OPPO Reno 6 Pro Review – Upgraded Fruit of the Same Old Orchid

Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G is technically a successor to Reno 5 Pro 5G, released last year. It brings an upgraded chipset along with some minor upgrades including adding NFC, reverse charging but a smaller battery, astounding new colour variants, and new things here and there. The price tag on the Reno6 Pro 5G is higher as well as that’s pretty much the distinction between the two at least on paper.

Here’s a detailed hands-on review on Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G that you must read if you are interested in buying or checking out the phone.

Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G is available in India at Rs 39,990/- for its single 12GB+256GB storage variant. You can choose between Stellar Black and Aurora colour variants and get the device from Oppo India online store. There’s a 30-days exchange, Up to Rs 4,000/- on Kotak Bank, HDFC Bank, and Citi Bank along with No Cost EMI and other options.

Before we talk in detail about the Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G  let’s see what the on-paper specs look like?

• Display: 16.64 cm (6.55 inch) Full HD+ 3D Curved AMOLED Display, 90Hz refresh rate
• Processor: Mediatek Dimensity 1200
• Storage: 12GB/256GB, RAM expansion
• Software: ColorOS based on Android 11,
• Rear cameras: 64MP + 8MP + 2MP + 2MP
• Front camera: 32MP
• Battery: 4500 mAh, 65W SuperVOOC 2.0
• Weight: 177g
• Dimensions: 160 x 73.1 x 7.6 mm

Oppo does know how to attract an audience with the design part for sure. Although Reno 6 Pro 5G hasn’t been redesigned completely compared to Reno 5 Pro 5G, it has come a long way since the first Reno smartphone. The device follows a front glass (Gorilla Glass 5) and a rear glass panel that uses Oppo’s specialized 50-steps anti-glare glass etching process which is something that will lure people into looking at it even from a distance.

The rear panel has an iridescent colour palette to it and shimmers as the light reflects different sections. Plus, there’s nothing much at the back that cries out for attention. There’s a large rectangular camera bump on the top-left corner that houses three giant lenses and a cutout for flash and the fourth cam. Plus, there’s Oppo branding at the bottom and that’s all.

Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G has a curved front and back panel and at 7.6mm thickness and 177 grams of weight, it is the grippiest smartphone out there. You get the phone in two colour variants and I would say I am a fan of both the colours you get with Reno 6 Pro 5G, but still to choose one, I will pick the Aurora colour which I am currently using.

The front has a tiny cutout for the front camera and a supergiant display at your disposal. Since the display is AMOLED, you get a super inky and vibrant panel for media consumption. Design-wise, the Oppo Reno series is among the best, and Reno 6 Pro 5G is no exception.

Planning to upgrade? Sell Your Old Phone in 60 Seconds From Home

The placement of ports and buttons is usual. You’ll get a bottom-firing loudspeaker, a primary mic, a SIM card slot, and a USB-C port at the bottom. There’s a secondary mic on top followed by a power button on the right and a volume rocker on the left.

Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G is fitted out with a ginormous 6.55-inch AMOLED panel which boasts a 1080×2400 pixels resolution and a 20:9 aspect ratio. The display has a 90Hz refresh rate and complies with HDR10+ certification. The device with its 402 PPI density boasts 500 nits typical and 800 nits of HBM. These were the numbers, now let’s see how the Reno 6 Pro display fares when tested in real-world use cases.

Oppo hasn’t changed the outlook of the display when compared to its predecessor. The display is curved on the right and left sides making it feel premium and with an AMOLED panel at your disposal, you won’t feel otherwise. The colours are punchy as it goes without saying. The blacks are extremely darker while the whites are brighter. I also felt some colours come out more saturated on the Reno 6 Pro display. The AMOLED panel possesses extremely high brightness capable of being visible even in harsh sunlight which is something not all phones are capable of.

Broke Your Old Phone Screen?

– Affordable Display Replacement at Home

Moving on, the display has a tiny punch-hole on the top-left corner, the bezels are considerably thin including the chin which when combined, makes it a premium display to go forward. The AMOLED panel is HDR10+ certified and comes with HD and HDR certification on OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to name a few.

Do Check Out: AMOLED Vs OLED: Which is Better and Why?

The 90Hz refresh rate and 180Hz touch sampling rate do make the display feel more responsive at the moment than a standard 60Hz display would. Viewing angles are great and I didn’t have any problem viewing the phone from an angle. Overall, the display creates an enhanced visual experience that makes it top in the list of most visually appealing displays out there.

Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G has a Dimensity 1200 5G as its powertrain. The chipset built on a 6nm node has an octa-core arrangement. This includes a 1×3.0GHz Cortex-A78 high-performance core plus 3×2.6GHz Cortex-A78 cores plus 4×2.0GHz Cortex-A55 cores. The SoC is paired with a Mali-G77 MC9 GPU, a 128GB/256GB UFS 2.1 storage, and 8GB/12GB RAM on-board.

When it comes to performance, I found Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G is well-equipped with a  powerful chipset under the hood. Day-to-day tasks such as browsing, texting, calling, and stuff are a piece of cake. With 5,90,473 points on AnTuTu and 2474 multi-score on Geekbench, the chipset does do some magic with its excellent performance in this price segment.

