Oppo’s Reno range of smartphones have always been appreciated in the office, with the new Reno8 Pro no different. It’s a beautifully designed phone that has a number of features to make it compete with the best. 

Design

The Reno8 Pro does away with the dazzling metallic colour of previous versions, instead going for what they call a Glazed Green. It’s a subdued tint that one does not see that often and works well with the phone’s overall sleek design choices. One of the highlights is the raised plateau around the camera system at the back, curving gently to accommodate the bump. Instead of the rounded sides found on many Android phones, the Reno8 Pro goes for a rectangular design, more reminiscent of an iPhone. It works well, providing a nice feel in hand, with its weight of 183 g actually less than expected. It’s something I actually missed when I had to switch over to another model. 

Battery and fast charge

With a 4500 mAh battery, it was hoped that the Reno8 Pro would at least top 5000 mAh, but you can’t always get what you want. For the most part, the Oppo handled a full day, with the battery deep in the red when going to bed however. 

What Oppo certainly does right is their 80W SUPERVOOC fast charge that’s on offer, complete with quite a chunky charging unit included in the box. This fast charge capabilities works like a charm, with the phone going 40% up in ten minutes on average. While Oppo notes the quick-charge does not damage the battery, during night time the phone charges at a less frantic rate.

Under the hood and imaging

What does the Oppo Reno8 Pro offer on the hardware side? Our review model includes 256 GB of storage, alongside 8 GB of RAM, and the octa-core MediaTek Dimensity 8100-MAX CPU. It’s a solution that works well for daily use, although the MediaTek does not quite have the same oomph as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 found on other flagships. 

Oppo blessed the Reno8 Pro with really great sound, with podcasts or YouTube videos able to be played loudly. But unfortunately there’s no wireless charging or waterproof design on offer. 

On the imaging side, Oppo’s new MariSilicon X neural processing unit brings a host of processing power to proceedings, with attention being paid to night-time videography and photography, much like Samsung did with the S22. There’s very little to critique the Reno8 Pro’s camera system since the NPU works together with strong Sony camera sensors to produce great images, alongside 4K video at 30fps. On the back, you have a 50MP main camera, with an additional ultrawide and macro as has become standard. You’ll also find a 32MP selfie camera at the front with a range of retouching tools available if needed.

On the software side

A phone might have the hardware to back it up, but can be easily let down by a bad software experience. Luckily it’s not the case with Oppo. ColorOS 12, Oppo’s user interface, lies on top of Android 12, and to me it’s one of the best, staying out of your way and being quite intuitive for the most part. 

Their Smart Sidebar remains a favourite, although using gestures to scroll through certain apps were fickle at best. Oppo also provides a gaming mode feature that helps with managing notifications while gaming, amongst others. 

Another feature that might come handy is the Multi-Screen Connect application, which allows you to connect your phone to a PC wirelessly, copying files and interacting with the screen directly from your computer. It’s a decent feature to have if you constantly need to transfer images or documents from phone to PC or visa versa. 

A final word needs to go out to the 6.7” FHD (2412 × 1080) AMOLED display, which is larger and denser (394 PPI) than some of the competing models. 

Conclusion

There’s truly a lot to like about the Reno8 Pro, including a sleek and stylish design (not to mention the on-point Glazed Green colour option), the 80W SUPERVOOC quick charge option, decent camera, gorgeous screen and overall strong specs. It’s difficult to find much wrong with the phone, which makes me believe that Oppo is on to a winner with this one. 

Oppo puts the price of the Reno8 Pro at just below R20k, although we found it retailing for R18 399, which is just below that of the Samsung Galaxy S22+, and it's also less in contract price.