OPPO Reno2 review: sees what you don't see

A new smartphone manufacturer from the top 5, the OPPO brand, is entering the Ukrainian market. Manufacturers are already on the site

there is information about the availability of models. And at the disposal of the publisher gg About 10 days was the Reno2 model - one of the top in the manufacturer’s portfolio for photography. In this review, I will share my impressions of the smartphone camera and the device as a whole.

What is it?

OPPO Reno2 is a smartphone in the price category onlast year’s flagships with one of the best cameras on the market, a long-lasting battery and performance on the upper bar of the middle segment. The OPPO Reno2 camera is interesting in that it consists of four modules, the main one is 48 megapixel. There is also a super wide-angle module designed for shooting landscapes and super macro. But the main feature of this device is a five-time hybrid zoom and night mode, which removes even in complete darkness.

What brand is this - OPPO?

I already talked a little about the brand as part ofa report from the London presentation of OPPO Reno2 and an interview with company management. Included in the portfolio of the Chinese corporation BBK Electronics, its top brand (it also owns the Vivo, Realme, OnePlus brands, but these are all separate companies that do not overlap in marketing, although they use each other's technological developments). Under the OPPO brand, the first smartphones with a screen fingerprint scanner and a driving camera appeared. All this, by the way, is in Reno2.

Now the manufacturer is fifth in the world,according to IDC. Above are Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi and Apple. The main market is China, but the company has begun active expansion into European countries and this year it is expanding it with four new ones (including Ukraine). She also has fairly strong positions in India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and other Southeast Asia.

What is included with the OPPO Reno2?

Smartphone, charger, clip for installationSIM cards, a nice headset and a leather case. Complete with a blue device, it is a muted aquamarine color. There are cutouts for the camera in the case - the front-facing and four-module main rear. The case protrudes above the case, in theory, this additionally protects the screen in case of a fall.

What about the design?

OPPO Reno2 is a typical representative of itstime and class of devices. With a huge endless screen, but without a cutout (the front camera is hidden in a drawer), in a glass case with complex colors. Ocean Blue - all shades of blue / the body shines and shimmers, reflects the surrounding world and collects fingerprints. The case really resembles a water column.

On the case under the camera there is a small ledge. He has a design (a kind of “cherry on a cake”), and a functional task. When the smartphone is in the hand, you can use it to navigate, which is higher - it’s better not to put the camera and fingers there, otherwise you will have to wipe the lenses from the prints. In addition, when the smartphone is on the table, thanks to the protrusion of the camera is less likely to touch the surface.

The flaws in the case are also classic - it collects fingerprints so intensely that you don’t even have to try to erase it. For those in the case, this is not a problem.

The gsmarena model specifications indicate thatGorilla 6th generation safety glass is used on the front side, and 5th on the back. I used a smartphone without a case, but out of the box a protective film or thin glass was glued onto the screen, I still did not understand. No scratches on the back. On the front, on the protective layer they are, but shallow. The ends are aluminum. In color, they almost merge with the body. Durable. Either they are not susceptible to minor scratches, or the material is so well painted that they are not noticeable.

The smartphone is weighty, every hand is feltgrams, but the weight is well balanced, and the device does not skew one or the other. You can easily use it with one hand (adjusted for size, of course) and shift it if necessary.

Screen lock and volume keysspaced at different ends, but are low, you do not need to reach for them. OPPO in communication emphasizes the premium features of its high-end and mid-range devices (Reno - medium), and in Reno2 it is readable at the design level. There is an audio output! There is also a USB Type-C connector. There is only one speaker, there is not enough stereo. It sounds cool in itself, but not very loud.

The design feature of the model is in smooth lines. There are no corners and protruding parts. Even the camera is flush. But if you put on a cover, then it rises above it. This saves the lenses from fingerprints and contact with surfaces.

The front camera moves diagonally. It, by the way, has its own speaker. Purely visually, this design looks more reliable. But I’m still skeptical about the appearance of any mechanical elements in such delicate creatures as smartphones.

The screen is solid?

OPPO Reno2 received a 6.5-inch AMOLED display,due to the absence of a cutout for the camera, its area is 93% of the front panel of the smartphone (although other data on gsmarena, 87.5%), the frames are really minimal on all sides.