In fact, the chipset can handle graphics-intensive games like COD Mobile and PUBG India (BGMI) with ease, sporting the highest graphics and frame rate settings without any hassle. But still, you still don’t get the Extreme fps just like you get in the OnePlus 9R which comes at the same price. You have two refresh rates i.e. standard and high refresh rate although games are particularly locked at standard frame rate unless the said game has unlocked higher fps on any smartphone. Overall, the chipset is buttery smooth and powerful.

OnePlus 9R Vs iPhone XR Vs iPhone 12 Full Comparison: Which One To Buy?

Keeping all aside, I’d specifically like to mention the RAM expansion feature that Oppo has managed to incorporate with the Reno 6 Pro. You can virtually use your excessive internal storage as a part to expand your RAM that too up to 7GB making it overall 19GB of RAM.

Oppo Reno 6 Pro runs on Android 11-flavored ColorOS 11.3 out-of-the-box. It brings a bootload of features and customization options on top of what Android 11 already offers. With get, you also get a tonne of bloatware to cope with, some of which are extremely useless like HeyTap Cloud among others. It is one of the best custom OS out there that also has gaming-oriented features. Also, ColorOS has joined hands with OxygenOS so we could see some features from the latter to arrive on the former in the coming updates.

Reno6 Pro packs in a quad-camera setup at the back and a single shooter at the front. The front has a 32MP primary shooter with f/2.4 aperture while the back features a 64MP primary shooter with f/1.7 aperture, PDAF; an 8MP ultrawide snapper with 120 degrees FoV with f/2.2 aperture; and two 2MP sensors dedicated for macro and depth data with f/2.4 aperture.

It’s a 64MP primary camera so you can say that photos will come out good. In fact, photos were on-point and similar to ones captured on Reno5 Pro 5G. Daylight shots are vivid, vibrant, full of details, and no doubt it uses 4-in-1 pixel binning technology. There’s a 64MP full-fledged mode that you can use for pretty much giant photos in size and with a bit of lesser details overall.

Ultrawide snapper at 8MP captures quality shots with a higher field of view. It had a good amount of detail retention although I noticed that the photo was software on the edges which is probably because of the so-called distortion correction that software applies to ultrawide shots.

The other two sensors are pretty much decorative at 2MP depth and macro. I am not a fan of these two snappers since you can definitely make things work out with a depth sensor while the macro sensor could have given room to a telephoto sensor instead. Anyways, the macro sensor is okayish and there’s nothing amusing about it, to be honest.

Check Out: iQOO 7 Full Camera Review 

Selfies using the front camera look great even when you take it in low-light photography. The camera is able to detect the subject, apply edge detection and bokeh effects. Overall, I found the selfies to be pretty good in both day and night time.

At 4,500 mAh, Oppo has surely made some improvements in the battery department, raising the stakes by 150 mAh compared to the predecessor. The battery is huge and turns out it is well optimized to put up a good number in terms of backup. I spent an entire day with tonnes of videos, music, browsing, and social media, all while keeping a few percent of battery left for use. The battery is capable of putting up a good 17:21 hours of HD video loop testing which is above average.

Depending upon your usage, you can extend the battery further by using power-saving modes. On the contrary, if you indulged in heavyweight tasks such as playing PUBG, you would still get a good 6-7 hours of battery life which is excellent, to be honest.

You have a SuperVOOC 2.0 65W charging support under the hood which takes the battery from flat to full in 31 minutes and it’s done. A mere 10 minutes charge would give you at least 5-6 hours of average battery life for day-to-day tasks. Overall, the charging speed is flamboyant and takes away any shortcomings in case if you want a 5,000 mAh above battery unless you are using 5G which is not available in India yet.

Well, just like the predecessor, the Reno6 Pro 5G misses on stereo speaker setup as well which is annoying since you are paying a premium for the phone even though it is much less than an average flagship phone from OnePlus or Samsung. The single bottom-firing loudspeaker is loud and does get your job done. However, the display is awesome so a stereo speaker setup was much needed.

With a tonne of connectivity features onboard, Reno6 Pro 5G is an arsenal. It packs in NFC, dual-band Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth v5.2 with aptX HD, LE, and A2DP. There’s a USB Type-C 3.1 port onboard. The device supports Galileo, BDS, Glonass, and A-GPS navigation systems as well.

With Reno6 Pro 5G, you get both an under-the-display fingerprint scanner and facial recognition as well. The former is blazing fast and unlocks the phone in a jiffy while the latter is snappy as well. In fact, it even unlocks the phone on authenticating in a low light condition which is superb since not all smartphones can do it, to be honest. Rest assured, as you have both PIN and Pattern unlocking mechanisms at your bay as well.

Pros 

• AMOLED 3D curved display with 90HZ refresh rate
• MediaTek Dimensity 1200 SoC
• 12GB RAM + 256GB of storage with RAM expansion
• Refined ColorOS 11.3
• Superfast 5G connectivity
• 65W fast charging

Cons 

• No wireless charging
• No dust and water resistance
• Dual stereo speakers missing