Oppo has officially launched the Oppo Reno 8 5G in Kenya. The Reno series is a photography centric series and packs some impressive camera specs. Oppo launched the Reno 8 5G alongside it’s other sibling the Reno 8 4G in the country.
Here’s what you get with the Oppo Reno 8 5G.
Design and Display
One of the main attractions of the OPPO Reno 8 5G is its design. The brand really knows how to make good looking smartphones. The Reno 8 5G has flat edges and a unibody design, meaning it does not have a separate camera module.
The top edge of the device has a microphone, its right edge has a power button, and the volume buttons are placed on the left side. The bottom edge has the SIM card slot, a microphone, a USB-C port, and a speaker grille.
It lacks a 3.5mm audio jack and a second speaker for stereo output. These features were also unavailable on the Reno 7 5G. The back and frame is made of polycarbonate, this is kind of disappointing considering the price. I would have loved to see a glass back panel.
The Oppo Reno 8 has a 6.43-inch AMOLED display with a refresh rate of 90Hz. It is a really good panel with an aspect ratio of 20:9, and it comes with good viewing angles and sunlight legibility. The screen supports a peak brightness of 800 nits and the adaptive brightness feature works fine outdoors.
The screen has an optical in-screen fingerprint scanner which is quite responsive and rarely misreads. The device comes with the Widevine L1 certification for viewing content on Netflix and Prime Video. My only gripe with the display is that it does not support 120Hz and that it has a thick bottom bezel. While I can live with the latter, some users might not.
Performance And Battery
Under the hood, the Oppo Reno 8 5G packs the MediaTek Dimensity 1300 chipset. This SoC sits between the Snapdragon 778G and Snapdragon 870 in terms of performance. The device ships with 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM and 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage. There is no microSD card support slot on the device.
The device will handle day to day tasks such as browsing, scrolling through social media with ease. For the gamers out there, the Oppo Reno 5G is equipped with a vapor chamber liquid cooling system. This system will facilitate for long gaming sessions with minimal heating and throttling issues. The x-axis linear motor should also do a decent job when it comes to in-game vibrations.
One of my favorite features of the phone is the support for 80W fast charging, which comes with 5-layer charging protection for safety. The 80W SuperVOOC charger should fully charge the 4500mAH battery in around 30 minutes. Once charged, the Oppo Reno 8 5G can easily last for a day or two, depending on the usage.
If the phone is not in use for several hours, the battery does not drain easily. It offers around 7 hours of screen-on time. According to OPPO, its proprietary Battery Health Engine ensures 1,600 charging cycles (roughly 4 years) of peak battery performance on the Reno 8 5G.
Cameras
Being a Reno series, the main highlight of the phone, of course, is the camera setup. The OPPO Reno 8 5G comes equipped with a Sony IMX709 32-megapixel front camera and a rear-facing 50-megapixel Sony IMX766 camera with a 1/1.56-inch sensor and 1.0µm pixel size.
Then there is the usual 8MP ultra-wide and 2MP macro snapper as secondaries. The 32-megapixel IMX709 front facing camera from Sony is a custom made lens made for OPPO with an RGBW filter, a 1/2.74 sensor size, 0.8m pixel size, and an f/2.4 aperture.
However, the Oppo Reno 8 5G does not support support OIS (Optical Image Stabilization). Video recording tops out at 4K at 30 fps for the back camera and 1080p at 30fps. There is support for 60fps shooting, but it is limited to 1080p for the rear camera. There is support for Ultra steady mode and dual video mode.
Software Expereience
The Oppo Reno 8 5G comes with Android 12 out of the box with the company’s flavour, ColorOS 12. It offers a smooth and fluid experience and continues to be one of the best custom skins in Android right now.
When it comes to privacy, the Reno 8 5G offers features like Privacy Dashboard, Permission Manager, Camera / Microphone access toggle, and more. Air Gestures is another cool feature that lets users answer/mute calls, scroll up/down (only on Facebook/YouTube), and play/pause videos (YouTube).
ColorOS 12 also offers support for PC Connect in the Oppo Reno 8 5G. This feature allows users to view the Reno 8 5G’s screen on a paired PC. Users can view notifications, transfer / edit files, copy / paste text across the devices without physically using the Reno 8 5G.
Price And Availability
The Oppo Reno 8 5G will be available in two colors, shimmer gold and shimmer black. Pre-orders will start on October, 26th to 31st. 2022 through Oppo e-commerce partners and across all Oppo stores in Kenya. The Reno 8 5G will set you back Ksh 59,999. You can also get the 4G variant for Ksh 42,999. The 4G variant comes in two colors too, dawlight old and starlight black.
