Perhaps better known for its association with the now-established OnePlus brand in the west, OPPO has been expanding its own brand outside of its traditional territories this past year. Having launched the impressive R17 Pro at the beginning of 2019 in Europe, the company took on the premium end of the smartphone market by announcing the Reno 10x Zoom Edition in May. Boasting a motorized selfie camera, a trio of rear cameras, and ultra-fast VOOC charging technology, the Reno 10x is a classy looking handset.
Priced at €799, the Reno 10x Zoom Edition looks to take on the likes of the Huawei P30 Pro and OnePlus 7 Pro, so join us after the break to find out if OPPO's flagship is a contender or pretender to the crown.
Design
Sporting a rear panel made of polished glass, the Reno 10x Zoom is a beautifully finished design, our review unit is in the Ocean Green color, and it is a stunner. While the rear panel looks like its metallic, it is actually made from a glass with a somewhat frosty finish. Being made from glass naturally makes the back panel a touch slippy, but the included case manages to keep some of the design on show while still adding a ton of grip. Constructed from premium quality materials, the Reno 10x feels reassuringly sturdy in hand although, at 215g, it is a little on the heavy side. The OPPO branding is centrally located on s shiny strip on the back of the phone that is visible through the cutout on the included case.
With an OLED display that is void of blemishes and notches, the front of the Reno 10x Zoom is pretty much free of bezels, offering a screen-to-body ratio of 93.1% according to OPPO. The 2.5D edges make for a smooth transition to the metal frame sitting between the display and the rear panel.
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The motorized selfie camera pops up and resembles either a shark fin or a pizza slice, depending on your preference. Besides housing the front camera, it also carries the rear flash on the opposite side and a microphone present on the top. If you are worried about the pop-up wedge getting damaged in a fall, rest assured that it features drop-protection sensors that retract the pop-up camera if it is dropped.
The little bump on the back panel that looks like a shiny trackball but is actually just there to protect the flush camera lenses from being scratched on flat surfaces. There are a couple of potential dealbreakers in that the Reno 10x does not have a 3.5mm audio jack or IP certification. If either of those features is important to you, you'll need to look elsewhere.
Hardware
| Announced | April, 2019 |
|---|---|
| Software | ColorOS 6, Android 9 Pie |
| Display | 6.6-inch AMOLED display, FHD+ resolution (2340 x 1080) |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Octa-core |
| RAM | 6GB/8GB |
| Storage | 128GB/256GB |
| MicroSD Card | Yes, up to 256GB |
| Rear Cameras | Primary: 48MP sensor, f/1.7 aperture, 26mm lens Telephoto: 13MP sensor, f/3.0 aperture, 130mm lens, 5x optical zoom Ultra wide-angle: 8MP sensor, f/2.2 aperture, 16mm lens |
| Front Camera | 16MP sensor, f/2.0 aperture, 26mm lens, motorized pop-up |
| Notch | No |
| Fingerprint Reader | In-display sensor |
| IP Rating | No |
| Headphone Jack | No |
| Battery | 4,065mAh, 20W VOOC 3.0 fast charging |
| Wireless Charging | No |
| Dimensions | 162 x 77.2 x 9.3mm |
| Weight | 210g |
| Colors | Ocean Green, Jet Black |
| Price | €799 |
Performance
The big 6.6-inch AMOLED display is bright, and colors are nicely saturated, it's a pleasure viewing content on the Reno 10x, despite it only being FHD+ resolution. With the Snapdragon 855 and 8GB of RAM powering the phone, performance is a smooth as you like with apps opening up pretty quickly. There is more than enough grunt to navigate the ColorOS interface without experiencing any slowdowns whatsoever.
The fingerprint sensor is located under the AMOLED display, and its speed and accuracy of reading a fingerprint makes it one of the better modules available. Long story short, the Reno 10x's performance is up there with the very best.
Battery
Battery life is not something you'll need to worry about with the Reno 10x Zoom and neither is the speed at which it recharges. You'll easily get a full day's usage out of the 4,065mAh battery with at least six hours of screen-on-time before you need to think about busting out the charger. Speaking of which, when it does eventually hit empty, you can recharge the Reno 10x from 0-100% in a little over 80 minutes thanks to the 20W VOOC 3.0 charger that is included in the box. This means you can say goodbye to battery anxiety, although it is a shame that OPPO didn't see fit to give the Reno 10x the ability to charge wirelessly.
