Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G Review: Plays to its strengths

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Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G Review Summary:

Expert Rating: 3.6/5

Design

Audiovisual

Connectivity

Performance

Camera

Battery

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Pros

  • Slim, gorgeous and fit design
  • Delectable visuals 
  • Solid performance
  • Fancy filters for photos and videos
  • Quick battery charging
  • Feature-rich software
  • IP54 water and dust resistance
  • 5G future-proofing

Cons

  • No 3.5mm headphone Jack
  • No micro-SD card expansion
  • No 4K60 video recording and no OIS

Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G is here priced at around ₹40,000 which is as you know the flagship killer territory consisting of a few heavy hitters. So, while buying a phone from this segment, one would expect a certain level of quality in table stakes and wouldn’t mind tasting some of the premium features. Let’s see how the new Reno meets these expectations and whether it should be your next purchase.

This is the Smartprix review of the Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G.

Starting off with all the contents and components within the box:

Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G Unboxing

I’m in awe of Oppo’s packaging for the Reno 6 Pro 5G. And I don’t mean the turquoise blue cover, but the black textured finish on the box. It feels comfortable and premium. Anyways, here’s what you get inside it:

  • The handset
  • 65W SuperVOOC 2.0 Charger with Cable
  • USB Type-C Earphone
  • Protect Case
  • SIM Card Tool
  • Screen Protect Film (Pre-applied)
  • Quick Start Guide
  • Important Product Information (including the Warranty Card)

Also Read:

Contents


Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G India price and specs

Width and Weight: 7.6 mm thick; 177 grams
Screen: 6.5” FHD+ OLED 3D curved screen, 90Hz refresh rate, 180Hz touch sampling rate, HDR10+, 800nits peak brightness, Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection, In-display fingerprint reader
CPU: MediaTek Dimensity 1200
GPU: Mali G77 MC9
RAM: 12GB LPDDR4x
Storage: 256GB UFS 3.1
Rear cameras: 64MP Main Camera + 8MP Wide Angle Camera + 2MP Macro Camera + 2MP Mono Camera with a Color Temperature Sensor
Front camera: 32MP
Battery: 4500 mAh with 65W charging
OS: Android 11, ColorOS 11.3
5G: Yes
Connectivity: Dual-mode 5G, Dual Nano Card Slot, Dual-band WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, Dual-band GPS
Price: 12GB+256GB: Rs. 39,990


And here we go:

Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G: Design

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Oppo offers the phone in two distinct colors — Aurora and Stellar Black. The former is the more buoyant one among the two with colors shifting on its surface depending on the angle of light it reflects. However, if you prefer something more understated, pick the latter. Anyways regardless of color, both models have an allure to them.

At just 7.6 mm in thickness and 177 grams in weight, Reno 6 Pro can be easily carried around. The front is Gorilla Glass 5 and the back is Anti-Glare glass with oleophobic properties and a powdery matte texture. These are held together by a shiny metallic frame. Here on the sides is where you’d find the volume rockers (left), power key (right), SIM slot, USB-C port, and speaker grille.

The buttons are tactile and easily reachable. In case you’re wondering about a fingerprint scanner, it is present within the display. But before we get to that, note that the device is IP54 rated for water and dust resistance, which is great compared to some of its competition. But, if it were IP68, that would’ve meant more peace of mind.

Nonetheless, time to unlock the device, which by the way has nice crisp feedback (from an X-linear vibration motor). Both it and the face recognition are spot on.

Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G: Audiovisual

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

The front of the phone is a 6.5-inch OLED display with a 91.2% screen-to-body ratio and FHD+ resolution. Thanks to its curved edges, the bezels, which are already slim, manage to stay out of sight.

Being a 90Hz panel, you would feel smoother animations in day-to-day use and games. In the latter, the 180Hz touch sampling rate would come in handy. Now, these aren’t the best in the segment but are workable.

