OPPO Reno 3 Pro Quick Review: Design, Display, Battery Life, And Camera Performance Tested

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OPPO today added another smartphone in its premium Reno-series product lineup. The new Reno 3 Pro smartphone focuses on photography leveraging a massive 44MP+2MP selfie camera and a 64MP quad-lens rear camera. The 64MP primary sensor in the rear quad camera array is also capable of producing images of up to 108MP by applying multi-frame composition technology.

 
OPPO Reno 3 Pro Quick Review

The OPPO Reno 3 Pro will be available from March 6 across all OPPO stores and retail outlets at a starting price of Rs. 29,990 for the 8GB+128GB variant. Let's find out more about the OPPO Reno 3 Pro in this quick review.

Pleasingly Ergonomic For One-Hand Operation

Pleasingly Ergonomic For One-Hand Operation

The OPPO Reno 3 Pro is not a small device but it beautifully fits in one hand. Despite flaunting a big 6.4-inch panel, the phone can be used with one hand for most of the tasks. Thanks to the thinner and lighter profile, you can dial numbers, send a quick reply to a notification, scroll your Instagram and Facebook feed and browse web pages without any major handling issues. The phone's curved back panel, rounded edges and sleek form factor makes it ergonomic and fit for one-hand operation. The Reno 3 Pro measures 158.8mm × 73.4mm × 8.1mm and weighs 175 grams.

But Design Lacks Reno Series Premium Feel
 

But Design Lacks Reno Series Premium Feel

Even though the Reno 3 Pro has a good overall design, it lacks the premium look and feel of the Reno series. The focus has now been shifted to make the handset more ergonomic, which is a good thing but we miss the iconic Reno series blueprint. The previous Reno series handsets stood out from the crowd with their splendid design. The Reno 3 Pro simply lacks that design characteristic. The smartphone is available in three color variants- Auroral Blue, Midnight Black and Sky White.

Vibrant FHD+ AMOLED Display

Vibrant FHD+ AMOLED Display

The OPPO Reno 3 Pro flaunts a 6.4-inches 20:9 aspect ratio screen with an impressive 91.5 % screen-to-body-ratio. The Super AMOLED display is bright and offers good color reproduction; however, it runs on dated 60Hz refresh rate. Considering the price-point of the handset, a 90Hz refresh rate panel would have made much more sense in today's time.

Nevertheless, the video payback and gameplay looks immersive on the Reno 3 Pro's AMOLED screen if you don't find the dual punch hole obtrusive. You can comfortably use the Reno 3 Pro outdoors without any visibility issues as the panel has a maximum brightness of 800 nits and the peak brightness of 1200 nits. The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 5.

44MP+2MP Selfie Camera

44MP+2MP Selfie Camera

The Reno 3 Pro will please selfie lovers as the 44MP dual-lens selfie camera captures detailed pictures. The 44MP high-resolution images show realistic colors and natural skin color tones. You can also capture selfies in portrait mode but the image resolution reduces to 10MP. The bokeh looks pleasing but the details take a hit. You can apply all sorts of filters and beautify modes to enhance the selfie output.

Night Mode And Time-lapse For Selfies

Night Mode And Time-lapse For Selfies

The Reno 3 Pro also allows you to capture low-light selfies. The results are not very impressive though and the selfies only come out good if you have decent ambient lighting. Additionally, you can also record time-lapse and portrait videos with the front camera and results are pleasing.

Excellent Autofocus Capabilities

Excellent Autofocus Capabilities

The Reno 3 Pro's camera offers an impressive autofocus system. The camera quickly locks the focus and effectively maintains it even when the subject is constantly moving in the frame. Resultant, the Reno 3 Pro captures sharp images of moving subjects if they are up to 10 feet distance from the point of shooting.

It is the MTK Helio P95's effective AI-camera processing that gives the Reno 3 Pro a snappy autofocus. However, it is worth mentioning that the autofocus struggles and is very inconsistent in hybrid and digital zoom mode. It is the MTK P95 that gives the Reno 3 Pro some effective AI-enhancements in the camera and gaming department.

