New Oppo Reno8 5G phone has two big advantages – storage and charging

The Oppo’s Reno8 5G looks good, with a ‘shimmer’ gold or black finish

Adrian Weckler Twitter Email

February 02 2023 02:30 AM

Price: €459 from Curry’s

Oppo Reno8 5G

While a lot of our attention is often drawn to premium flagships, what’s on offer in the mid-market models has become just as interesting.

At €459, Oppo’s Reno8 5G is identically priced to Google’s Pixel 6A, Samsung’s Galaxy A53 and Nothing’s Phone, all three of which are formidable devices in their own ways. It’s about €100 cheaper than the cheapest iPhone SE.

To its credit, Oppo’s offering matches all of these devices very well, with two distinct advantages over its rivals – storage and charging.

The phone’s physical design looks good, with a ‘shimmer’ gold or black finish.

Because the rear casing isn’t glass, it doesn’t slip off tables and other surfaces, like some Oppos do. The bright 6.4-inch full HD screen performs really nicely, too, with a pleasing 90hz refresh rate for smooth scrolling.

Oppo certainly isn’t afraid to announce the rear cameras on this phone. Their design, in a pronounced bump on the back of the device, makes them look like a pro setup. Oppo calls it a ‘triple lens’ system, although it’s really just two cameras (main and wide), with the third being a 2-megapixel macro camera that few people will use with any regularity.

That main 50-megapixel rear camera is actually very good, leveraging Sony’s much-used IMX766 sensor; the 5-megapixel ultrawide is fine, but nothing special.

Oppo certainly isn’t afraid to announce the rear cameras on this phone

There’s no telephoto lens, optical image stabilisation or more advanced computational photography (via the Marisilicon X chip) that you’ll find in the Reno8 Pro.

There’s a difference in video performance, too, between the two models: the Reno8 is fine, but not comparable to premium flagship phones in performance.

One distinct advantage this devices has over many of the mid-range phones at its price is a relatively generous amount of storage (256GB), meaning twice as much space for photos and videos as most of its same-price rivals.

The other big advantage is charging. The battery life on the Reno8 is good, thanks to its 4,500mAh battery. What’s better, though, is that it comes with an 80w SuperVooC fast charger in the box, allowing it to get from empty to 95pc in 30 minutes.

This is quite a perk in an era when most phones now don’t come with any charger at all in the box, let alone a really fast one like this.

Its 8GB of Ram and a reasonably good Mediatek chip lets it keep pace with most similarly-priced mid-range phones. It’s pretty decent for casual gaming or video streaming.

In summary, it’s hard to go wrong with the Reno8 5G. It’s a well-performing, long-lasting, nicely designed phone at a much more sensible price for people who don’t need a world-beating camera or a heavy gaming device.