The screen supports HDR10+ content too. This means rich colors, deep blacks, and high contrasts. You can enjoy HD streaming on Netflix and Prime Video thanks to Widevine L1 certification. In the HDR content, the device can peak at 800 cd/m2 brightness. The brand also brags a 360° light sensing by virtue of its dual ambient light sensor setup (the standard hidden one within the display and a color temperature sensor by the back). So, visibility should be fine. On-screen texts and other elements were legible even outdoors.

Another obvious aspect of this panel is its curved edges. This looks good and I didn’t face any ghost touch but probably as a result of this, the edges don’t always respond to touch. Not a pain point but an observance, if you will.

Now the pain point could be the absence of a 3.5mm jack for some, but for what it’s worth, Oppo has included a pair of USB-C earphones in the box. And if not wired, you can listen via the solo but the fine-sounding speaker (for a single unit that is) or over Bluetooth (with aptX support and fairly precise connectivity).

That brings us to —

Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G: Connectivity

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

The phoning experience was alright. There is dual SIM VoLTE, VoWiFi, and support for Dual-mode 5G with bands like n1/n3/n5/n7/n8/n28/n38/n40/n41/n77/n78. The rest of the connectivity solutions include dual-band WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, Dual-band GPS, and NFC. The WiFi speeds were fast too.

Speaking of fast…

Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G: Performance

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Reno 6 Pro 5G runs on a 6 nm-based Dimensity 1200 processor. It is an octa-core chipset combining a Cortex A78 prime core (with up to 3GHz clock speed), three Cortex A78 medium performance cores (up to 2.6GHz), and four Cortex A55 efficiency cores (up to 2GHz). As for memory, there is 12GB of LPDDR4x RAM (with VRAM support up to 7GB) and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage.

The phone handles multitasking, app opening times, boot to screen time, everyday browsing, social swiping, and scrolling with ease.

For an objective reference, take a look at some of the prominent synthetic tests:

Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G Benchmark Scores
Antutu 606903
Geekbench 5 Single | Multi 810 | 2535
PCMark Work 2.0 8491
3DMark Wild Life Extreme | Regular 1292 | 4139
Androbench Sequential R/W (MB/s) 1845.44 | 1244.18
Androbench Random R/W 227.28 | 250.32
Conversion of 2:35min 1080p 60fps MP4 video to MKV using Video Transcoder app 13 mins

The CPU scores were lower than what I had got out of Dimensity 1200 wielding Realme X7 Pro Max 5G (review) and other Snapdragon competitors in the segment. As for ARM’s Mali G77 MC9 GPU, the numbers were in line with expectations. In practice too, the graphics were rendered well. I was able to get 60 FPS in BGMI (with Smooth Graphics and Ultra Frame Rate), 30 FPS In BGMI (with HDR Graphics and Ultra Frame Rate), 30 FPS in Genshin Impact (with Medium Graphics), and about 60 FPS in Asphalt 9 (with High Graphics). COD Mobile is playable at Very High Graphics and Frame Rates. If you choose Max Frame Rate, the Graphics would dip to High and clock around 60 FPS.

 

In half an hour of Genshin Impact, the battery fell 15% and the temperature rose from 38.9℃ to 41.1℃. During this session, only the rear area next to the camera island was a bit warm. But, nothing alarming.

Now, I got those FPS scores from the System Status section of the built-in Game Toolkit. This also includes nifty hotkeys (to WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Discord), a toggle for high-performance Game Mode, a toggle to disable intrusive notifications during gameplay, screen recording, smart network switching, and touch optimization, and scenario-specific vibration. The haptics and sound are okay, but the single speaker can get blocked during landscape gaming. Every phone should have a toolset like this.

