Oppo Reno8 Pro review: Fails to stand out

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Oppo has historically had phones at just about every price point you can think of, from budget all the way up to premium.

When you get into that premium space, you really do need to deliver something special. Oppo did that to an extent with the Oppo Find X5 Pro, but that leaves the phones that sit just underneath it in a tricky position. They're still premium devices with prices to match, but they can't be too special because then nobody will buy the true flagship model.

That's what the Oppo Reno8 Pro is. It's a generally acceptable premium phone, but one that lacks that essential special spark or a price drop to make it more palatable, especially when you compare it against what you could get for the same money.

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Design: Slick – maybe a little too slick

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

Most phone companies hit upon a design idea and iterate from there, and that's precisely what Oppo has done with the Reno8 Pro.

It shares the same sleek moulded design back idea found in the more expensive Oppo Find X5 Pro, where the camera bump gently melts into the case body.

It's a great look that I really do enjoy visually, but it does come with some peril.

The rear of the Reno8 Pro is quite slippery, and I can say that it should be able to survive at least one drop to the floor out of your hands if you clumsily pick it up too rapidly.

Which is to say, sorry Oppo, I totally did drop your premium phone on the floor. It survived, though, so that's a plus.

Once you pick it up and dust it off, you'll be faced with a large phone – I'm also going to say that's part of the reason that it slipped through my clumsy digits – with a 6.7-inch 2412x1080 pixel AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate.

Where many makers tend to drop their phones straight into 60Hz mode by default, Oppo does the reverse, although it is a "dynamic" rate that chooses 60Hz or 120Hz depending on content, not a straight choice switch between the two.

The model Oppo provided me for review was the Glazed Green variant, but if you're not feeling quite that minty, there's also a more sedate Glazed Black model to choose from.

Camera: Best for selfies

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

Oppo prides itself as a camera phone company, and over the years, some of my favourite phones, especially in the mid-range, for camera quality have come from Oppo.

The Reno8 Pro's $1,199 price point does put it in direct competition with some quite notable camera phone options, however. Also, it's clear that Oppo wants to keep the premium Find X5 Pro as the company flagship, so the Reno8 Pro instead presents a slightly cut-down experience of what you'd find there.

At the rear, it features a primary 50MP wide, an 8MP ultra-wide and a 2MP macro camera, while the front hole-punch hides a 32MP selfie shooter. That's a step up in megapixel terms for egotistical camera choices, although megapixels aren't the be-all and end-all when it comes to camera quality.

The Reno8 Pro does get the same MariSilicon XNPU for post-photo processing as its bigger FindX siblings, but it delivers mixed results. Using AI post processing is a feature everyone uses, but comparatively, I'd generally prefer to shoot with the Google Pixel 7, which manages a more natural tone to most of its photos.

The 32MP selfie camera can shoot very pleasing shots, but you have to be careful. For example, here's a straight selfie of me. I generally don't like taking shots of my own face, but I do rather like this one:

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

Plenty of portrait modes really struggle with bald heads and distinct lines, but the Reno8 Pro does well here.

However, you can tweak those shots with Oppo's filters and beauty modes, which is how I now know what my alien doppelganger will look like. Here he is:

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

And dialling it all up to maximum, here he is trying to hypnotise you as he takes over the planet:

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

Flipping to the rear, the 2MP macro shoots a little better than the crappy 2MP macros you'll find on many budget phones, but then it should. You'll still struggle to get too many pleasing photos out of it.

Overall, the Reno8 Pro shoots well, but not superbly at this price point. It's best suited to those who want slightly better selfies – or those who desperately want to meet their alien doppelgangers.

Oppo Reno8 Pro sample photos:

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

Performance: Fast enough, but your other options are faster

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

The Oppo Reno8 Pro might look like the Find X5, but under the hood, there are some solid differences. The premium flagship Find X5 runs with a Snapdragon 888 processor whereas the Oppo Reno8 Pro has a slightly lower grade MediaTek Dimensity 8100 SoC on board.

