Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G review: A new lens on flagship-lite photography

Note: This review was first published on 12 July 2023 and is re-published again as we're anticipating a new Reno phone launch early in 2024.

Tenth time's the charm?

The Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G is nothing like the other Reno phones Oppo brought into Singapore before.

Unlike its midrange predecessors that were officially available here, that “plus” addition places the phone into budget flagship or flagship-lite territory. You’re looking at a Reno with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, a highly-coveted, flagship-grade chipset even among high-end and premium-grade smartphones just last year. 

This is coupled with the Reno series’ core appeal — great photography and imaging capabilities at the midrange tier. To that end, the phone has a 64MP Portrait Telephoto Camera acting as its headlining shooter, next to a 50MP main and 8MP ultra-wide.

It also shares the same operating system seen on the popular Oppo Find N2 Flip (review here), which is Android 13 cloaked under Oppo’s ColorOS 13 reskin. 

TL;DR: An interesting phone that makes photography feel fresh again, paired with a powerful chipset and battery life.

To round off the phone’s core offerings, Oppo packed 100W wired SuperVOOC charging and a 4,700mAh in the 5G-capable handset. That said, it still lacks an official water resistance rating and wireless charging — stuff its rivals may have at its price point.

So, how does the S$1,149 Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G fare amongst attractive flagship and midrange options in Singapore? Are the perks enough to justify getting it over the rest? First, let's roll out the complete specs list before we start assessing the phone's qualitative aspects.

No longer an iPhone copycat

Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G’s design greatly departs from its old “iPhone-imitation” language. If you look at the Reno7 and Reno8 series, along with the not-officially-in-Singapore Reno9 series phones, they feature straight edges and rounded corners resembling Apple handsets. In case you haven't realized something else, the Reno series progressed several times in just a span of over a year; the Reno 7 series only launched in early 2022.

The Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G takes after Huawei’s flagship phone design, which resembles the Huawei P60 Pro in key areas. Reno10 Pro+ 5G gives a display that curves down on its sides, paired with narrow bezels for an immersive view.

The corners are round, complementing the curved plastic back that meets the aluminium rim sides. The oblong-shaped camera housing is also huge, like Huawei’s, but with an added chamfered edge to tie it all together. 

If you don’t take its plastic back into account, the Reno10 Pro+ 5G looks like a high-end device. It feels like one, too, with its Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protecting its rear. 

My only gripe is the AGC Dragontrail Star 2 cover glass, and built-in screen protector aren’t as scratch-resistant as they should be, since they quickly accumulated minor scuffs after about a week of active daily use. They aren’t visible with the display powered off, but they are there if you look for them. For comparison, I generally don’t use phones (personal ones or review units) with any additional screen protectors, and this is the first time in a decade I’ve felt I needed one.

Weird display, but still great to look at

The 6.74-inch LTPS AMOLED display offers HDR10+ support and different steps for its refresh rate (45Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz, and 120Hz). Unfortunately, the refresh rate customisation is limited to toggling either forced 60Hz or forced 120Hz. If you want the battery-savings of 45Hz or an in-between smoothness of 90Hz, you must allow the phone to pick refresh rates automatically. The display is otherwise vibrant, feels more colour accurate than most Chinese phone brands, and is pleasant to look at.

Another funny choice Oppo made in its Reno10 Pro+ 5G’s display is how it straddles between Full HD and QHD resolution (at 2,772 × 1,240 pixels). By trying out YouTube videos with both 1080p and 1440p options in the same video clip, the phone makes 1080p content look a little lower-res than it really is but makes 1440p look sharp. This isn’t really an issue since they both look fine, but most social media online content is 1080p or lower unless specified so that may impact your viewing experience.

Beyond those weird choices, the display is competent under both indoor and outdoor light, thanks to what Oppo claimed is the Reno 10 Pro+ 5G’s ProXDR Smart Display Control.

Audio, however, isn’t so great despite having upgraded Dual Track Stereo Speakers. One-half of its dual speaker setup is on the top left corner of the phone, and the opposing side is at the bottom right. While it’s moderately clear, the volume’s weight and pressure are imbalanced, with the bottom-right one sounding louder no matter which orientation you watch or listen to content in. Stereo sound does exist, but an audio experience like that definitely isn’t something you’d purposely use — we’ll stick to earbuds instead.

