OPPO RENO 12 PRO REVIEW
Outside of the enthusiast lens, the Oppo Reno 12 Pro makes sense despite its shortcomings. But still, there are things that make this one of the least appealing smartphones in this range. The biggest competitor to this device is obviously the Vivo V30 Pro and if we are talking about the overall experience, I would still recommend the Vivo over the Oppo Reno 12 Pro, even for our offline buyer friends out there.
The Oppo Reno series of smartphones doesn’t make sense. But well, that isn’t something that is driving the industry. See, for a techie like myself, every smartphone or gadget goes through very critical eyes. With the Oppo Reno series, I have always had that critical eye, apart from the Digit tests that give a very clear, objective picture of each device being good or not. But this time around, let’s try a little pit of perception change.
While I can’t go away from our guidelines of the stringent test that every smartphone goes through in the Digit Test Lab, I will try and not let that influence my complete verdict decision this time around (I know my friends at Oppo will be happy to read this). So this time, I will take a look at the Oppo Reno 12 Pro’s design, display, performance, camera and battery like I always do, but with a bit of a wider perspective and not through my enthusiast lens. Let’s go.
So as always, I’ll start with the design. Now, here we have a lot going on. The Oppo Reno 12 Pro comes in two colour options – the Rose gold and the Black. I got the rose gold colour for my review and while the colour does look premium, there is too much going on with the design.
We are getting three different kinds of finishes. There is the shimmery matte plastic back panel, with the gloss strip towards the bottom holding the Oppo branding. Below the strip, there is a glass-like texture at the back which does catch fingerprints and smudges. And while the colour is a very decent shade of copper or rose gold, this is still too much bling for a person like myself.
While the back panel I’m not a big fan of (except the colour), the front of the Oppo Reno 12 Pro looks really good. Yes, while it is nothing but a hole-punch quad-curved display, it looks really good. We are getting the premiumness of a curved display, without the accidental touches. This curves from all four sides, which gives the display a bit of a ‘floating look’ that is very nice if you look at it closely from the sides.
Furthermore, the weight of the Oppo Reno 12 Pro is very light. The smartphone weighs just 180 grams, making it very comfortable to hold for longer durations. Apart from that, we are also getting IP65 dust and water resistance, and Corning Gorilla Glass Victus protection from scratches.
So overall, the design is good. I like that Oppo is still experimenting with the back panel finishes for one of its most important product. With me, this may not have worked this time around since I like things to be more basic, but I’m sure there will be many takers for this three-finish back panel. Furthermore, we are getting a very nice front panel along with durability features as well.
Now, in terms of the display, we are getting a nice 6.7-inch FHD+ AMOLED display along with a 120Hz refresh rate and HDR10+. Now, looking at the display, it feels really good. The colour are punchy and vibrant, and this AMOLED panel also looks super sharp. Furthermore, we are getting a 120Hz refresh rate which makes the experience all the more smooth.
However, this display doesn’t represent colours very accurately. I tested the colour accuracy using the Calman colorchecker and here, the Oppo Reno 12 Pro showcased an average DeltaE of above 3 points. This means that the colours aren’t represented accurately and this is a very saturated display. An average DeltaE of under 3 is considered good for smartphones.
In the Greyscale test, the Oppo Reno 12 Pro again showcased similar results. The whites are all over the place, and the reds are blown up a bit too much, which is why we see more saturated colors on the Oppo Reno 12 Pro.
Coming to the brightness, the Oppo Reno 12 Pro showcased a maximum luminance of 966 nits under bright sunlight, which is very good. Now, you must be thinking, “but the brightness as mentioned is 1200 nits?” Well, you’re right. But the peak brightness of a smartphone is basically the brightest one percent or the brightest pixel of a whole display, so the real world numbers will always be lower.
So yes, this is not categorically a good display. It checks all the boxes, but the colours are all over the place. But well, that is only for testing purposes, because with the naked eye, this will look like a very good display. Furthermore, most people prefer punchy and bright colours on their smartphones so this is not a deal breaker for Oppo. Rest of the things like brightness, sharpness, and responsiveness are all on point.
Performance is something I have never liked on any Oppo Reno smartphone that I have tested in the last few years. The Reno 12 Pro is also the same. We are getting a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Energy chipset with up to 12GB of RAM. Now, this is a decent chipset and offers enough power to allow you to do as many things as you would normally do on a smartphone, smoothly.