Measurements of the screen brightness with a colorimeter showedmaximum value at 475 cd / m2. The indicator is decent, not the highest. There were no problems with readability on the street. But on the plane, under the almost horizontal rays of the dawn sun, the screen flashed, I had to close the window blind.

There are several color modes in the settings. For example, colors can be made less vivid (then, I believe, it will be closer to the IPS matrix), more or less cold. I took measurements at an average temperature. In the dark area, the screen was as close to the standard as possible, in the bright area the revelry began (see screenshots below). But life is normal, nice color rendering.

</ img>

Also in the settings you can increase / decreasefont, turn off the flicker, turn on the blue filter, select applications for full-screen mode, turn on the schedule for the night and to display the clock on the off screen. Standard set.

What about autonomy and charging?

The battery capacity of OPPO Reno2 is 4000 mAh. Screen - AMOLED. And the processor is made by 8 nm process technology. This means that it is one of the most energy-efficient solutions on the market.

In the material with first impressions, I already wrotethat during a press tour in London, the charge was enough for the whole day with a camera, navigation, internet in roaming, etc. Later, wireless headphones were added to this package, but in Kiev I already used the smartphone less actively. A day and a half or two worked. In standby mode, the battery consumption is minimal, it did not detect how much it took per night, but even if I went to bed and by that time the charge was close to 20%, in the morning I could still use my smartphone for some time. In the PC Mark test, the smartphone worked for 10 hours.

OPPO says smartphone charges 51% for30 minutes. It uses proprietary technology VOOC Flash Charge 3.0, bundled charger with a capacity of 20 watts). When the company was asked in an interview about how long it takes to fully charge, the answer was strange - they say that each one has its own sockets, chargers, as you can compare and give a single figure (probably the same as 51% in half an hour). It was supposed to be an hour. I tracked the charging time off. 51% and the truth at the stated time. A full charge (99%, to be precise) lasted 1:20.

How does biometrics work?

Reno2 has a sub-screen fingerprint sensor andthere is face recognition on the popup camera. There are no questions to both, the camera recognizes the face quickly far from a right angle. In the photo below - a fingerprint scanner. When I tried to take a photo, even at such an angle the camera managed to recognize me, the smartphone unlocked.

The sensor also works solidly and quickly, not inSamsung A-series example (I don’t know how things are with flagships). At one time, it was OPPO that introduced this technology, and it works intelligently on BBK brand smartphones. In any case, in this price segment. In general, there is also a sense of “seamlessness” here, the speed and accuracy of biometric protection are sufficient for comfortable use.

What about performance?

OPPO Reno2 equipped with Qualcomm processorSnapdragon 730G and 8 GB of RAM. In my opinion, this is the weakest point of the model. And the weak is not because there is something wrong with the performance. Enough for my tasks, I used the smartphone for several days as the main working tool, I have dozens of applications installed.

I don’t especially play games, only racing sometimes, and Asphalt 9 went perfectly (by the way, OPPO smartphones have special optimization for games).

In general, my personal needs forThe performance in this price category is completely closed. The interface works smoothly, large video files play normally, and the flagships of our time have excessive performance. But there is a market and competitors, and an audience. She will surely notice that there are models with Snapdragon 855 in about the same category. And although OPPO does not consider Xiaomi or OnePlus to be its competitors, they still exist on the market and are well known to geeks even to a fairly large audience, so comparisons cannot be avoided.

What is interesting about the camera?

Main camera

In a nutshell, I already talked about the capabilities of the camerain the previous material about the smartphone. Let me remind you that the camera consists of four modules: the main 48 MP (Sony IMX586, 1 / 2.0 ″, aperture F / 1.7), 13 MP telephoto lens (1 / 3.4 ″, aperture F / 2.4, autofocus), wide-angle 8 MP lens (116 ° / 1 / 3.2 ″), 2 MP mono lens for portrait mode (1/5 “/1.75 um).

In portraiture, I like that the camera, firstly, is very fast and manages to take decent pictures, even if a person is actively moving. Secondly, it separates a person from the background well.

The same is present in macro photography. Many smartphone cameras, even in the high-end segment, sin in that when they try to shoot something like that, they blur anything. Here the depth is really visible and the blur / non-blur corresponds to the plans on which the object is located.

OPPO positions macro photography in Reno2 as an opportunity to shoot something that the human eye will not see. But here, for example.

