Last month, OPPO launched their latest generation of Reno smartphones in India. It features 3 new models – the Reno10, Reno10 Pro and for the first time, the Reno10 Pro+. We reviewed the Reno10 Pro+ here, and found it to be a good phone, but overpriced. The Reno10 Pro on the other hand is much cheaper, but has more modest specifications. Can it justify its price tag of Rs. 39999? Read on in my review to find out.
Box Contents
- OPPO Reno10 Pro 12GB+256GB variant in Glossy Purple colour
- 2-Pin 80W SuperVOOC charger (11V-7.3A)
- Clear TPU protective case
- USB Type-A to Type-C cable
- SIM Ejector Tool
- Warranty and Quick start guide
Hardware and Design
The design of the Reno10 Pro has been refreshed this year, now featuring curved edges instead of flat edges on the sides. The rear glass panel now has a glossy finish that picks up a lot of fingerprints very easily. The camera bump design has changed once again, and now it is oval shaped. It houses three camera sensors along with a dual LED flash. There isn’t an extra LED like the Reno7 Pro, and I wish OPPO brought that back. The Reno10 Pro overall just looks fine, but nothing special.
The side railings are plastic and have a glossy finish too. Since it’s curved, it does feel nicer to hold when compared to the Reno8 Pro. The volume rocker and the power button can be found on the right edge. The left edge is bare while the top edge has an IR blaster and a microphone hole. The bottom edge has the SIM tray, USB Type-C port and speaker grill. Just like before, the camera cut-out is in the top centre of the display. Interestingly, the Reno10 Pro does not feature stereo speakers, which is bizarre for a phone that costs this much.
Display
The display on the OPPO Reno10 Pro is pretty much unchanged from the Reno8 Pro. You get the same 6.7 inch FHD Flexible AMOLED panel with a resolution of 2412 × 1080 and a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. The touch sampling rate can go up to 240Hz in gaming mode and the panel covers 100% of the DCI-P3 colour space in Active Mode. The maximum typical brightness is 500 nits, and it can reach 950 nits when displaying HDR10+ content. The display is protected by AGC DT-Star2.
Overall, the display is good. When using the phone indoors, the display offers a good amount of contrast with vibrant colours. It is AMOLED so the blacks are deep, however it does not get very bright. In direct sunlight, I would struggle to see content on the Reno10 Pro, which is a problem that existed on the Reno8 Pro too. The 120Hz refresh rate is good, resulting in smooth animations and a fun gaming experience.
Just like before, you get all of the ColorOS-specific features such as O1 Ultra Vision Engine, Dark Mode and a highly customizable Always-On-Display. There is no MEMC or DC Dimming option, however.
Camera
The camera has been upgraded on the Reno10 Pro, now featuring new sensors for the primary camera and for the new Portrait camera. Here are the specifications:
- 50MP rear camera with IMX890 sensor, ƒ/1.8 aperture, OIS
- 8MP IMX355 ultra-wide camera with ƒ/2.2 aperture
- 32MP IMX709 2X telephoto camera with ƒ/2.0 aperture
- 32MP RGBW front camera with IMX709 sensor, ƒ/2.4 aperture
The Reno series smartphones are typically known for their cameras and the Reno10 Pro delivers here. The upgrade to the main sensor and the new Portrait camera improve upon the strengths of the Reno cameras. And OPPO achieves this even though it doesn’t use its custom MariSilicon X processor.
The Sony IMX890 is a sensor used in many popular smartphones now. The sensor performs well and with OPPO’s experience in computational photography, the results are interesting. It does a good job capturing pleasing, natural-looking photos in good lighting conditions, and in low-light conditions, it produces some impressive photos. The HDR effect was not overdone, and the camera nailed the exposure nearly every time. The ultra-wide sensor also performed nearly as well, but would struggle with the white balance sometimes.
OPPO replaced the Macro camera with a Portrait camera, which is much better in my opinion. I really liked the portrait photos produced by the camera, and I’m sure a lot of people will have the same opinion. The background blur looked good, and the cut-outs were clean.
