Oppo Reno 7 Pro Review: A lightweight contender in premium space, can it knock out the heavyweights?

Performance and software 

Most smartphones under and around Rs 40,000 in India come with a Snapdragon 888 SoC under the hood, which offers flagship-grade performance in the price segment. The Reno 7 Pro 5G, on the other hand, has a MediaTek Dimensity 1200 Max chipset under the hood.

While the processor does not match Qualcomm’s 2021 flagship chipset, it does have enough grunt to handle most tasks that you throw at it. Oppo told us that the Dimensity 1200 Max is a customised chip for the Reno 7 Pro with some enhancements done to offer better imaging capabilities. These include enhanced colours and contrast levels in HDR videos, and AI Deblur technology that sharpens faces in portraits affected by hand-held shaking.

We will get to the camera performance bit in a later part of our Oppo Reno 7 Pro review.

With regards to day-to-day performance, the Dimensity 1200 chip does not invite any problems. However, the phone is not for those who play a lot of games on their smartphones. With Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), the game runs an Extreme frame rate only with Smooth graphics.

Switch to Balanced graphics and the game with support Ultra frame rate at max. Even with Smooth + Extreme settings, we noticed minor lags at times. Asphalt 9 runs well but the phone gets slightly warm after 15-20 minutes of gameplay.

Therefore, if you are a mobile gamer, we would recommend looking at the Xiaomi 11T Pro (Review), iQOO 7 Legend (Review), or any other phone with a Snapdragon 888 SoC. For others who do not play many games, the Reno 7 Pro will get the job done.

Another thing we liked about the Reno 7 Pro is ColorOS 12. The custom Android skin is packed with many features for customisation as per the user’s preferences. You also get features like sidebar, which lets you create a list of apps to launch in split-screen. Alternatively, you can also use the app as a Floating Window widget, which comes in handy while watching a cricket match and scrolling through social media on the side.

Oppo’s custom Android skin has been offering customisation options for front, fingerprint animation, icon shapes, and sizes. The same can be found in Color OS 12.

What we do not appreciate though is the device running Android 11 out of the box. Oppo has been rolling out Android 12-based Color OS 12 for many devices and having the Reno 7 Pro ship with the latest OS version would have been great.

When will the Android 12 update for the device roll out? We do not know yet. Oppo told us though that the Android 12 update for Reno 7 Pro is coming soon. The company has also promised to provide three years of software support along with four years of security updates.

Design and Display

One of the best reasons to purchase the Reno 7 Pro 5G is its design. The phone has a flat frame with curved corners, similar to what we have seen on the likes of the iPhone 13 (Review), Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge (Review). It is probably the design choice that makes the phone feel ridiculously lightweight. On paper, the phone weighs 180 grams. In reality, the Oppo Reno 7 Pro feels a lot more light in terms of weight. With the flat metal frame, the in-hand feel is incredibly good.

It is also the slimmest Reno phone at 7.45mm, which also means that there is no 3.5mm headphone jack. The overall weight distribution is so good that despite the slim and lightweight design, the phone does can be kept straight without any support.

The Reno 7 Pro comes in two Startrails Blue and our review unit in Starlight Black. We would obviously pick the latter as it offers a more premium look compared to the two. Design choices and preferences are obviously subjective and those who want a bright-looking design might prefer the Blue shade. Our Black colour Oppo Reno 7 Pro review unit has a smooth texture on the back and throws a shimmery effect when there’s enough light on it. 

We also liked a neat implementation of the LED light around the camera module bump. There is a blue light around the camera module when you get a notification, an incoming call, or when the phone is on charge. It would have been even cooler if Oppo gave users the choice to change the colour of the light. Oppo, if you are seeing this, please do that. 

At the front, there is a 6.55-inch flat display. You get a good AMOLED display with vibrant colours and good viewing angles. There is only support for a 90Hz refresh rate, which is quite noticeable after I switched from the Xiaomi 11T Pro (Review).