But magic only works if the object is absolutelymotionless. In my case, I managed to catch the moment a few seconds before the start of a light wind, and already all the following frames at this approximation were blurred.

The night mode is also cool. At the presentation, everyone was taken to a completely dark room and showed how the smartphone removes the inscription in the dark. Objects were barely visible to the eye. It seemed to me that there should be some kind of trick, because this does not happen. But I don’t know what could be twisted here. Unfortunately, I did not use the latest flagship smartphones Samsung and Huawei and can not compare how good night modes are in them. Therefore, I will cite only Reno2 as an example.

For example, a crop of one of the shots. Shot at night, the phone is inside the telephone box, but it is not blurred, even the volume is clearly visible.

The darker and the more small objects, thea more stable position should be. For ultra-night mode (that is, shooting in maximum darkness) without a tripod - no way. But if it’s just the lights of a big city, then it will work out with hands.

This miracle in feathers also turned out to be distinguishable, although it is black against a black background, it drives black.

And here is an example of a good night shooting, andgood detail. Despite the poor lighting and the frame actually on the go, the sign on the sign remained readable, as did the ethnic pattern on the gate and even what was happening in the windows!

In these pictures, note that evenin the distance and in a not very good light, the inscriptions remain readable. Pictures, a movie poster through the metro station and even an inscription on a barely noticeable souvenir stall.

And where without the gloomy London. In cloudy weather, the camera also shoots with dignity. Unless in sharpness loses.

All sample photos are collected in a separate gallery on Torba.

Video shooting

Reno2 has some interesting features.when shooting a video. The first is sound recording. At the presentation, they talked about the fact that it takes place on three microphones. This allows you to work with different tracks during processing. Well, the result is corresponding. Secondly, stabilization.

Front-camera

The front camera is 16 MP (f / 2 aperture.0, wide angle, 26 mm). There are things that I really liked in her, and there are - which are categorically not. From the cool - shooting in the dark and the quality of blurring the background. The front camera, like the main one, is very good at this. By default, the Reno2 selfie camera shoots without any embellishment, you need to enable them in the settings and you can separately configure the skin, chin width, nose thickness, etc. Compared with Vivo settings - the cat wept, but there is the main thing. In this interface, the difference between the two brands of the corporation is very visible, OPPO focuses on a more mature audience, which does not need so many decorations. Vivo is a more youthful product with more Asian DNA.

In my first impressions I wrote thatI didn’t really like the selfies taken on the Reno2 camera, and now I figured out why. Compared Reno2 with the Samsung Galaxy A50 and Apple iPhone 8 when shooting in artificial lighting and on the street in the evening, only with Samsung. “IPhone”, of course, was in last place. Too good shows skin defects, too aggressive shadows on the face. Compared to the Galaxy A50, Reno2 also has a lot of shadows, which makes the face look more tired. But at the same time, Samsung makes the skin tone warmer, and OPPO better defines the background and the blur looks more natural.

Is the interface convenient?

Unlike a corporation partner, the OPPO brandNot particularly sophisticated with the interface. The proprietary add-on ColorOS 6.1 is very similar in logic to Android, except that the design is different. I like the elegant sliders in the settings, but the desktops, the notification bar and other places where the icons are present, look hard, in my opinion.

OPPO has its own OPPO ID, at the presentationthe company presented it as its contribution to user safety. Like, here, do not store backups anywhere. There is still a lock from fraudulent base stations. It turns out that it is. When connecting a smartphone to their BS, fraudsters can send messages with fake information, etc. “Children's mode” protects the parent smartphone from loss of money, changes to the system, and children from addiction and excessive use of the gadget.

There is still a secure keyboard that doesn’ttransfers data to the Internet, and the ban on recording photos and videos in the background. Apparently, in case the user installs doubtful applications or some of the old familiar applications will show themselves from the worse side, as it was with Expedia and some other iOS programs. If during the presentation a large block about security seemed to me a tribute to fashion and bragging, then in the process of getting to know the interface, I realized that OPPO really did a lot in this direction.

Also on the menu there are many branded chips. From the surprising for me (but, apparently, not surprising for our reality) - protection against harassment. These are the usual black and white lists of numbers, by the way.

Who are the competitors?