And that’s a great thing about ColorOS 11.3. Lately, the Android 11 skin has gotten far better in terms of appearance and features. You get to personalize the look of the UI closer to what you like. Then there are neat utilities like Enhanced Dark Mode, 3-finger gesture to take screenshots (along with Freeform/Long-page capture, and Google Lens integration), Google Discover integration on the homescreen, Screen Recording, Smart Sidebar, Quick Launch, Floating Window, and Conversation Bubbles. Even the pre-installed apps (which BTW are many) are uninstallable one way or the other. You also get to disable the annoying browser ads and Lock Screen Magazine. Another minor gripe I have is the way notifications cannot be removed from the tray by a simple swipe.

Let’s now swipe into different camera modes. You would see some of the software trickery in the camera department (not just in photos, but in videos too) —

Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G: Camera

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Sticking with the market practice, there are four rear cameras viz. a 64MP primary sensor (f/1.7 aperture), an 8MP ultrawide clicker (f/2.2 aperture), a 2MP macro module (f/2.4 aperture), and a 2MP monochrome unit with a color temperature sensor. On the front, there is a 32MP selfie shooter. This seems to be pretty much the same setup as in its predecessor. The only difference on paper is a wider 120° field of view on the ultrawide snapper.

Anyway, here are some camera samples from the Reno 6 Pro 5G:

The daylight shots look good with ample details. Only things in the edges appear a bit soft. Turning on the AI enhancement mode gives slightly warmer results. You may also try the Full 64MP mode or 108MP Extra HD upscaling for a tad more defined shots. But, would you use it depends on whether you mind the increased file size.

 

As already mentioned, you get a 120° FoV using the ultrawide lens with fish-eye distortion and fewer details on the edges. When you compare it against the original, you’d notice some color shifts. Within the camera app, you also have digital zooms up to 10x, which is a nice thing to have.

 

The clicks out of the 2MP macro sensor are uninspiring, and the feature is likely to stay latent in the camera app.

However, the Reno 6 Pro has few other tricks up its sleeve which are likely to amuse you.

If you like portrait shots, the Reno 6 Pro 5G has got two filters that bring out beautiful results. This is available both on the front and back camera. In selfies though, the edge detection and background blurring was hit and miss.

 

Also, the skin tones aren’t real, and facial features are smoothened out even with beautification turned off. In the shots with the sun behind human subjects, the highlights were rather clipped. But the facial features of the person were captured nicely.

And when the sun goes down, the night mode comes into play. It enhances the exposure, color saturation, and details with a few seconds of processing.

 

The portrait filters and ultrawide shots are available in night time too. However, they would work best only when provided with sufficient light.

You can make use of the various decorations and AI boosts in videos as well. Alas, the phone supports only 4K30 recording which is a pity considering its Pro moniker. The details are fine but the dynamic range needs some work (clipped highlights) and due to lack of OIS, the output is a little shaky. To fix this you can enable Ultra Steady mode (but it is limited to 1080P @60FPS and the frame is smaller by a slim margin). The selfie videos are serviceable at 1080P @30FPS) You can also have fun with Bokeh Flare Portrait Video, AI Color Portrait Video, and AI Highlight Video if you want.

Finally, with all the battery of tests and results, here’s how the actual battery fared:

Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G: Battery

Rating: 4 out of 5.

The 4500mAh cell inside the Reno 6 Pro ran for 14 Hrs in our PCMark Work 3.0 test. This could be attributed to efficiency brought in by the 6 nm-based Dimensity 1200 chip and software controllers like Super power-saving mode, Optimized battery use, and night charging. In general use, I was getting around 7 hours of screen time. So good signs here. And what makes the experience better is the supplied 65W SuperVOOC 2.0 charger which can refill the tank from 0 to 100-percent in mere 35 mins. I also appreciate Oppo’s, adapter and cable quality.

With that, we are at the finish line.

Review Verdict: Should you buy Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G?