For the price, we would have certainly preferred a 120Hz panel. The display on the Reno 7 Pro is fairly bright and we did not experience any issues while watching content both indoors and outdoors. You also get dual speakers with the earpiece doubling up as a secondary audio outlet. The speakers are fairly loud and offer good quality but the Xiaomi 11T Pro wins the crown here with its Harmon Kardon-tuned stereo speakers.

The Oppo Reno 7 Pro comes with an in-display fingerprint scanner that quickly unlocks the device. One neat software implementation that I noticed here is that users can quick-launch an app immediately after unlocking the device. You can set up to five apps that you would want to quickly launch.

Battery life

The Oppo Reno 7 Pro packs a 4500 mAh battery under the hood and comes with 65W fast charging support. You do get the charging brick with the device’s retail box. During our Oppo Reno 7 Pro review period, we managed to get a full day’s worth of battery life on a single charge. The screen-on time (SoT) varied depending on the use case.

On days when we played games for about 30-35 mins, the SoT was about 6.5 hours. On days with a lighter use case, we saw the SoT go up to 7 hours and 38 mins. The use of a 90Hz Full HD+ display, coupled with a less-hungry chipset could have done the trick here for Reno 7 Pro 5G. 

It also charges fairly quickly. With the 65W VOOC charger provided by Oppo, the device charges in about 35 minutes on average.

Camera

Oppo Reno series, in general, is known to offer a great set of camera features that compliment the capable hardware. With the Reno 7 Pro, you get a 50MP Sony IMX766 sensor, an 8MP ultrawide camera, and a 2MP macro sensor.

The main camera captures detailed shots and does not oversaturate the colours aggressively, which we liked a lot. The blue sky looked the way it was and the green trees did not look as if the saturation bar was moved to +50 on editing apps. Colours were very close to real and even the dynamic range is impressive.

In low light though, the software messes up with the night sky and makes it look a lot blue. Night mode does a good job with highlight control while exposing the shadows. There is noise in the darker areas though and sometimes, the images shot in night mode were slightly more sharpened compared to our liking.

There is no native RAW file support. For a phone that boasts a lot about the camera features, having some control in post with RAW files would have been nice. Also worth noting here is that while the camera captures night mode images in less than a second, we noticed that it takes about 3-4 seconds on top to process the image.

The camera app, meanwhile, cannot be used. It would be something related to Dimensity 1200 or Oppo’s camera software algorithm that takes so much time.

The 8MP ultrawide camera is useful for good daylight shots but do not expect a lot of details. It gets close to the main camera with respect to colours and the dynamic range is also quite okay. I would not recommend using the 2MP macro sensor.

For selfies, there is a 32MP Sony IMX709 sensor that clicks good quality, social media-ready selfies. However, Oppo’s native camera app comes with beauty mode on by default and if you do not want that unrealistic, buttery smooth skin, just disable the mode.

The camera tries to get the skin tone right in most cases and also offers a fair amount of detail. In portrait mode, edge detection also worked fine for us in most cases. The phone also comes with unique bokeh filters that users can choose from within the camera app itself.

Click here or check the Flickr slideshow below to see some of the sample images we shot for our Oppo Reno 7 Pro review.

Verdict

So, should you buy the Oppo Reno 7 Pro? Oppo’s new premium smartphone scores its highest for the overall design and build quality. The phone certainly feels premium and while it might make your wallet slightly lighter, it will certainly feel light in your hand and your pocket. The camera performance too is quite good in daylight and above average during the night. 

The Reno 7 Pro is also a good buy for those who click a good amount of selfies. The only phone in the segment that gets close to the Reno 7 Pro is the Vivo V23 Pro (Review) with its 50MP dual-front camera setup. While both offer competitive front camera hardware, the V23 Pro has a slight edge with its front flash module. However, the Oppo Reno 7 Pro, overall, offers a better user experience with better battery life, and software experience.

With a starting price of Rs 39,999, the Oppo Reno 7 Pro might not impress performance purists or professional mobile gamers, who would rather want something like the Xiaomi 11T Pro (Review), OnePlus 9RT (Review), iQOO 7 Legend, etc.