An interface just like its flagship flippable phone

There’s nothing much to write home about for Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G’s software, beyond the fact that it’s ColorOS 13 on Android 13. It’s the same operating system on its popular Oppo Find N2 Flip foldable handset. It has the same design language that blends a juvenile-looking theme with a comfortable-looking default font set. Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G does come with unnecessary bloatware (we counted almost 10 low-grade game apps, and two triple-A mobile game titles preinstalled), but all that can be easily removed, so it’s just an inconvenience during setup.

What is great, however, is the phone’s fast fingerprint and even-faster facial recognition unlocking. Both were faultless during our entire time with the phone. No recognition fails, no unwanted or insecure entries, and access is always given on my first try. It’s an amazing experience whenever you’re pulling your phone out to take a photo, reply a message, or to check up on emails and social media.

It’s a real pity the Reno10 Pro+ 5G lacks any water resistance rating or wireless charging. Otherwise, the general user experience thus far would’ve given the Google Pixel 7a a run for its money. 

Cameras and Imaging

The main selling point of Oppo’s Reno series since its inception is getting decent imaging capabilities without the exorbitant Find X-tier price tags. Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G is similar in that regard, with a comprehensive triple rear and single front camera array.

Oppo calls Reno10 Pro+ 5G’s rear camera system the Ultra-Clear Portrait Camera System, which implies excellent portraiture shooting no matter which rear shooter you use. 

Side note: It just so happens that we also used a different Oppo phone for our recent portrait photography guide, so check that out too, if you like nice photos.

Some tricks it employs include applying AI denoising, demosaicing, and deep pixel fusion processing in RAW format before saving it as JPG. The brand also claims improvements to ProXDR with eight times higher dynamic range versus SDR, thanks to Oppo’s study on 20 different types of backlighting.

Another interesting bit is Reno10 Pro+ 5G’s headlining camera choice; it’s not the main camera but the telephoto shooter. We'll get to that in a bit, but first, what can the main camera do?

You’re getting a 50MP main camera with a Sony IMX890 sensor (same sensor as Oppo Find N2 Flip’s main camera), f/1.8 aperture, optical image stabilisation (OIS), 4-in-1 pixel-binning, and All Pixel Omni-direction PDAF.

In English, that means the main camera of Reno10 Pro+ 5G is functionally equivalent to flagship-grade shooters since it has all the technical features to shoot brighter images reliably. The main camera is also responsible for its 2x in-sensor ‘crop zoom’ shooting, where the 2x zoom samples the middle bunch of pixels for clearer photos with fewer megapixels.

The headlining shooter is the 64MP Telephoto Portrait Camera, which Oppo claimed is the “highest spec periscope telephoto camera available on any smartphone, ever”. It’s a large 1/2-inch sensor (Omnivision OV64B) with f/2.5 aperture that also has 4-in-1 pixel-binning and both CDAF+PDAF. There’s no OIS, but Oppo said it uses larger cylinder lenses to “improve image stabilisation” with wider anti-shake angles.

The zoom itself is 3x optical zoom, with 6x in-sensor ‘crop zoom’ and 120x digital zoom available.

Finally, the brand finishes off the rear with a 8MP ultra-wide using Sony IMX355, offering f/2.2 aperture and 112° field-of-view. It’s also the least equipped of the three rear shooters with no OIS, pixel-binning, or any other enhancements its other two shooters get.

The 32MP front camera is no slouch either, with Sony IMX709 offering an Oppo-customised RGBW pixel array and improved AutoFocus with 15cm focusing distance. This is actually the same front camera first used by the Reno 7 series and it was co-developed with Sony.

Even more imaging samples

Below, we've included even more imaging samples from our time the phone. These samples are not edited; we've only brought down file sizes for web-friendly reasons. We find that the Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G is capable of taking well-detailed, low-noise shots no matter the time of day. What we wished the phone did better at was colour accuracy and less digital processing for a more realistic representation of our photo subjects.

