Oppo’s Reno series of camera-focused smartphones have been somewhat oddly positioned since their launch in 2019. Their core appeal – great camera capabilities for the mid-range segment – got lost in the specs-first market. The Reno10 Pro+ 5G marks a clear departure – not only does it pack in a flagship grade chip and fast charging to accompany the upgraded camera chops, but it also pushes the asking price high enough (₹54,999) to leave any mid-range pretenses behind.
Is this the all-rounder the Reno series had always hoped for, and how does it compare to its peers in the price segment – the Nothing Phone 2, the iQOO 11 or the OnePlus 11?
Oppo has had a strong design game for a while, and the Reno10 Pro+ continues the tradition with curved glass both front and back encasing a polycarbonate frame, and the phone is quite the looker in the Silvery Grey or the Glossy Purple color I had on hand to test.
It feels premium and while it is light and thin at 194g/8.28mm, it’s slippery in the hand and very prone to falling. A divisive choice is the large two-tone capsule-shaped camera module that juts out from the rear panel – while it emphasizes the camera capabilities of the phone, it takes some getting used to and contributes to the Reno10 Pro+’s top-heaviness.
You get AGC's Dragontrail Star 2 cover glass and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 for front and rear protection, but the phone lacks any sort of IP rating for dust/water resistance, which is a bit of a miss at the higher price point. The top edge accommodates an infrared blaster to control TVs and home appliances, which is new for this series and always welcome. You get stereo speakers, but the phone lacks a key hygiene element at its increased price point – wireless charging. Well, at least there’s fast 100W wired charging with a charger in the box.
Much like its cousins from within the family over at OnePlus, the Reno 10 Pro+ sports an expansive 6.74-inch, curved-edge OLED display with a full HD+ resolution and a 120Hz dynamic refresh rate that switches between 30Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz and 120Hz and not all the way down to 1Hz as on the OnePlus. It’s a 10-bit panel as well, which allows it to offer a wide color gamut, and HDR10+ certification coupled with an impressive 1400 nits of peak brightness that enable the panel to show off high dynamic range scenes on Prime Video and YouTube really well.
The device fared well in the unusually bright and extended summer in Bengaluru, and colors are accurate as long as you switch to the ‘natural’ color scheme. Combined with the loud and detailed stereo speaker setup, the Reno 10 Pro+ is great for media consumption.
Packing in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip and 12/256GB of the faster LPDDR5 and UFS 3.1 storage, performance was expectedly of little concern, with the chip having proven to be a solid and efficient performer over scores of phones launched around the middle to end of last year.
Oppo has claimed improved thermal management via a graphite sheet and a vapor chamber cooling, and the phone remained cool whether I was playing a demanding game or recording 4K video outdoors. ColorOS 13, based on Android 13, ran fluidly on the hardware, and it has a few features that stand out – Multi-Screen connect, for instance, which connects the phone with your Android tablet or Windows PC and lets you screen share, transfer files – but the presence of a fair number of third-party apps and spammy notifications from the App Market app store are a bit of a turnoff. One expected this to be toned down at this price point, but it was not to be.
Battery life is above average, with the phone lasting past six hours of screen time that consisted mainly of watching streaming content, some light gaming and taking a fair number of photos.
So, it’s all well and sorted till now, for the most part. But let’s talk about the focal point of any Reno phone – the cameras. On the Reno 10 Pro+, you get three rear cameras – a 50-megapixel IMX890 primary camera (used elsewhere in the OnePlus 11R and the Nord 3), an 8-megapixel ultra-wide and a 64-megapixel telephoto camera with 3X optical zoom – and selfie duties are handled by a 32-megapixel camera.
The primary camera shoots with an impressive amount of detail and accurate colors in daylight, and dynamic range and exposure is well reined in in all but the brightest parts of outdoor shots. In low light, the phone opens up the aperture and captures longer exposures, producing images that capture the feel of the moment without having to switch to the dedicated Night mode. Switching over to the ultrawide, images were clearly not as detailed nor did they match the color science of the primary shooter, and low light performance wasn’t as good either, with softer images and lost details.
The star of the package was the telephoto portrait camera, with the highest resolution sensor paired with the periscope 3X zoom camera producing some stunning shots. While shooting subjects/portraits, the camera does a bang-up job separating the subject from the background and turning out great people photos even under artificial light. It can be used to zoom into distant objects as well, but results start dropping in quality around the 10x (hybrid zoom) mark, so it’s best not to go all out with the zoom just because it’s available. Selfies taken by the front-facing shooter were sharp and with accurate skin tones, as long as you turn off all beauty filters.
Save for the lack of wireless charging and IP rating, there’s nothing that holds the Reno 10 Pro+ back, and even critics of the last year’s processor will admit it’s a great chip that only now feels dated due to the newer Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip that powers the likes of the OnePlus 11 or the iQOO 11.
How does it fare against its peers? The OnePlus 11 has the better ultra-wide angle camera, a newer chip and bigger battery, while the iQOO 11 has the fastest 120W wired charging (but only by so much). The Nothing Phone 2 has the same Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip, but a splash resistant IP54 rating and wireless charging, and oodles of Nothing appeal.
Oppo’s secret weapon is an overall balanced package with arguably the best telephoto-primary-selfie camera combo in its price range, reason enough for camera enthusiasts to consider the Reno 10 Pro+ over the competition.
Tushar Kanwar, a tech columnist and commentator, posts @2shar.
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