OPPO recently announced new devices with boastful specs such as the first smartphone in the world with a 44 megapixel dual punch hole front camera. With a simple, attractive design, specifications and four camera array at the back that looks a lot like flagship devices, the OPPO Reno 3 and Reno 3 Pro are expected to make good impressions in the competitive upper-midrange smartphone market. Should you buy the OPPO Reno 3 Pro? We will find out in the review
DESIGN
OPPO adopts a simple design on the Reno 3 Pro. With the 6.4-inch super screen, slim body, tiny bezels and curved-edge display, it may be difficult to differentiate it from a collection of smartphones considering the very simple design. However the dual-hole punch camera, placed on the top left corner on the display makes it stand out from the pack. You also find tiny bezels on three sides of the display but with a thicker chin where the navigation keys are placed. Right above the lower chin on the display is the in-display finger print sensor for secure lock. Facial recognition is also available and it was quick when used to unlock the device during use.
The back is shiny polycarbornate, although it collects lots of smudges from fingerprints, it is less slippery when compared with glass but allows for easy handling and reduction in the risk of dropping and accidental damage. There is a camera bump at the back that house the quad camera in a vertical arrangement, this makes the phone wobble a little when placed on a flat surface. The device is light, weighing 175g and fits great in the hand. Buttons are placed within comfortable reach on the sides although you might need both hands when handling. The SIM tray on the left side of the device is large and it can hold two Nano SIM cards and a microSD at the same time. USB-C charging port, Audio jack and loud speakers are placed at the bottom of the device.
DISPLAY
The 2,400 X 1,080 pixel AMOLED display does not disappoint in any way. It looks sharp, bright with vibrant colours thereby making multimedia consumption a delight. The large screen and tiny bezels offers a full view display and excellent viewing angles when playing games or watching movies.
Contrast is very high with black portions being very dark, this makes the OPPO Reno 3 Pro deliver in real life performance with vibrant videos and images. Screen reflectivity performance was also good as the screen is very legible when I used the device under the sun to determine the sunlight legibility.
CAMERA
This is where most of the emphasis of the device lies; the Reno 3 Pro and the Reno 3 are being heavily advertised with focus on the camera technology and performance. I expected the OPPO Reno 3 pro to deliver in real life day to day use in capturing shots and videos. The rear camera set up consist of 4 cameras, a 64 megapixel main lens with f/1.8 aperture, an 8 megapixel ultra-wide angle camera, a 13 megapixel telephoto lens and a 2 megapixel monochrome sensor for depth-sensing.
By default, the main 64 megapixel shoots at 16 megapixels but if you want to take high resolution photos, you can changed switch to 64 megapixel in the settings menu. If you go to pro-mode, you can turn on ultra HD which allows you shoot in 108 megapixel. The rear camera is also capable of 20x zoom and can deliver decent results especially under adequate lighting condition, meanwhile, the best result is got at 5x zoom without loss in detail. At the front, the OPPO Reno 3 pro boast of a dual punch hole camera: a 44 megapixel selfie camera and a 2 megapixel lens for depth sensing.
So how do all of these perform in real life? OPPO Reno 3 pro performs best under natural and adequate lighting conditions, photos have great quality with good amount of detail when taken outdoor and under bright light. Colour representation of objects in photos look bright, sharp, properly exposed and accurate and can be compared with photos taken with other high end and more expensive flagship devices.
Photos taken under low light are also impressive but have noticeable grains especially when zoomed in, however, OPPO includes a Night mode on both the front and back cameras that takes multiple pictures and then bring together all the multiple exposures to deliver a bright imaging with better details at night.
The night mode works so well that and there is even an Ultra-dark mode that uses software processing to turn an almost dark picture into bright photos. If you are in a really dark environment and need to take a picture, be rest assured that you can still get a decent shot.
Photo in very low light condition 
Photo taken with dark mode
Portrait mode looks really good with decent edge detection and a freedom to set the level of blur before you take the picture. Ultra-wide camera enables you capture a wider field of view and zooming into subjects and taking pictures still delivers sharp and decent shots. Colours of subjects are also very consistent as the lens switches while zooming and you can still get very decent image quality at 5x zoom.
The 44 megapixel front cameras delivers excitedly detailed selfies especially when under adequate lighting with great exposure. The selfies look too smooth and smoothing effect can be over ambitious so I usually turned off the beautification mode when taking selfies to achieve a more natural look.
Selfie with beauty mode on 
Selfie with beauty mode turned off
Low light selfies are also decent too with some noticeable grains, however quality of selfies greatly depend on the amount of lighting.
Portrait mode works well with good edge to edge detection, all thanks to the second dedicated 2 megapixel sensor. Night mode selfies here is a great deal.