But in perspective to other offerings, it just looks and feels meagre. In benchmark tests, the Oppo Reno 12 Pro falls behind most competitors. Be it in CPU-based benchmarks like AnTuTu or Geekbench, or in GPU-based benchmarks like 3D Mark Wildlife or GFX Bench, the Oppo Reno 12 Pro falls short of rivals.
However, this is not about performance. The Oppo Reno series of smartphones has never been about that. It is about the experience. The camera, the AI features this year, the look and feel – that’s what the Oppo Reno 12 Pro is about and for those purposes, the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Extra is enough. But still, it doesn’t justify having a similar chipset as on sub-Rs 20,000 phones. For example, the Nothing CMF Phone 1, which was launched earlier this week also comes with a Dimensity 7300 chipset. That phone is priced around Rs 15,000!
But well, in my day-to-day usage which included social media, using the camera, and trying out Oppo’s AI features, the Reno 12 Pro had no issues with its performance. In gaming, however, it didn’t feel very premium and smooth. It did run all the games, but I did experience some or the other issues like heating or frame drops.
Now, this is another area where the Oppo Reno 12 Pro performed really well. The battery on the smartphone is a 5,000mAh unit with support for 80W fast charging. Now, the battery backup is good. In my video loop test, where I run a 4K video on loop until the phone dies, the Oppo Reno 12 Pro lasted more than 16 hours (973 minutes). Furthermore, playing Call of Duty: Mobile for 15 minutes only drained the smartphone’s battery by just 3 percent. Watching a YouTube video for 30 minutes drained 5 percent of the battery, and GPS navigation for 1 hour drained 6 percent of the Oppo Reno 12 Pro’s battery.
Coming to charging, the 80W fast charging took 49 minutes to charge the Oppo Reno 12 Pro from 0 to 100 percent. This isn’t the fastest 80W we have seen but a charging time of less than 50 minutes is more than enough for any kind of user.
On to the Oppo Reno 12 Pro’s strongpoint, the camera. Here, we are getting a triple rear camera setup with a 50-megapixel primary shooter, a 50-megapixel telephoto lens, and an 8-megapixel ultrawide angle lens. The photos out of this camera are good. There is no lack of sharpness and the colours are nice and vibrant on the Oppo Reno 12 Pro from the primary shooter.
The ultrawide angle lens on the smartphone isn’t of the best quality and despite Oppo’s tuning, you can see that the Sony IMX355 shooter just doesn’t match up to the quality and sharpness of the primary shooter, leading to inconsistent results between the two lenses.
The telephoto shooter is good quality. We get 2x optical and 5x in-sensor zoom with the telelphoto shooter. Now, the optical zoom is as good as the 1x shots from this smartphone. With 5x also, the Oppo Reno 12 Pro is able to retain a lot of details, but you can clearly tell that it’s not as good as optical zoom.
In low light also, the Oppo Reno 12 Pro’s camera performed fairly well. I did experience a lot of light flare in low light shots, but at times, that does add to the aesthetic as well. In very low light, however, the Oppo Reno 12 Pro loses details quite evidently. But if there is even a little bit of light, the quality of the photos are retained well.
Coming to portraits, this is where the Oppo Reno series has always performed well, and the Oppo Reno 12 Pro’s portraits are in-line with my past experiences with the device. The smartphone does a very good job in terms of identifying and singling out the subject, but the edge detection is very aggressive at times, which can be set to a lower aperture level so not an issue.
The one thing I noticed about the Oppo Reno 12 Pro’s camera is that the colours are more towards the vibrant or saturated side. Now, this is not all that bad but at times the colours look a bit too blown up or artificial, but then again, this is something that many people want with their cameras.
So the Oppo Reno 12 Pro is made for the offline customers. There isn’t much to appeal to an enthusiast like myself, but there is a lot that will appeal to a lot of people in India. The bling, the saturated floating display, and the camera – all are things that have appealed to the offline buyers of the Oppo Reno series, and in this sense, the Oppo Reno 12 Pro does offer the same in a new style and with newer AI features to keep up with the trend.
So yes, outside of the enthusiast lens, I was able to make sense of the Oppo Reno 12 Pro despite its shortcomings. But still, there are things that make this one of the least appealing smartphones in this range. The biggest competitor to this device is obviously the Vivo V30 Pro and if we are talking about the overall experience, I would still recommend the Vivo over the Oppo Reno 12 Pro, even for our offline buyer friends out there.