Editor’s rating

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Oppo phones usually stand out for their design and the same is true here. Reno 6 Pro 5G looks and feels great in hand. The pleasure extends to its gorgeous 90Hz display and feature-rich ColorOS 11.3 software. Even the hardware under the hood is very robust. It might not outsmart the competition, but Dimensity 1200 SoC would handle gaming and everything else you throw at it with ease. And whatever the use case may be, the 4500mAh battery plus 65W charging combo would ensure the experience lasts for long. The offered connectivity solutions would also reliably stick around.

Now one of those solutions is 5G, which is there for when its time comes. Well, if part of that ₹39,990 asking price goes into future-proofing, that’s worthwhile. Speaking of price, for a budget like this, there are certain camera expectations you’d have. The Reno 6 Pro 5G’s results aren’t bad but they are thwarted by missing features like 4K60 FPS and OIS in video recording, as well as some instabilities in low light and portrait selfies. The good thing is that Oppo tries to balance out these hardware insufficiencies with software tricks. Especially, if social vlogging and sharing is your thang, then these filters would be right up your alley. You’d be buying a glamourous phone with good hardware and even better software. However, if that’s not the case, you may look elsewhere.

Reasons to buy

  • Slim, gorgeous and fit design
  • Delectable visuals 
  • Solid performance
  • Fancy filters for photos and videos
  • Quick battery charging
  • Feature-rich software
  • IP54 water and dust resistance
  • 5G future-proofing

Reasons not to buy

  • No 3.5mm headphone Jack
  • No micro-SD card expansion
  • No 4K60 video recording and no OIS

OPPO Reno6 Pro 5G Review Video [in Hindi]

 

Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G FAQ

Q. Does Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G has a dedicated microSD slot?

A. No, Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G doesn’t support memory card expansion.

Q. What is the SAR value of Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G?

A. Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G SAR values are: 1.17 W/kg @ 1gm (Head) & 1.03 W/kg @ 1gm (Body)

Q. Does Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G feature Gorilla Glass Protection?

A. Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G comes with Gorilla Glass 5 protection.

Q. What are the 5G bands supported by Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G?

A. Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G supports the following bands: n1/n3/n5/n7/n8/n28/n38/n40/n41/n77/n78

Q. Does Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G support dual-band WiFi?

A, Yes, Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G supports dual-band WiFi 6 (2.4GHz + 5GHz).

Q. Does Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G support VoWiFi or WiFi calling?

A. Yes, Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G does feature VoWiFi.

Q. How many microphones are on the Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G?

A. Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G comes with two microphones.

Q. Which is the Android update on Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G?

A. Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G ships with Android 11 software with ColorOS 11.3 skin. At the time of writing, it has the June 05 2021 security update. The Google Play System update is also dated June 05, 2021.

Q. Does Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G support HD stream on Netflix and Amazon Prime?

A. Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G has DRM L1 certification and I did an HD stream on Prime Video and Netflix.

Q. Does Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G support auto-call recording?

A. Yes, Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G does support call-recording with the stock Google Phone app.

Q. Does Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G support Dual VoLTE and carrier aggregations?

A. Although the chip seems to support 2CA, the phone itself wasn’t showing this support. As for Dual VoLTE, yes the Reno 6 Pro 5G supports it.

Q. Does Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G support GCam or Camera2API?

A. Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G comes with Level 3 hardware support level for Camera2API, which indicates the support for GCam. However, if there is a GCam build for MediaTek Dimensity 1200 chip is something to be seen.

Q. Does the Dimensity 1200 SoC within Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G get hot?

A. In my usage, I didn’t come across anything which would worry me.

Q. Does Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G feature OIS?

A. No, Oppo Reno 6 Pro doesn’t feature OIS.

Q. Does Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G feature 4K60 FPS?

A. The maximum video quality supported by Reno 6 Pro 5G is 4K30 FPS. So, no 60 frames per second here.

Vasan G.S.Vasan G.S.
An inquisitive mind who spends a big chunk of the day keenly tracking every emerging detail and is responsible for quickly passing on important developments to Smartprix followers. He loves to stay in his bubble scripting his destiny involving amazing technology and people with good character, passion, and brilliance.

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