Selfie photo in a very dark room 
Selfie photo with Ultra dark mode
A phenomenal feature on the OPPO Reno3 camera is the Tripod mode which can literally turn night into day. This works by putting the phone on a tripod or on a stable platform, then it will take about 30 seconds taking a picture of a really dark environment and turning it into day.
When you switch to video mode, although there is no optical image stabilization, you have an ultra-steady video mode that takes care of panning and tilting and delivers videos with no blurring while recording with the camera in motion.
Performance and battery life
OPPO Reno 3 pro runs on the latest ColorOS 7, a custom made OS based on Android 10 Operating system. Reno 3 Pro carries the Color OS 7, a good improvement over Color OS 6 with lots of improved customizations that made me like it, even though I haven’t been a fan of the custom OS. This new version of the OS offers full support for Android’s notification features on the Reno 3 Pro and the best offering of the Color OS 7 is the dark mode which is one of the best. I switched to the dark mode on the Reno 3 pro and I can say from my experience that its implementation is far better than that of Google’s stock Android. It applies to almost all the apps I use like Photos, YouTube, Play Store, Instagram among others and most importantly helps to save battery life.
Apart from the simplicity and ease of use that characterize the Color OS UI, it also enhance multitasking. There is a smart sidebar that comes in handy with shortcuts to allow you pull up calculator on a floating window, perform screen recording, take screenshots without having to leave your current app on the screen.
SIde bar with handy shortcuts 
Phone navigations can be done either by smooth swipe gestures or switching to on-screen buttons below the screen.
On the hardware side, the OPPO Reno 3 pro is powered by MediaTek’s Helio P95 chipset. While this is not a flagship chipset, the P95 is new and it packs better AI, camera performance and smooth gaming experience. Reno 3 pro is the first device to spot the Helio P95 chipset, an octa-core processor clocked at 2.2GHz speed. The review unit comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage with an option to still expand further using an SD card.
The Reno 3 pro delivers good performance without lag nor stuttering. It is fast but not as smooth as some other devices I have used, this may be due to the heavy software layer. Multitasking was easy with the 8GB RAM. Games like PUBG runs smoothly without lag. I also noticed that the phone didn’t get hot while playing games over a long period of time.
There is a 4,025mAh battery in the OPPO Reno 3 Pro and this was able to take me through a full day and some part of the second day on a single charge. Since battery performance is a big deal on the list of smartphone features, the Reno 3 clearly scores big in this department. It also comes with a 30W charger with VOOC flash charging technology, however, the review unit didn’t come with the charger so I couldn’t carry out a charge time test but the advert claims that the Reno 3 Pro battery can charge up to 50 % in about 30 minutes.
How it compares with the OPPO Reno 3 variant
While this review has focused extensively on the OPPO Reno 3 pro, it is also important to touch on the OPPO Reno 3 which is very similar in specs and overall delivery to the Pro but with some difference. Camera performance and features as described for the Reno 3 Pro is also applicable to the Reno 3, although the Reno 3 Pro seem to deliver brighter photos than the Reno 3 when compared together. The main camera orientation on both device are similar but differ in the position of the LED flash, while the flash on the Reno 3 Pro is a dual flash and placed within the camera module, there exist a single flash and positioned on the side of the camera module on the Reno 3. Sensors on the main cameras are also similar except that the Reno 3 is packed with a 48MP sensor.
Selfie cameras differ in number and arrangement. While that of the Reno 3 Pro is a dual 44MP and 2MP punch hole positioned on the screen, the Reno 3 has a single 44MP embedded in a waterdrop notch at the top. Both have HDR features, night mode ad record 1080p videos at 30fps.
The display on both device also differ but these differences might be difficult to spot in performance. The punch-hole camera on the Reno 3 Pro provides more screen real estate than that of the Reno 3. Both displays come in 1080 x 2400 and 20:9 aspect ratio but the display of the Reno 3 has more detail than the Reno 3 pro. This could be as a result of the higher pixel density on the Reno 3.
Verdict
With the price point and the chipset of the OPPO Reno 3 pro and the OPPO Reno 3, they clearly fall within the upper midrange Android smartphone category. Meanwhile the value offering and what they both deliver in the area of battery life and most importantly camera performance qualifies both devices to comfortably go head to head with some of the flagship products in the market and also knock out several other smartphones in the competitive upper mid-range category.
The official price of the Reno3 is N159,000 and the Reno3 Pro is N209,000 respectively and you can pre-order to qualify for free gift and added value worth N15,000.
Visit https://forms.gle/xrre83jbqPXQEQHQ7 to Pre-Order Now. Pre-order ends MAY 19, 2020.