Any new brand in the market has one big trouble - it competes with everyone, even if in other markets where it is already known, someone is not suitable for it.

Ukraine is now the most powerful smartphone brand -Xiaomi In China, OPPO is a cut above perception, and half a head above sales. In other Asian markets, there are many where brands compete and Xiaomi circumvents, but the difference is not so great.

</ img>

In Ukraine, direct comparison with more affordableOPPO brands cannot be avoided. Unfortunately, it was not possible to compare cameras and devices in general live, but Xiaomi and OnePlus have models in the same price category with the Snapdragon 855. For example, OnePlus 7T, it also has a higher screen resolution and OS version. True, there is no such a large zoom and the design, in my opinion, is lame.

At the same price category is the Samsung Galaxy A80. It is weaker in performance (the battery is smaller, 128 GB of internal memory, the camera is simpler), but surpasses it in terms of brand strength and recognition.

Xaiomi has a slightly higher price rangethere is a more sophisticated Black Shark 2 - plus a couple of thousand hryvnias, but the flagship processor, 12 GB of RAM, for the same money - the same model with 8 GB of RAM. In a more affordable - Mi 9T Pro. Less memory, less screen, but Snapdragon 855. In fact, all the models described above are more powerful, but most likely inferior in the camera, in any case, with a zoom.

Honor has a 20 Pro model. A little cheaper, but comparable in performance and filling, except that the screen here is IPS and with a notch, according to the last thing of taste. Someone may prefer the selfie mode in Huawei / Honor and for such people this model may be more interesting.

Also in the same category are the former flagships of Samsung and Huawei. They may be inferior in camera and screen specifications, but again, they have brand strength.

Special project

Test: true or myth? Test your smartphone payment knowledge

In the dry residue

In terms of my personal likes, OPPO Reno2 -An interesting smartphone with a cool camera and a good alternative to market leaders, and to everyone. But it is unlikely that big sales await this model; most likely, it will help sell the younger ones by the very fact of their presence in the market. Who should choose her? Probably those who want to try something new, while not chasing maximum performance for their money, but are willing to pay extra for the camera and design.

3 reasons to buy OPPO Reno2:

interesting, “expensive” design;
decent autonomy;
A wonderful camera that is powerful in different shooting modes.

2 reasons not to buy OPPO Reno2:

You are not ready to trust a new brand;
Maximum productivity for your money is important to you.

Specifications OPPO Reno2

Display
AMOLED, 1080 × 2400 pixels, 20: 9 (~ 401 ppi)

Housing
dimensions 160x74x10 mm, weight: 189 g, tempered glass Gorilla + aluminum

CPU
8nm Qualcomm SDM730 Snapdragon 730G (eight cores, 2 × 2.2 GHz Kryo 470 Gold and 6 × 1.8 GHz Kryo 470 Silver), Adreno 618

RAM
8 GB

Flash memory
256 GB microSD up to 256 GB

Camera
main 48-megapixel (Sony IMX586, 1 / 2.0 ″,aperture F / 1.7), 13 MP telephoto lens (1 / 3.4 ″, aperture F / 2.4, autofocus), wide-angle 8 MP lens (116 ° | 1 / 3.2 ″), 2 MP single-lens for portrait mode (1 / 5 “| 1.75 um), front - 16 MP

Wireless technology
Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac 2.4 + 5 GHz, Bluetooth 5.0, A2DP; LE, aptX HD, NFC, Infrared

Battery
4000 mAh non-removable, fast charge 22.5 W (51% in 30 min)

operating system
Android 9 Pie + Color OS 6.1

Sim card
2x nanoSIM

For those that want to know more:

Vivo V15 Pro review: who is new
Honor 20 Pro smartphone review: a great camera for sane money
Samsung Galaxy A80 Review: Smartphone Experiment with PTZ Camera and Huge Display
Huawei P30 Pro Review: Night Vision
Huawei P30 lite review: 48 megapixel smartphone
OPPO: “If the US imposes sanctions against us, we don’t have plan B”

OPPO Reno2

Smartphone with quality camera, powerful battery and cool design

OPPO Reno2 - a smartphone with a 48-megapixel camerawith a 5x hybrid zoom and a mode for shooting in total darkness, in a stylish glass case, an on-screen fingerprint scanner and a front popup camera.

Buy at Eldorado

Buy at Foxtrot