Product test
Review: the Nothing Phone (3) is hot on the heels of top-of-the-range smartphones
by Jan Johannsen
Oppo Reno 4 Pro review: the phone that doesn’t quite fit in
17.10.2020
The Oppo Reno 4 Pro isn’t trying to be a flagship. But also, it kinda is. Not quite as expensive and not quite as good; but then again, offering massive performance in places. One more thing: why is the marketing around it so weird?
The Oppo Reno 4 is quite the peculiar apparition – both visually and in the context of the current smartphone market. Because, somehow, the Reno occupies a spot that no other phone occupies. And it’s blue.
There's actually not that much to say about the phone itself. So let’s take a look at the market situation instead, which is really interesting.
The almost-flagship
The Oppo Reno 4 Pro costs just under 1,000 francs at launch in October 2020. That’s just below flagship phone prices. Because Oppo thought it would be cool to create an entire new market segment with their phone. Or to serve a market segment that isn’t super developed. The «mid-range-but-also-slightly-flaship» segment.
The specs are, in fact, reflected in the price. If you’re a fan of flagships, a lot will be familiar to you. There’s the 12 GB of RAM, the 90 Hz screen and the triple-cam setup with 48 megapixels. To date, everything above a 60-hertz refresh rate is flagship.
On the flip side, there’s the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 system on a chip (SoC). Current flagships are equipped with the 800 series – the 865, to be precise. But still: the 765 does 5G. Although the 5G in the Oppo Reno 4 is non-standalone (NSA), i.e. it’s based on 4G LTE, it’s still faster than LTE.
The camera that potentially promises more than it can deliver
Apropos the backplate. That camera bump looks mighty familiar. Where might we know it from? Perhaps from a certain corporation named after a fruit?
The world is bound to notice that the camera bump on the Oppo Reno 4 is identical to that of the iPhone, minus the camera constellation. There’s the matt backplate with the shiny first-level bump. Then you have the lenses that stick out of the second bump. Oh, Oppo. And you surely thought nobody would notice. Yeah, no.
Underneath the bumps, which are most definitely not at all copied from the iPhone – what a ridiculous thought – there are three cameras. Four, if you count the depth sensor as a camera. Technologically speaking, it is a camera. But it doesn’t take any pictures; it provides telemetry data for the other three cameras to use for image optimisation, both in terms of hardware during the shot, and in terms of AI during post processing.
The other three cameras:
- 48 megapixels, f/1.7 wide-angle lens
- 8 megapixels, f/2.2, ultra wide-angle lens with 119° field of view
- 2 megapixels, f/2.4 macro lens
The manufacturer’s response is then typically, «But that’s not the actual use case.» Yeah, I know that. That’s exactly why I do it. But Oppo comes right out with the challenge to test it exactly how it’s not meant to be tested.
Well, well. Don’t mind if I do. So, at 11 p.m., I get on the Harley and hope to be back home before the rain hits.
That was the first trip. After I get back to the turning area – where, on a completely unrelated note, a strange white van is parked – I realise that Oppo has gracefully egged its own face. There is, in fact, an ultra night mode for video, but it’s not activated by default. Um, why? You have something that’s, at the very least, supposed to revolutionise videography, and it’s switched off by default? What the heck?
Okay, ultra night video – the little moon in the menu bar – is activated. Same trip again, same hope of staying dry.
Was it worth it? Not really. The big insights are: I take basically the same path through the roundabout on both trips and I got to speed through the night a bit on my motorcycle. But in terms of the video, I could have saved myself the drive. Sure, some of the colours pack a bit more punch, but revolutionary it is not.
On the other hand, the stabilisation is actually impressive. Aside from the light coming from the headlights, there are no points of reference that can be used to stabilise the image. And yet, the image isn’t intolerably shaky by any means. But the sound is an absolute catastrophe, and it has finally convinced me to start testing external microphones for smartphones. I mean, it’s really bad.
When it comes to photography, though, you win with the Oppo Reno 4 Pro. Because in that respect, it’s a flagship. I don't know if you know this, but Oppo has hit the nail on the head with the Find X2 Pro’s night mode – it’s the best available in the current flagship generation. No camera takes night pictures as beautiful as those taken on the Find X2 Pro.
Except the Reno 4 Pro.
Of course, you get the light-blue skies, which I don't like, aesthetically speaking, but I admit are technologically impressive. Or the orange skies, if light pollution is severe. In any case, Oppo could have advertised this and massively impressed everybody with it.
In the glaring digitec-studio backlighting, the camera performs so well that even the spotlight right in front of my face – with its two-metre diameter – can't spoil the picture.
Now that’s flagship. No doubt. So, a general question: Oppo, why aren't you making a big fuss about photo night mode? It's not just good; it's excellent. But no, let’s talk for ages about the mid-range video night mode instead. Um, why?
Other companies stand to learn a great deal from this technology. But nah. The totally average night mode for video is what counts.
A word about language
Speaking of marketing: Oppo is doing a lot of things in a new way, including language. The Chinese manufacturer is the market leader when it comes to using terms in ways they really shouldn’t be used. So, please forgive this digression and/or appendix.
As absurd as my Gigalords may seem as a storage unit, they’re still better than ROM.
And then there's the bit about charging speed. Oppo cheekily claims a «charging speed of 65 watts». This is where critics would point out that the watt is not a unit of speed. This may be true, but the watt is still a good indication of charging speed. The watt is a unit of power. So, the problem is not the word «watt», but the descriptor «speed». A «charging power of 65 watts» would make more sense.
Bam. Done. By the way, the Oppo Reno 4 Pro is also available in neon green. Do I think that's cool because it's objectively cool? Or is it because I’ve already had so many black phones that everything un-black is automatically amazing?
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
Smartphone
Follow topics and stay updated on your areas of interest