Benchmark Performance

Another impressive “feature” of the Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G is the change to a flagship-grade chipset. Unlike the non-Pro+ versions that were brought into Singapore previously, the Reno10 Pro+ 5G carries a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor. For reference, that’s the same chipset found in most (if not all) of our high-end or premium-tier smartphone Tech Awards 2023 nominees. Non-Pro+ versions of Reno (including the other Reno10 models) typically use a midrange Qualcomm or MediaTek chip.

This puts the Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G on par with last year’s high-end models, as well as any 2023 midrange handsets that use powerful processors like Poco F5 Pro and Google Pixel 7 or Pixel 7a. Other 2023 midrange phones may also be its competition, but it will be hard to beat the Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G’s chipset choice at benchmarks.

Additional tweaks to the phone’s processor are an Ultra-Conductive Graphite for better thermal conductivity, paired with a 3,500 mm² VC liquid cooling surface 92% bigger than the Reno8 Pro’s. 

JetStream 2.0

JetStream 2 is a combination of a variety of JavaScript and Web Assembly benchmarks, including benchmarks that came before like SunSpider and Octane. It primarily tests for a system’s and browser’s ability in delivering a good web experience. It runs a total of 64 subtests, each weighted equally, with multiple iterations, and takes the geometric mean to compute the overall score. The higher the score, the better.

Geekbench 5

Geekbench CPU is a cross-platform processor benchmark that tests both single-core and multi-core performance with workloads that simulate real-world usage. Geekbench 5 scores are calibrated against a baseline score of 1000, which is the score of an Intel Core i3-8100. The higher the score, the better.

Geekbench 6

Our Geekbench 5 benchmarking will soon be replaced with Geekbench 6, the updated version that tests single-core and multi-core CPU performance. Geekbench 6 scores are calibrated against a baseline score of 2500, which is the score of an Intel Core i7-12700. We’ll continue to populate this new benchmark with more scores from our review units before fully transitioning over. 

3DMark Wild Life (Unlimited)

3DMark Wild Life is a cross-platform benchmark for Windows, Android and Apple iOS for measuring GPU performance. Its graphics test consists of multiple scenes with variations in the amount of geometry, lights and post-processing effects, mirroring mobile games that are based on short bursts of intense activity. Wild Life uses the Vulkan graphics API on Windows PCs and Android devices. On iOS devices, it uses Metal.

In Unlimited mode, the benchmark runs offscreen using a fixed time step between frames. Unlimited mode renders exactly the same frames in every run on every device, regardless of resolution scaling. The higher the score, the better.

PCMark for Android - Work 3.0 and Storage 2.0

PCMark for Android is a benchmark for testing the performance of Android phones and tablets. The Work 3.0 test checks how the device handles common productivity tasks such as browsing the web, editing videos, working with documents and data, and editing photos. Storage 2.0 checks write-in and read-out performance for internal storage, external storage (if applicable), and SQLite database management. Together, the benchmarks can clue us in on how capable a phone is at handling everyday use. Work 3.0 scores are above, while Storage 2.0 scores are immediately below for each device - the higher the score, the better.

Since this is a newly introduced benchmark in our reviews, we’re building up our database of PCMark scores for Android phones.

Benchmark Performance remarks

In real-world use, the Oppo Reno10+ Pro 5G performed up to its older flagship chipset expectations. The phone kept a consistent 41°C during the peak of benchmarking, which is comfortable to the touch even when it’s working hard. The lower storage benchmark scores could be chalked up to UFS 3.1, since the higher-scoring devices in that benchmark uses the newer and faster UFS 4.0. This might also account for why the  synthetic benchmarks aren't as high as we would like them to be, but thankfully, everyday usage presented no stutters or disappointments whatsoever.

Battery Life

Our battery benchmark uses PCMark for Android’s Work 3.0 Battery Life test to determine a modern Android-based smartphone's battery uptime in minutes. This controlled benchmark simulates real-world usage with a combination of both web and social media browsing, video and photo editing, parsing data with various file formats, writing (on documents), and more. 

