The Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G has taken over the status as frontrunner from the Reno8 Pro 5G here in South Africa. After spending a lot of time with each, we ask the question - is it worth the upgrade?

Design and screen

I really enjoyed the squared, Apple-like feel of the Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G (Reno8 from here) - it fits nicely in hand and feels more secure when holding the device. The Reno10 Pro+ 5G (Reno10) reverts back to the previous models’ rounded edges, although now bringing with it a curved display. Still, the Reno8 offered a bit more than the usual run-of-the-mill smartphone design, with its Glazed Green colour and curve on the lens cluster particularly inspired.

In essence, you are dealing with a bigger device in the Reno10, which is perhaps not as noticeable when looking at the specs, but once the protective body cover is on, the Reno10’s feels a larger, with the weight - 194g vs 183g, and thickness - 8.28mm vs 7.34 mm, contributing to this, although it’s a bit slimmer.

At 6.74” (Reno10) vs 6.7” (Reno8) there’s not much difference when it comes to screen size, but pixel density puts the Reno10 on top: FHD+ (2772×1240, 450 PPI) vs FHD (2412×1080, 394 PPI). Is the curved display on the Reno10 a must-have? I’m a bit on the fence in this regard, but the Reno10’s screen is certainly tops.   

Battery life

A worthy update is the 4700 mAh battery on the Reno10, compared to the 4500 mAh of the Reno8. Technically, it’s not a big difference, but the extra bit of juice was noticeable at the end of a day when the Reno8 was in the red, but the Reno10 was still going for a few hours more.

Both units include Oppo’s excellent fast charging abilities, which gives you a big bump in battery life in only a few minutes on the charger. With the Reno10’s new 100W SUPERVOOC, it provides a bit extra in terms of charging compared to the Reno8’s 80W SUPERVOOC charging: you’ll receive about 40% for ten minutes on the charger for the Reno8, and in the region of 50% for ten minutes on the Reno10.

Zoom, zoom, zoom

New to the Oppo Reno10 is a 3x optical zoom, found most easily when turning on the Portrait mode while using the camera (64MP; f/2.5 for the telephoto setup). The optical zoom doesn’t use digital crop to zoom into your image, rather making use of the built-in lens technology for a more authentic zoom.

The zoom feature (and the tinkering Oppo does on the backend to allow for the subject to pop from the background) is easily the best feature of the Reno10.

Not that images on the Reno8 aren’t good, but it doesn’t come close to the portrait abilities of the Reno10. Just keep in mind, the 3x zoom actually zooms in quite a bit and can be jarring at the start - you may need to step back to frame your subject correctly.

I have taken some stunning images on the Reno10 making it easy to pick it as the top reason to upgrade.

Under the hood

Achieving 2675 on the 3Dmark Wild Life Extreme benchmark, compared to the Reno8’s 1584, it’s clear that Oppo has sent the Reno10 to the gym. The heavy lifting is done via the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset and a generous 12 GB worth of RAM. The MediaTek Dimensity 8100-MAX chipset on the Reno8 can’t keep up with the Snapdragon, while the device also has less RAM.

Both units offer 128 GB of storage. They also run on Android Version 13, with the rather excellent and hassle-free ColorOS 13.1 on top. But the extra strength on the Reno10 is hard to dispute when it comes to recommending the upgrade.

To upgrade or not?

While the Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G still has the design edge, it simply can’t keep up to the Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G in terms of performance, while also lagging in battery life and display resolution. 

But ultimately, it’s the camera system on the Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G that’s the biggest reason to upgrade, with the 3x optical zoom on portrait mode a killer feature. 

Typically, the Reno8 retails in the region of R18 500, with the Reno10 jumping to R24 000. If you can spare the extra bucks, the Reno10 is the one.

DISCLOSURE: The Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G was seeded from Oppo South Africa and not returned.