Oppo Reno 5 long term review: Still a powerful phone

The Oppo Reno 5, one of the premium phones Oppo Kenya has to offer in the local market has been available from February. Definitely an upgrade from the Oppo Reno 4, the Reno 5 promised a revamp in display, camera, charging and overall aesthetics. We got the privilege of daily driving this cool device since early February and here is our long term review of the Oppo Reno 5.

Feel

The phone weighing in at a mere 165g makes it one of the lightest phone to have graced our hands to the extent that the phone cover makes it feel bulkier than it is which is sad really as the phone needs a cover since it’s a fingerprint magnet and slippery without a case

Display

The phone’s AMOLED display and high nit ensures good visibility even during the sunniest of days which also guarantees almost perfect visual in darker rooms. The Corrning Gorilla Glass 3 did not fail as we haven’t experienced any kind of scratches considering no screen protector was installed on it after the plastic protector that comes with the device wore out.

The ability to choose from 60Hz refresh rate to 90Hz for a smoother response when using the device comes with an increased battery drain warning as 90Hz can be a battery drainer but for the Reno 5 the battery consumption isn’t noticeable. Being an AMOLED display comes with some advantages like Always on Display and due to ColorOS abilities you can now edit the Always on Display to be anything you want including a motivational quote like ours as seen in the image says take your passion to the extreme.

Always on Display setup

Still on matters display there is a feature; Adaptive Display that ensures whenever you are looking at the device the phones screen won’t turn off which definitely helps when one is conversing deep stuff and has a lot to think about before jotting them all down. The eye comfort feature which reduces the blue light emission and adjusts the screen display to warmer colors works well to the point that the user feels the effect immediately one turns the feature on or off.

Battery and Charging

When Oppo launched the phone back in February, one of its main highlight was the charging capacity among other things. The phone still retains that kind of charging speed with the 50W charging adapter but to our notice for now it takes 50minutes to charge 0-100% from earlier 40-45minutes. Again it is not very noticeable except on days that one is in a rush.

Oppo Reno 5 battery management

Camera

The camera has seen some significant improvements compared to when it was launched. Night mode is one improvement that is very noticeable but overall camera experience is amazing.

64MP mode allows you to shoot images with better detail in exchange for more storage. After about 3 months into use, the camera app experienced some lagging when opening but this was fixed by a software update.

Software

ColorOS has come from far to being one of the best android UI out here. The RAM management has been good and even got better when they introduced the virtual RAM expansion option which borrows the RAM from the storage and helps in app response time and keeping apps open for a long period of time in case you need to access them later on and get right back to where you were or what you are doing. The Snapdragon 720G helps a lot when multitasking and so far there are no complaints from our end regarding overall performance.

Oppo reno 5 about page

Still on the software but may fall on the display category too, there is an auto rotate button that doesn’t adhere to the rules mostly when you turn the phone to landscape mode. Even though landscape mode is off, the button still pops up and at times it’s so annoying.
The power off button takes too long to respond, as one has to press for about five seconds for it to respond and the power off and restart option to pop up.

Biometrics and Speakers

For biometrics, the response is good as 98% of the time the phone reads the fingerprint with ease, the other percent lies in the marginal error of the user, sweaty palms and all.

Though not stereo, the speakers are very good with up to standard clarity when listening to music or when playing games.

The good

The aesthetic of the phone and general performance is good, then oopo reno 5 promises a solid performance both hardware and software: a good display, extremely great charging, very awesome cameras, a chipset that handles all the features gracefully with minimal lag if any.

Recommendations

The security and software updates don’t happen very often and come on a quarterly basis which needs an improvement in this dynamic world of breaches and hacks.

Oppo Reno 5 software version

Something that we personally feel that changed a lot from the Oppo Reno 4 was the dual punch hole selfie cut-out. That cut out gave the Oppo Reno 4 a more premium kind of look.

Conclusion

The Oppo Reno 5 is still an amazing phone to date and one that we can easily recommend to buy but for now if you are considering to purchase a Reno 5 tarry a bit longer till the 6th of September 2021 when Oppo Reno 6 5G will be launched locally with more improved specs.


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