Here are some samples:
Software, UI and Apps
The phone runs ColorOS 13.1 which is based on Android 13, and it is running the July security patch at the time of this review. OPPO promises only 2 years of Android upgrades and 3 years of security updates, which is a little disappointing. Some smartphones in this price range offer at least 1 more year of updates.
The story with ColorOS 13.1 is virtually unchanged. The software is as feature rich as before and feels smooth and fluid. There are loads of customization options for the system theme, Always-on display, icons, etc.
One major annoyance with ColorOS I have now is the sheer number of pre-installed apps and unwanted notifications. The list is huge and some of these apps have notifications that cannot be swiped away. For a phone that costs this much, this is unacceptable.
Fingerprint sensor
Like most smartphones these days, the Reno10 Pro features an under-display fingerprint sensor. Enrolling my fingerprint was easy and the sensor functioned accurately during my review. You can add up to 5 fingerprints and ColorOS supports various features such as App Lock and Privacy Safe.
The phone also supports Face Unlock, however it uses the front camera sensor, so I didn’t use it.
Music Player and Multimedia
There is a default music player with basic features and a sleep timer built-in. YTMusic is also preloaded.
As mentioned before, the phone has a single bottom firing speaker. Weirdly enough the cheaper Reno10 has stereo speakers. The single speaker itself doesn’t perform that well. It gets decently loud, but it can be easily covered with your hand and that muffles it completely.
There is no support for Dolby Atmos or Dolby Vision, which is a bummer. The display is HDR10+ capable, though, and it works when watching HDR content on YouTube and on Netflix. It also has Widevine L1 certification, enabling HD video playback in streaming apps.
SIM and Connectivity
It has support for dual SIMs with dual 5G Standby. It supports 14 5G bands including n77, n78, n38, n40, n41, n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n20 and n28. As expected, it supports 4G LTE, VoLTE, VoWiFi, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth v5.3 and NFC. It supports carrier aggregation as well. Calls were clear and I did not face any dropouts. For location, it supports GPS, GLONASS, BDS, Galileo, and QZSS.
The SAR value was reported as 1.127W/Kg for Head SAR and 0.372W/Kg for Body SAR.
Performance and Benchmarks
This is an area where OPPO made a disappointing choice. While last year’s phone had the Dimensity 8100-Max, this year the Reno10 Pro is powered by the Snapdragon 778G processor. It is paired with 12GB of LPDDR4x and 256GB of UFS2.2 storage. OPPO also removed the MariSilicon X NPU, and it now only present on the Reno10 Pro+.
The Snapdragon 778G is certainly a capable performer and can handle everyday tasks with ease. It is also decently capable at gaming. The issue is simply the price of the phone. At this price, other manufacturers are offering higher-end SoCs such as the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 and the Dimensity 8200. There are also cheaper smartphones with the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2, which is a far more powerful chip.
For now, the performance is alright. Apps open quickly and ColorOS 13 is pretty smooth and fluid. As mentioned earlier, the gaming performance is decent. I was able to get high, stable FPS in games such as Call of Duty and BGMI. Genshin Impact plays at playable frame rates at medium graphics quality, and the phone doesn’t overheat.
Here are some benchmarks:
Battery life
This is easily the best strength of the Reno10 Pro. The capacity is slightly bigger, now at 4600mAh, which is good. The battery life is just amazing. With light usage, the phone will easily last two days and with heavy use, I would still struggle to kill it in a day. I could easily touch 8 hours of screen-on-time, which is fantastic.
And of course, you get 80W SuperVOOC charging, which can charge the Reno10 Pro from 1% to 100% in about 30 mins. Super convenient.
Conclusion
The Reno10 Pro feels like the neglected middle-child of the latest Reno series. Most of the high-end features have been reserved for the Reno10 Pro+, while the price of the Reno10 Pro remains nearly the same. The phone does offer a solid experience with a good display, excellent battery life and a decent camera system. However, it faces very tough competition from brands like OnePlus, Realme, IQOO and Nothing. They all offer better specs for similar or lower prices. I would only recommend this phone if your budget is Rs. 40,000 and if you really like OPPO’s ColorOS and their portrait camera effects.
Availability
The OPPO Reno10 Pro is available from Flipkart, OPPO India online store and offline stores priced at Rs. 39,999.