Soloop Smart Video Editor: Great Tool For Video Editing

Soloop Smart Video Editor: Great Tool For Video Editing

The Soloop video editor is a good addition to the ColorOS. It offers a variety of useful video-editing tools that can help you create interesting content for your YouTube channel, and other social-media platforms. The application intelligently selects the most exciting clips and enhances the footage with music, effects and texts. You can choose from a variety of themes, templates, and filters to create videos with just one click.

20x Digital Zoom Shots Are Not Usable

20x Digital Zoom Shots Are Not Usable

OPPO made some big claims for the Reno 3 Pro's cameras' zoom capabilities but the real-life performance is not satisfactory.

The 64MP quad camera's zooming capabilities only offer decent results when there's ample light to compose a shot. Check out the above camera samples shot in 1x, 2x, 5x and 20x. The 2x optical zoom produces decent results as long as you are not cropping the images to 100%.

The 5x hybrid zoom images are also usable to some extent but the 20x digital zoom shots are barely usable. The performance gets worse if you are taking pictures indoors. Can you make out anything of the text written on the label on the miniature bottle? The images shot in 20x digital zoom are full of noise and have no resolved details in indoor lighting.

Ultra Dark Mode For Low-Light Images

Ultra Dark Mode For Low-Light Images

The OPPO Reno 3 Pro's camera app has an ‘Ultra Dark Mode' that mimics the Google Pixel's Astrophotography mode. It only activates when the illumination is lower than 1 lux. The mode uses the phone's NPU (Neural Processing Unit) and applies AI Noise-reduction to capture clear photos. If you have a tripod handy, you can capture some well-lit shots in extreme low-light situations. The above camera samples were captured with almost no available light but the Reno 3 Pro managed to take some well-lit shots.

The camera app also offers a Tripod-only mode that brings even more details in extreme low-light situations. On the other hand, the standard night mode's performance is underwhelming. The images turn out grainy and colors are not rendered nicely. In fact, the colors are simply washed out in standard low-light mode. But I am glad that the ultra dark mode comes handy in extreme low-light situations.

MediaTek Helio P95 AI CPU + 8GB RAM And ColorOS 7.0

MediaTek Helio P95 AI CPU + 8GB RAM And ColorOS 7.0

The OPPO Reno 3 Pro feels snappy. It is backed by the newly launched MediaTek Helio P95 chipset which heavily focuses on AI processing. The SoC supports Wi-Fi 5 standards and Bluetooth 5.0. It has eight cores with a max clock speed of 2.2GHz.

The phone comes in 8GB RAM with 128GB and 256GB onboard storage variants. We are testing the 128GB storage variant. The smartphone can run the popular game titles without any major glitches and the benchmark results are also decent. However, the rival devices such as the Realme X2 Pro and the OnePlus 7T come across as much responsive and performance oriented devices.

These handsets are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ SoC which delivers better performance during high-intensity tasks. The Reno 3 Pro runs on ColorOS 7 based on Android 10 out-of-the-box[mr1] . The android skin offers smooth performance and offers plenty of useful features and vast customization options.

Long-Lasting Battery And Effective 30W VOOC Flash Charge 4.0

Long-Lasting Battery And Effective 30W VOOC Flash Charge 4.0

The OPPO Reno 3 Pro is backed by a 4,025 mAh battery unit that can easily last one-full day on moderate usage. If you stream high-resolution videos on loop and indulge in long gaming sessions, the battery will last 11-12 hours. The 30W VOOC fast-charger in the box was able to refuel the battery from 27% to 82% in 30 minutes. It can fully charge the battery from 0% to 100% in less than 60 minutes, which is good but the market offers even faster fast-charging solutions.

Should You Buy It?

Should You Buy It?

The Reno 3 Pro is a good all-rounder sub-30K smartphone with a focus on camera performance. The 44MP+2MP selfie camera and the 64MP quad-lens rear camera setup offers plenty of features to please shutterbugs. The handset also offers an ergonomic design and vibrant AMOLED panel but it lacks a higher refresh rate display that can be a dealbreaker.

The MediaTek P95 is a new chipset and brings some noteworthy AI features; however, it doesn't stack up to Snapdragon 855+ SoC which powers up the rival handsets. We will put the Reno 3 Pro to extreme testing to evaluate its performance in detail in our comprehensive review.

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