Hello!
The Reno8 line is surprisingly tenacious. The first smartphone of the series was shown back in June 2022. With three Reno9 models already out, it seemed like the 8 Series had retired. But no. The company has released two smartphones: the junior Reno8 T for 24 tr. and the older Reno8 T 5G for 34,990 rubles. We will talk about the latter in this review. And in the “Positioning” section, let’s see what is so special about a smartphone that the buyer should choose it.
Table of Contents
Positioning*
Oppo Reno8 T 5G’s slogan is “portrait expert”. The company highlights the following as the main features of the smartphone:
- Portrait camera 108 MP + 2 MP depth sensor;
- Selfie-camera 32 MP;
- 120Hz curved screen displaying 1.07 billion colors;
- 67W Charging + Battery Protection Technology: Battery Health Engine maintains more than 80% remaining battery capacity after 1600 full charge cycles;
- Smartphone high performance guarantee for 48 months;
- Compact design, 7.7mm thick;
- Microscope camera with 40x magnification;
- Stereo speakers.
*In the “Positioning” section, the official positioning of the product is announced. And also, if necessary, brief information about the company is given.
Specifications
- Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 5G (6 nm), Adreno 619 graphics
- operating system: Android 13, ColorOS 13 shell
- Memory: 8 GB LPDDR4X / 128/256 GB UFS2.2, separate microSD slot
- Screen: 6.7 inches, 3D OLED, 2412 x 1080 dots, 120Hz, 800 nits brightness, 1 billion colors, HDR10, Always-ON screen, Asahi Glass AGC DT-Star2
- Battery: Li-Po 4800 mAh, adapter 67 W, 100% in 44 minutes
- Main camera:
- 108 MP, f/1.7, 24mm (wide-angle), 1/1.67″, 0.64µm, AF
- 2 MP, f/3.3, 34mm (microscope)
- 2 MP, f/2.4, (depth)
- Full HD video recording
- Camera frontal: 32 MP, f/2.4, 22mm (wide)
- SIM card: 2 Nano-SIM
- Network and data transfer: 2G, 3G, 4G LTE, 5G, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.1, NFC, USB Type-C 2.0
- Navigation: GPS, GALILEO, GLONASS, BDS, QZSS
- Sensors: under-display fingerprint scanner (optical), accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity, compass
- Other: no 3.5 mm jack, separate microSD slot, stereo speakers
- materials: glass, plastic frame
- Dimensions: 162.3 x 74.3 x 7.7mm, weight 171g
- Price: 8/256 GB for 34,990 rubles
Appearance
The smartphone is stylish. This can not be taken away from Reno8 T 5G. In the hand, too, lies remarkably thanks to the rounded edges of the case. And, most likely, you will be impressed by the weight. Only 171 grams, so against the background of typical 200-gram devices it seems very light. Due to its minimal weight, I would like to call it compact, although the screen here is rather big: 6.7 inches.
There are no questions about assembly. Probably, you can find fault with the fact that not Gorilla Glass is used as a protective glass, but Asahi Glass AGC Dragontrail Star2. Less eminent manufacturer, of course, due to savings. A difficult year is in the yard, everyone saves as best they can. Look, Samsung has already stopped putting adapters in all A-series smartphones (even entry-level ones).
So, Dragontrail Star 2 is a new generation of protective glass from Asahi, introduced this year. It, for example, is used in OnePlus 11R. Judging by the tests on YouTube, Dragontrail Star is 2 percent 5 behind Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the Vickers scale in terms of scratches. And (here are Corning’s statements) in theory, Corning Gorilla Glass survives falls from a height of more than a meter better.
Screen and sound
Oppo says the smartphone features a 6.7-inch flexible 3D OLED panel with a resolution of 2412 x 1080 pixels. The screen has a refresh rate of 120 Hz, a touch rate of 360 Hz, supports HDR10 and 100% DCI-P3 color gamut. There is support for Always-On display.
Let’s briefly go over the main points:
- The frequency of 120 Hz is good, but the screen only works in two positions – 60 Hz and 120 Hz. I would like to see a dynamic refresh rate, of course. Dynamic refresh rate saves battery power.
- The screen does not have PWM. At low brightness, the backlight flicker frequency is 2160 Hz.
- The maximum automatic screen brightness is 800 nits, as Oppo claims in the specifications. An excellent indicator with which the screen is comfortable to use even in bright sunlight.
- Let me remind you once again that this indicator should not be confused with peak brightness. See how Oppo writes on the official website. Peak local brightness – 950 nits. “Local” means the brightness is not on the entire surface of the screen, but only on some part of it. This brightness is used when playing HDR10 video.
- Beautiful Always-On display. Stylish design. You can make portrait outlines, there are widgets (if you use Spotify).
- The frames are thin, but Oppo has good software, so you can not be afraid of false touches.
The smartphone has stereo speakers, but the speaker plays the role of the second speaker. It is quieter and is designed more for medium and high frequencies. Oppo decided to amplify the sound programmatically, so the scale is not up to 100, but up to 200. Use selectively, since amplification occurs with a loss of quality. Hear something on the recording – please. Listening to music is better than nothing.
Performance
In principle, we have a typical soup set: Snapdragon 695 + 8 GB LPDDR4X + 256 GB UFS2.2 + separate microSD slot. And from the drive, you can allocate up to 8 GB of virtual RAM. Don’t be stingy and make the most of it! This memory will store dozens of open web pages and other nonsense so that the user can access them at any time.