Software
This is the proverbial fly in the ointment because the ColorOS interface kinda feels like someone has tinkered with the System Settings simply for the hell of it. Based on Android 9 Pie, there is more than a hint of inspiration taken from iOS, but overall it's not terrible to use. On the plus side, there is an app drawer present, which is always a welcome feature in my book.
My chief complaint with ColorOS 6 on the Reno 10x is that there is no dark mode option, which is a great pity considering the presence of an AMOLED display. Other niggles include having to manually disable the Lock Screen Magazine function that is unnecessary and the presence of a fair bit of bloatware. This includes apps that you might install anyway, such as Facebook and Amazon, but you'll want to uninstall the others such as NewsPoint, UC Browser, and Dailyhunt.
Despite it being a work in progress, ColorOS 6 looks relatively modern and is entirely usable for the average user without the need to install a third-party launcher.
Camera
Coming from a Pixel 3 XL and Huawei's P30 Pro, I was a little worried about camera performance, seeing as this was my first experience with an OPPO handset. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the images taken by the Reno 10x Zoom, and at no point did I reach for a different phone, which is a pretty big compliment.
The camera app plays such a big part when it comes to the user experience and you'll be relieved to find out that the app on the Reno 10x is straight forward and easy to navigate. The app defaults to photo mode, and a bunch of other modes such as portrait, video, panorama, night mode, and time-lapse are just a swipe away.
The 16MP selfie camera works a treat, taking around a second to pop-up and become active. It's capable of applying a bokeh effect to selfie pics, as shown in the image below, where my face has been given precedence over the poor alpaca that appears a little fuzzy in the background. The selfie camera has a useful field-of-view, and the resulting photos show good levels of detail and brightness, which is pretty good when considering the lighting conditions.
The triple rear camera doesn't disappoint, boasting a primary sensor with 48MP, a telephoto lens with 13MP, and 10x hybrid zoom, as well as a wide-angle lens with 120-degree FoV. The flash for the rear cameras is located on the motorized pop-up camera which will appear when flash has been selected. The primary sensor defaults to 12MP thanks to pixel binning, but you can force it to 48MP in the camera app Settings. The telephoto lens uses the periscope design that we've previously seen on Huawei's P30 Pro and is capable of 6x optical zoom, 10x hybrid zoom, and 60x digital zoom. The 60x digital zoom setting is relatively useless because it's a pure fluke if you manage to take a half-decent image because the viewfinder shakes around so much. On the flip-side, the 6x and 10x zoom settings are excellent and produce clear images with very little detail lost, as seen with the alpaca pictures in the gallery below. Night mode is also pretty good without being as outstandingly glorious as the Pixel 3 XL or P30 Pro, for example, but it's still good enough to produce exciting shots.
Conclusion
It's a case of almost but no cigar for the OPPO Reno 10x Zoom Edition when it comes to being compared as a direct competitor to Huawei's P30 Pro. But it's close, really close. The main let down, as is so often, is software, which is a tad ironic in this case because it was up against Huawei's EMUI 10 which is one or two steps further along the path to slick user experience than ColorOS. Again, this isn't a slight against ColorOS 6, rather it's that EMUI 10 is slightly more mature and streamlined. If OPPO were to instead install OxygenOS (from OnePlus) on its handsets, the Reno 10x would be almost perfect, and it would have been another string in its bow.
In terms of hardware, the Reno 10x is top-notch, it has a sturdy build with a rather pleasing design that feels good in the hand, and a big 6.6-inch OLED display. The 4,065mAh battery and VOOC fast charging technology remove any anxiety you might have about running out of juice. Its shark-fin or pizza slice selfie camera that pops up and down is fun to use, even for people like me who aren't total selfie addicts. I'm a big fan of the cameras found on Huawei's flagships, but I didn't have to whip out the P30 Pro once. This is probably the biggest compliment I can pay the Reno 10x.
Should you buy the Reno 10x Zoom Edition? It's a well-designed phone with a quirky selfie camera, vibrant display, and fantastic battery life. Plus, the high-quality rear cameras and ultra-fast charging technology show that OPPO knows what it is doing. If you can handle ColorOS 6, OPPO's Reno 10x Zoom Edition is all the phone you need. You can currently grab the OPPO Reno 10x Zoom Edition (6GB/128GB) from Amazon UK for just £519.
Buy it Now: Amazon
