Who knows me is quite familiar with the fact that I rarely use a smartphone for more than 6 straight months; over the years I tried many devices, both from Android and iOS ecosystems (and Windows Mobile, until it lasted), but I think I finally get my hands on a true champion: the OPPO Reno.

A little bit of history: OPPO is a Chinese brand created in 2004 and, after a period of growth and consolidation in the home market, it has decided to storm the Western digital world with excellent products at a competitive price point. After the first wave of devices in 2018 (supported by a solid ad campaign) and the introduction of the revolutionary Find X, in 2019 Oppo launched its Reno series: the standard version, the Z, the 10x zoom and a 5G version. The focus is here is on the first one of this list, but if you’d like to have impressions and opinions on the others, please leave a comment below.

Let’s dive into the Reno’s spec sheet:

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 processor (10nm chipset)
• 6.4″ Full HD+ (1080×2340 pixels) AMOLED display (93% screen-to-body ratio)
• 6GB RAM DDR4X
• 256GB UFS 2.1 storage
• 48 megapixels main camera, f/1.7 + 5 megapixels depth sensor f/2.4+ dual tone flash LED
• Motorized selfie camera, 16 megapixels f/2.0
• 3765mAh battery with VOOC recharge technology
• Optical, under glass fingerprint scanner + 2D facial recognition
• Dual-SIM tray, 4G+ enabled
• 2.0 USB-C port + 3.5mm headphone jack

I know, for those of you who aren’t tech enthusiasts these numbers and specs don’t mean so much. So let me analyse for you one category after the other, in order to give you a comprehensive picture of how good this Reno is.

Display and unlocks methods

The bezel-less screen is, in one word, gorgeous. It’s super immersive, with absolute blacks, good colour reproduction, vision angles and crispiness; it doesn’t reach the quality of Samsung’s Super AMOLED panels, but it’s surely among the best on the market. Visibility under direct sunlight is excellent, and you can wear your preferred sunglasses without problems: polarization isn’t a problem here.

You can unlock the Reno with the fingerprint scanner, which is really really fast and reliable although it’s an optical one (a technology not advanced as the ultrasonic implementation of other flagship devices like the new Samsung Note 10), or blinking to the pop-up camera through the 2D face recognition: I surely prefer the first option, given the latency of the camera mechanism. Nonetheless, watching that metallic shark fin going up and down is a pure moment of tech estasy…

Camera(s) and audio quality

The main camera produces great and harmonious shots. I like in particular the Dazzle Colour option: in short, with a tap you can choose whether or not to have hyper-saturated photos, an option that other manufacturers don’t offer. In addition, HDR (which can be triggered automatically) works excellently.

A portrait mode is present, too, thanks to the secondary 5 megapixels sensor: the results are good, but not at the level of Google Camera’s smartphones. Something quite astonishing is on the other hand what OPPO calls Ultra Night Mode 2.0: in low light situations the camera takes five shots, one right after the other, and combines them to extrapolate incredible details and plenty of light, as this example demonstrates:

Day-to-day usability

A 6.4″ smartphone, three or four years ago, would have been labelled as “phablet”: today it’s the normality, and we have become used to this sizes. It must be said that these 6.4″ have a 19.5/9 aspect ratio: this means that the Reno is quite narrow and tall, thus increasing the ergonomics. The back cover is made of polished glass and transmit a good sense of grip, obviously with a case this improves a lot; but trust me that you’ll struggle to cover this sexy back with some boring plastic…

Reception, both under 4G or WiFi, is great. The best adjective to describe the general performance is fluid: the system never stutters even when under full load, you’ll always be able to multitask between the apps without a forced closing. 6GB of RAM and UFS 2.1 memories do a great job here, you can’t feel a substantial difference with other flagship phones.

The only, truly annoying thing of this smartphone is the lack of a LED light, absolutely necessary to rapidly check the notifications, further amplified by the poor Always-On Display implementation by OPPO: you can only see the clock, the battery percentage and an icon for few apps (SMS, phone, WeChat).

Battery life

It’s damn good. 3765mAh isn’t the best-in-class nominal capacity, with competitors going beyond the 4000mAh landmark, but ColorOS (the Android skin made by OPPO) isn’t excessively energy-consuming. Power savers are present (in two flavours, a normal one and a Super High Power Efficiency, resembling Sony’s Super Stamina mode), but I never used them in my experience.

Final words: I really, really recommend this Reno. At 499€, the initial price set by OPPO, maybe you can find better alternatives; but at 389€ (unlocked, at Amazon) it becomes a clear contender of the “best buy prize” for this price range (alongside the Xiaomi Mi9T and the Redmi K20 Pro). I bought it with the Italian carrier TIM at 5€x30 months + 49€ upfront: 199€ spread over this period of time are an incredible deal for this amazing product.

Brava, OPPO!