• To enhance consistency in battery results, we start the test at: 
• 100% of the phone’s battery capacity until 20% left
• A fixed display brightness is calibrated at 200cd/m2 (200-lux) with the help of a luminance meter 
• Max resolution
• Refresh rates unlocked
• 0% audio, or completely silenced where possible
• Full bars of Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth, and notifications enabled
• Only one other battery recording app opened in the background
• Scored in uptime minutes; the higher, the better

A full day of photography (as evidenced by our Imaging section) brought the 4,700mAh Oppo Reno10+ Pro 5G down to 65% of its total capacity. It also burns about 10% in an hour of high-framerate gaming. All in all, we think it's a combination of its efficient chipset and heightened thermal management that granted such a great battery life even among phones with more capacity.

The 100W SuperVOOC fast-charging brick included in the box is indeed helpful, allowing the Reno10 Pro+ 5G to get 0-100% battery in just 45 minutes. In comparison, most phones with fast charging (flagship or not) tend to achieve a full charge within 70 minutes, making Reno10 Pro+ 5G faster than most alternatives.

The new benchmark will succeed our outgoing Battery Life benchmarking, which has the following parameters:

• Looping a 720p video with screen brightness and volume at 100%
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on
• Constant data streaming through email

With a more powerful chipset than the Galaxy A54 and Pixel 7a combined with its smaller 4,700mAh battery, it's not unusual to see the Reno10 Pro+ 5G underperform in our old video-only test. Thankfully, we're moving on from this old test soon (and will no longer put up new scores).

Conclusion

The Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G is a good phone that’s also a little strange. It excels in raw power, imaging quality, and battery life. But, has no water resistance assurances, wireless charging, or decent external speakers, all penalising what it could have truly been --- especially for the price it commands. It also has a strange display resolution that’s neither helping nor hurting its value proposition.

In a way, it’s like an Oppo-branded “budget flagship” or "flagship-lite" device where the brand eschews what it thinks are non-essential components in favour of a price tag lower than its Find X series (typically prices above S$1.5k). Oppo isn’t wrong, since most people care about the phone’s operating system, the ability to shoot pretty pictures, and deliver on performance where it counts.

Choosing any other midrange or flagship-lite alternative that's not Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G would come down to a buyer's price sensitivity or other requirements, like wireless charging and rated waterproofing. Since it packs a 2022 flagship processor, last year's high-end and premium-tier handsets (which would've seen price cuts officially and unofficially) would technically go up against the Reno10 Pro+ 5G as well.

Bordering on the price of true flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S23+ and Google Pixel 7 Pro also somewhat hurts the Reno10 Pro+ 5G's attractiveness, since these true flagship alternatives come with much-coveted elements like tested IP-rating against immersion in water and wireless charging conveniences.

It's clear that Singapore phone users can be quite spoilt for choice if their smartphone buying budget and options are wide. But, the S$1,149 Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G does bring something fresh for people who really want a powerful phone, good cameras and not wanting to go with the usual Samsung route for a top-end Android phone.

Between this and other midrange options (where the rest of the Reno series sit), it's a really tough call. You can't go wrong with either option, since it depends on what you prioritise. Price-sensitive folks would look to a Pixel 7a, while those who need a larger screen and still value a clean UI and security might consider paying more for the newer Pixel 8 Pro. The Reno10+ Pro 5G, in turn, offers a fresh perspective through its photography chops, seated just in between these two phone tiers and offers better performance, and storage capacity. The fact that the Reno10 Pro+ 5G complicates your options actually makes it a worthy contender in our market, despite what it misses out on.

The Oppo Reno10 Pro+ 5G is officially available at S$1,149 from 15 July 2023 onwards. Nearly six months after its local launch, it's still mostly selling at this same price point. You can find it on Oppo’s official channels, which include its physical Oppo Concept Stores around Singapore, the Oppo Official Online Store, and its e-commerce storefronts like Lazada, Qoo10, and Shopee. It’s also available through third-party retailers like Challenger and iShopChangi.

However, if you're lucky to catch a good sale, or from smaller retailers like here, you might have a chance to snag it for S$900. To have more reference points of possible promos, don't forget to read our local launch coverage here.