships on Android.

Good battery life without surprises

The OPPO Reno3 Pro has a 4025 mAh battery. This capacity is sufficient for the phone to survive a day of normal use (from morning to evening) without a charger. Fortunately, it turned out that using 90 Hz screen consumes only additional 10-15% of the battery. But the picture quality is worth it.

OPPO is known for its fast charging. The bundled charger with VOOC 4.0 30 W mode ensures that after about 20 minutes it’s possible to charge the battery to about 50%. A full charge took me about 57 minutes. Very good result. Unfortunately, the smartphone does not support wireless charging.

OPPO Reno3 Pro: to buy or not to buy?

I have no clear answer to this question. I specifically did not mention competitors for this smartphone, since there are plenty of them in this price category. In addition, the price of the OPPO Reno3 Pro is somewhat high.

At the very beginning, I mentioned that this smartphone is full of surprises. I have a feeling that here very good elements are intertwined with the weak. Surprisingly good build quality, beautiful color and a gorgeous 90 Hz AMOLED display are combined with an average SoC, but the smartphone works surprisingly well, which puts it at the top in this price range. Good battery life and fast charging are the undoubted advantages that conflict slightly with the lack of waterproofing and wireless charging.

A subtle flaw for me is the ColorOS 7 shell, which didn’t win me over. However, maybe I just needed more time to get accustomed to it.

OPPO Reno 3 Pro is a convenient, super-fast and trouble-free device, which is worth recommending to everyone who is looking for a combination of good performance, decent photographic capabilities and comfort of use.

Pros

• beautiful gradient blue color;
• good build quality, aluminum, gradient edges and a matte surface;
• excellent display with rounded edges and 90 Hz;
• excellent performance;
• good cameras, especially during the day;
• ColorOS has potential;
• a fairly effective fingerprint scanner and face unlocking that you can rely on even in poor lighting conditions;
• VOOC 4.0 quick charge.

Cons

• huge protruding module with cameras;
• no protection against dust and moisture;
• buttons on two sides, which leads to accidental screenshots;
• busy ColorOS 7 shell;
• no memory card slot;
• price is too high.

Where to buy OPPO Reno3 Pro

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