The days when MediaTek was solely the processor of choice for some awful budget phones are behind it. The company now produces some pretty solid results in phones that want to cut just a little off their premium price – like the Oppo Reno8 Pro.

Still, at the Oppo Reno8 Pro's $1,199 price point, you've got a lot of choices to make because this is solidly in the space of lower-end premium flagship phones. So how does it compare? Here's how it stacks up using Geekbench 5's CPU test:

You can't quite get an iPhone 14 (https://www.finder.com.au/apple-iphone-14-review) for the price of the Reno8 Pro, but you can get the iPhone 13, and that's a phone that does best Oppo's in a straight line CPU test.

It's interesting to note that the Reno8 Pro outpaces the Google Pixel 7 slightly in CPU terms, although not quite to a degree where you'd likely notice it in day-to-day usage.

It's not quite as clear-cut a story in GPU terms, where the Reno8 Pro's Mali G610 GPU fared badly in 3DMark's Wild Life test against the same pack of competitor phones:

The practical story here is that the Reno8 Pro, like so many flagship phones, has more than enough power for most Android applications.

At the time of reviewing, it was an Android 12 phone with Oppo's own ColorOS 12.1 overlay on top of it, and the September 2022 security update for Android available. Oppo is definitely readying a beta version of Android 13 at the time of writing, and a future update to Android 14 seems likely – but we'll have to wait and see on that score.

Over the years, ColorOS has gradually morphed from being a blatant iOS clone to a much lighter re-imagining of what Android could look like. It's slightly less candy-coated than it used to be, which suits my particular taste quite well.

I'm still more of a fan of stock Android, but then the whole point of Android is that you can make of it what you want to. So while many of Oppo's own apps do ask for scary permissions when you first launch them, you're at least being made aware of those permissions, and the odds are very good that there are alternatives available on Google Play if you need them.

Battery: Hey, where's my wireless charging?

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

The Oppo Reno8 Pro packs in a 4,500mAh battery behind its large frame. That's not the largest in a big-screen phone to speak of, but then I've tested far too many 5,000mAh phones by now that had disappointing battery life figures to put my faith entirely just in battery numbers.

The Oppo Reno8 Pro fared reasonably in Finder's battery test against competitors, but it certainly fell short – once again – to the similarly priced Google Pixel 7 in this respect:

Day-to-day usage showed it to be fair but unexceptional; you're almost certainly going to make it to the end of the day with moderate usage.

When it comes time to charge the Oppo Reno8 Pro, there's good news and bad news. On the bad news front, wireless charging is notably absent. That's a truly weird omission for a phone that sits in the premium price space because so many of its competitors provide it.

However, being an Oppo phone, you do get blazingly fast wired charging, with up to 80W charging speeds via the supplied adaptor. As with most approaches like this, you'll notice the Oppo Reno8 Pro getting somewhat warm when you do fast charge it, but that's a relatively small price to pay for a rapidly charging phone. You might even appreciate it when winter rolls around.

Should you buy the Oppo Reno Pro 8?

The Oppo Reno8 Pro is a good phone, but it's not a great one. The problem here is that Oppo wants a fairly considerable sum for it relative to what it can do. It's not hard to find a faster phone, one with better battery life or one that can shoot in a more flexible style at this price.

That leaves the Oppo Reno8 Pro in an awkward position. At a sale price, and especially if you can nab one for under $1,000, it could be a solid buy. At full price, it's a much harder sell.

Pricing and availability

The Oppo Reno8 Pro retails in Australia for $1,199 outright.

Price

RRP: $1,399.99

Where to buy

Check price at eBay

Check availability at Amazon

Specifications

How we tested

I tested the Oppo Reno8 Pro over a 2-week period, testing its camera, battery performance and application performance both with industry-standard benchmarks as well as daily app performance across a range of tasks. The unit used for review was loaned to me by Oppo Australia.

As a product reviewer, I've got more than 20 years of experience covering the consumer tech space including a huge range of smartphones. I'm a multi-time Australian IT Journo award winner, including winner of the 2022 Best Reviewer award.