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After spending a few weeks with the Oppo Reno 10 5G, it’s clear that this is a device that punches well above its price tag.
While most phones look like cardboard cutouts of each other, the Reno 10 does a remarkable job of standing out from the crowd.
From its shiny, shimmery finish to the massive lens array on the back of the phone, this is a stylish device that belies the $749 RRP. It’s designed to cater to younger users who live and breathe by the quality of their phone camera.
The phone is a solid performer, too. It might not deliver full flagship performance, but you’ll be happy enough with the quality of the photos its camera array produces.
OPPO Reno 10 5G review: Design
Taking the Reno 10 5G out of the box, I was surprised by just how attractive the rear finish of the phone was.
The Oppo Reno 10 5G offers a choice of two colour variations. You can opt for either the chic ‘Silvery Grey’ for that edgy minimalistic look or the ‘Ice Blue,’ which is what I tested.
It looks blue in the box, but as soon as some light hits it, you get a pearly reflection in pinks and purples. As you move the phone around, it shimmers, reflecting in pinks and greens depending on the angle and the light source.
It really is a stylish phone to look at.
Less attractive, though, is the sheer amount of bloatware pre-installed on the device when you first switch it on.
While the first page of the home screen looks remarkably like most other Android phones (with a clear OPPO flavour thanks to Color OS), swipe sideways, and you’ll see an army of pre-installed games and apps.
You can remove them easily enough, but it’s a pain.
Under the hood
Aside from the rear finish and the phone full of bloatware, the front of the phone is a bit more familiar.
It boasts a 6.7-inch display with a 120Hz refresh rate capable of over a billion colours. The bezel around the display is tiny, with a pinhole camera for selfies and an under-screen fingerprint sensor you train when you set the phone up.
Inside, the phone is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 7050 system on a chip, and comes with 8 GB RAM and 256 GB of onboard storage.
That places this phone firmly in the mid-range on the performance front, compared to the A17 Pro chips in this year’s iPhone 15 Pro models and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chips in the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.
But Oppo is banking on its portrait camera to get people past its processor.
Pretty pictures
The biggest selling point of the Reno 10 5G is its camera.
It protrudes a fair way out from the back of the shimmering case, with all the lenses packed into two separate zones in a single protrusion.
The Oppo Reno 10 5G’s main camera boasts a powerful 64MP lens. Equipped with an f/1.7 aperture and autofocus, you can enjoy high-quality photos.
There is also a telephoto camera with a 32MP autofocus lens. For those looking to capture wide frames, the 8MP Ultra-wide-angle camera is an excellent feature. With its fixed focus and an f/2.2 aperture, it’s uniquely designed for capturing expansive views.
The phone also comes with a 1/2-inch sensor for that 64MP lens, which helps it take nice portrait shots.
The larger the sensor, the bigger the light-catching surface area it provides. This means that the device can capture more light, enhancing the quality of your pictures.
The 1/2-inch sensor in the Oppo Reno 10 5G allows for sharper images, as well as the ability to create a beautifully blurred background, and gives better performance in conditions with less light.
OPPO Reno 10 5G review: Performance
Benchmarking the Oppo Reno 10 5G shows reasonable performance levels for the phone. It obviously can’t compete with the premium flagships on the market, but compared to the likes of the Pixel 6a, it holds its own.
Single-core:
Multi-core:
GPU:
The inclusion of a 120Hz screen means that almost all interaction with the phone feels slick. It scrolls quickly and efficiently, and games look great on the screen.
The Reno 10 5G comes with Oppo’s SUPERVOOC fast charging, which helps deal with any low battery situations.
Battery life itself is on par with other phones in this category. You’ll get through a day, but definitely not two, from the 5,000mAh battery.
But there is a definite advantage when you can plug the phone in and get about 40% charged in 15 minutes.
The catch with the fast charging is that, like the Oppo A98 5G we reviewed recently, there’s no wireless charging on this device.
Camera performance
With a camera built around the idea of portrait photography, there are quite a few features to play around with to get the best quality portrait shot.
Out of the box, you’ll probably want to turn off the “Retouch” beauty mode that is switched on by default. While ridiculously smooth blemish-free skin and enlarged eyes might be appealing to some people, it’s certainly something you should add after the fact, rather than ruining your photos with it up front.
Aside from Retouch mode, you also have pre-defined filters to select in Portrait mode, which again you should probably ignore.
More useful is the aperture control slider, that helps adjust the depth of field of a photograph.
You get alerts that you’ll get best results in well-lit situations. Even so, I wasn’t blown away by the quality of portrait photos.
In my mind, these photos are fine, but don’t capture the same vibrancy as something like the Pixel 8 does.
When you’re not shooting portraits, the Reno 10 does an adequate job. I found that in certain situations, the camera could be a bit slow to fire, which means you end up with a blurry shot if the subject is moving.
There were also shots in difficult lighting where the Reno 10 couldn’t balance bright and dark sections of the photo.
But for a mid-range device, overall the camera experience is a good one.
OPPO Reno 10 5G review: Verdict
The Oppo Reno 10 5G is a solid device that outperforms its price tag. It offers a really striking design, impressive battery life and a solid camera pitched for portrait photography.
The catch is that even though the Reno 10 does a good job with portrait photos, it still doesn’t perform as well as other phones like the Pixel 8. Sure it’s a bit cheaper, but the value is there.
I’d also love for Oppo to not preload the phone with dozens of crappy games and apps I won’t use. It’s been a while since I’ve really felt the sting of bloatware on a piece of tech, and while I appreciate I can delete the apps I don’t want, it would be better if I didn’t have to.
Buy the Oppo Reno 10 5G online
Oppo supplied the product for this review.