Before moving on to the test results, I will say a few words. Talking about the performance of a smartphone is a bit difficult. On the one hand, no one needs all these synthetic point parrots, but it is important that the smartphone works smoothly and quickly. And Oppo Reno8 T is just such a smartphone. Everything opens quickly, smooth interface, no lags and friezes.
On the other hand, Snapdragon 695 came out in 2021. Of course, the chipset is still relevant. But recently we have published reviews of smartphones with this chipset – realme 10 pro and HONOR X9a. And these were devices up to 25 thousand rubles. Although here, of course, there is also an amendment to Russian prices. The Reno8 T 5G is priced at €340, which on the right course would place it next to realme and HONOR.
The chipset is shy, by the way, and Oppo itself. Look at the screenshot from the official site. Whenever a manufacturer is shy, he hides either the name or the serial number.
However, Oppo engineers do not eat their bread in vain. They managed to realize all the potential inherent in the chipset. So, firstly, the smartphone does not have throttling, that is, performance under load does not decrease. And in the test, the chipset knocked out almost the maximum – 410 thousand points.
The result is a nimble smartphone that delivers decent performance in everyday tasks and allows you to play PUBG, and Call of Duty Mobile, and even Genshin Impact at medium settings.
About updates
The smartphone runs on Android 13 with ColorOS 13 shell. Unfortunately, I have never worked with Oppo smartphones for a long time, so I do not know how often updates come to them. For this reason, we will rely on the official statement made in December 2022.
Oppo promises that its select flagship smartphones will receive 4 versions of the ColorOS update as well as 5 years of security patches.
In theory, the Oppo Reno8 T 5G is a premium device. And, for example, ColorOS 13 will even receive Reno6 Lite, which was originally released on Android 11 and Color 11.
Perhaps I want to emphasize that Oppo is talking about 4 updates to the ColorOS shell, not Android. Although, it seems, the company’s shell versions are synchronized with Android versions.
Camera
The main camera is a system of three sensors: 108 MP + 2 MP (depth sensor) + 2 MP (microscope). Selfie camera 32 MP.
Let’s start with a microscope camera that provides magnification up to 40x. It is, of course, pure delight. There is no practical use for it, but as a toy it is beyond praise. For example, this is how the cover of the Doctor Zhivago book looks like under a magnification of 20x in the region of letters.
A few examples are below. The camera can be directed at any object – from paper to screen matrices, if you want to look at individual pixels.
The 108 MP main camera with a 2 MP depth sensor is very similar to the one used in realme 10 Pro (but realme does not have a microscope). And indeed, this is the Samsung HM6 sensor, designed for smartphones in the lower half of the middle price segment. There’s even a 3x digital zoom with no loss in quality.
The picture quality is good. Excellent dynamic range, fast autofocus. A smartphone is great for point-and-shoot shooting. Please note that you can easily read the text in the photo with the stand and the magazine.
Let’s talk a little about the positioning “portrait expert”. This implies that the smartphone has a lot of photo editing tools. Otherwise, we have a good camera, with which I managed to shoot a nice portrait of a horse. This is not even a shame to print on a calendar.
Night photos delight the eye with color reproduction. A bit lacking in sharpness. Night photos are only suitable for shooting static objects, as it takes a few seconds for the smartphone to take a picture.
But in general, night shooting is not bad. For example, we can take a shot taken on the Oppo Reno8 T 5G and Galaxy S23 Ultra.
The downside is the lack of 4K shooting, which would be quite normal if the smartphone cost 25-27 thousand rubles, but is no good at a price of 35 thousand.
Battery Life
The smartphone has a 67W adapter that charges the smartphone from scratch in 45 minutes. The main point is a kind of Battery Health Engine technology, which provides intelligent control of charging currents and voltage, minimizing the accumulation of inactive lithium. In theory, thanks to this, the battery will last 1600 cycles, retaining more than 80% capacity.
As you understand, it is not possible to verify these statements. But I rather believe them than not. BBK Electronics, which includes Oppo, Vivo, realme, and OnePlus, has been working hard on fast charging technologies for a long time. Today there are two leaders on the market – BBK and Xiaomi. So if anyone offers the best solution, then only they.
The smartphone has a 4800 mAh battery, which is enough for a full day. In the battery life test, the screen lasted almost 8 hours. The user can count on such a result if he sits tightly on the Internet.
Communications
On this point, the full order:
- VoLTE and VoWiFi are.
- There is a recording of conversations.
- NFC with Mir cards works.
- There is a compass.
- Bluetooth 5.1 with aptX HD and LDAC codecs.
- Wi-Fi 5.
Perhaps, about NFC can be said separately. Oppo indicates that the smartphone supports reading and writing to 13.56MHz NFC cards and also supports NFC-SIM cards (slot 1 only). If I understand correctly, then an NFC-SIM card is a SIM card combined with a bank card when money is debited from the operator’s account. And such a story is popular in Asia, but we don’t have anything like it.
Conclusion
Oppo traditionally tries to play with marketing and positioning, making its smartphone seem more premium.
Oppo Reno8 T turned out to be, of course, the most pleasant smartphone that you enjoy working with. Design, screen and speed of work at height. There are even such unique things as a microscope camera. Yes, a toy, but a good and interesting one.
And I would certainly recommend a smartphone for purchase if the price of Reno8 T 5G was in accordance with the price tag in euros. Then the smartphone would cost a couple of thousand more than Honor X9A or realme 10 Pro. And it would be a great competing option: more expensive, as more RAM and more storage. And so Oppo Reno8 T competes with realme 10 Pro Plus, which is more powerful, has more memory, and better cameras (there is an ultra-wide angle), and can record 4K, and there is Wi-Fi 6 …
