Oppo Reno 7 5G Review: Meant for the photographer inside you

Oppo Reno 7 5G Review Summary

Editor’s Rating- 4.5/5

Oppo has launched Oppo Reno 7 Series in India and the series consists of 2 devices- Oppo Reno 7 5G and Oppo Reno 7 Pro 5G. Both the devices come with premium features, the special focus being on their camera optics. Oppo Reno 7 5G is available for Rs. 28,990and will come in 2 colors- Blue and Black. Can Oppo Reno 7 5G be your pick if you are looking to replace your current smartphone? Read this review to help you decide.

Unboxing | Price & Availability | Specs | Design | Display & Audio | Battery | Software & Performance | Camera | Verdict

Oppo Reno 7 5G Unboxing

The Oppo Reno 7 variant I received came in a green cardboard box that feels heavy. There is a thin black box that contains accessories and a user guide. The smartphone is on the top followed by a 65W SuperVOOC charger and a USB cable. The other box contents include a transparent plastic back cover and the SIM ejector tool. For this review, I received the Startrails Blue color variant of the phone.

Price & Availability

Oppo Reno 7 5G will be available in two colors- Star trails Blue and Starlight Black in India. Oppo Reno 7 5G comes in a single 8GB RAM and 256GB storage variant for Rs. 28,999. The first sale will happen on 17 February.

Specs

• Processor- MediaTek Dimensity 900 5G
• Display- 6.4-inch AMOLED
• Refresh rate- 120Hz
• OS- ColorOS 12
• Storage- 256GB
• RAM-8GB
• Rear Camera- 64MP+8MP+2MP
• Front Camera- 32MP
• Battery- 4500mAh with 65W Super VOOC Fast charge
• Thickness- 7.81mm
• Weight- 173 grams approx.
• Color- Star trails Blue

Design

Oppo’s Reno series has always set high design standards and once again the Reno 7 Series live up to that legacy. The Reno 7 Pro Startrails Blue variant that I have looks beautiful from all ends. OPPO has used Laser Direct Imaging (LDI) at the rear end to achieve this mesmerizing glossy matte texture.

The rear panel has dual shades which merge into each other when sunlight falls on it. The matte finish makes it easier to hold in hand without slipping. The device weighs just 173 grams and its thickness is 7.81mm which made it a comfortable fit for my hand. The smartphone neither felt heavy nor felt slippery. It can be operated with one hand easily.

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The device has a power button on the right and on the left lies a SIM tray as well as volume buttons. The bottom has a charging port, speaker grille, and headphone jack. At the front of the device, the display hardly has any bezels. Overall, the Oppo Reno 7 looks classy and feels refreshing in hand.

Display and audio

Oppo Reno 7 has a 6.4-inch AMOLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate and up to 180Hz touch sampling rate. The picture quality is crisp and the colors are rich. The visuals in full-screen 1080p quality look stunning. It is a good panel for movie streaming all thanks to its Netflix and Amazon HD Streaming certification.

We use our devices for long durations these days and Oppo has tried to take care of that too with its SGS Eye Cre Display certification.

The device can have a touch sampling rate of up to 180Hz which makes it touch highly responsive. Though this is good quality, it sometimes meant a few options being pressed even if it was accidental.

OPPO has missed some brownie points by not including a stereo setup here. The phone has a mono speaker which is kind of a bummer.

Battery

Oppo Reno 7 comes with a large 4500mAh battery. It has 65W Super VOOC fast charging support. After a long day of work, the battery had drained out to a mere 5% and I plugged it into recharge and by the time I got ready for bed it had charged up to 80%. This happened in about 20 minutes which is super quick. Moreover once I charged it for 5-10 minutes and it gave me hours of runtime.

The Super Power Saving Mode and Night Time Mode helped save battery during the hours when I wasn’t using the device.  Overall, I am quite pleased with battery performance as it does not drain that easily and fast charging is above average too.

Software & Performance

The Oppo Reno 7 comes running on Color OS 12 which is based on Android 11. Over the years Oppo has improved its custom skin a lot. The skin offers several personalizations and customization options. It comes with Google Dialer and messages app, and Google feeds in minus one screen. There is an option such as a flowing window and split-screen that makes multi-tasking easy. 

One could use the PC Connect feature of ColorOS 12 to easily sync its document and files between their phone & laptop. Files could be dragged and dropped easily to transfer them between the two devices.

Omoji is also available which comes with over 200 cool stickers and other accessories. I used this Omoji as my account picture. One feature I liked was Anti-peeping for notifications. When enabled it hides the detailed notification if the sensor detected that someone else was looking at my phone when it received the message. This helped when I was among a group of people and had to hand over my phone to someone for a short while.

Air Gestures when enabled helped me operate the device without using my hands, but this was not up to mark. The sound quality is just about ok.

Coming to performance, the Oppo Reno 7 5G is powered by MediaTek Dimensity 900 5G SoC which supports 5G and Wi-Fi 6. The chipset is paired with 8GB RAM and 256GB inbuilt storage capacity which is more than enough to store important photos, videos, music, and documents. RAM expansion is available which is a useful option in case you feel you need larger RAM. Options of 2GB, 3GB and 5GB additional RAMs are available.

In terms day to day performance, the Reno 7 Pro held its ground firmly. I managed to perform my usual activities without experiencing any lag. Yes, does get a little warm-up after prolonged usage. On the gaming front, it is only suitable for casual gaming.

If you are looking for a phone that can offer several rounds of BGMI or Call of Duty Mobile without throttling you will have to consider something else. I experienced the best of Call of Duty Mobile when I opted for medium graphics settings with high frame rates.

We also ran several benchmark and throttle tests and here are the results:

• Geekbench 5.4.4:  694 score in Single core and 2162 score in Multi-core test
• 3D mark Sligh Shot: 4,754
• GFX Bench Manhattan 3.1: 2106
• GFX Bench Car Chase: 1110

Camera

Oppo Reno Series always has its main focus on the camera department and this time’s nothing new. The smartphone comes with a triple camera setup at the back which includes a 64MP main camera lens along with 8MP wide-angle camera and a 2MP macro lens. At the front is a 32MP selfie camera.

The photos clicked by the 64MP camera in daylight are clear, sharp, and rich in colors. Every detail is highlighted well and background disturbances aren’t noticeable. Even when taking pictures facing the sun, the exposure was still excellent with great shadow detail. The colors are pretty close to what we saw in real life. And it also does a great job of solving the purple fringing issue. Its Flash snapshot feature which claims to get clear images while the subject is in motion was not really up to the mark but its smart portrait retouching helped as it identified my face type and used appropriate filters when needed.

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The videos captured come out in good quality although there’s a constantly nagging warning to keep your hands steady, which was annoying for me as my palms do have a habit of shaking if I try to keep them too steady.

If the lighting is bad, the camera’s performance is strictly average. Sometimes switching on the night mode made images slightly filtered and thus not authentic. Portrait mode is good as it gives DSLR camera-like photographs with Bokeh flare. The Ultra-wide camera can cover a good range and helps you squeeze more into a single click.

Overall the camera quality is very good. Here are some samples of a few pictures clicked by Oppo Reno 7.

Review Verdict: Should you buy OPPO Reno 7?

Oppo Reno 7 5G advantages over the Reno 6 are limited. Yes, it has received a visual upgrade with a fresh and appealing design. They also received an upgrade in terms of battery and camera specs. It is lightweight, easy to hold in one hand, and looks beautiful when sunlight falls on it. The 90Hz refresh rate AMOLED panel is one of the better ones under Rs 30,000. So, if you don’t mind is average gaming performance, the Oppo Reno 7 5G can be your perfect choice for your next smartphone.