OPPO Reno13 Pro review: Pricey portrait shots

Note: This review was first published on 17 March 2025.

11 May 2025 update: The Singapore version of the Reno13 Pro does not come with 50W wireless charging. We apologise for the error and have corrected the specs.

With OPPO's flagship phones, like the Find X8 Pro and the foldable Find N5, both winning HWZ's Editor's Choice awards, we're also hopeful that OPPO's midrange offering, the OPPO Reno13 Pro, might inherit some of the brand's amazing traits at a lower price tag.

The TL;DR version:



The OPPO Reno13 Pro gets some nice upgrades but also a higher price tag, making it harder to compete in an increasingly saturated market.



Note: Find it at local telcos (M1, StarHub, Singtel), the OPPO website, Amazon, iShopChangi, KrisShop, Lazada, Shopee, TikTok and Zalora.

Durability has also been improved, with an aluminium alloy frame that should hold up better than the previous plastic frame. It's also capped off with a new IP69 resistance rating that allows the phone to take underwater photos.

The phone is equipped with a customised MediaTek Dimensity 8350 processor, 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and UFS 3.1 storage. The 6.83-inch display has super-thin bezels and offers a 120Hz refresh rate and 1,200-nits peak brightness. Furthermore, the Reno13 Pro's upgraded cameras include a new 3.5x zoom periscope telephoto lens and even more AI photography software features. 

It sounds like OPPO made sure it's rounded off as a decent everyday handset while trying to value-add through photography chops, like its past Reno series devices. Does all that justify the slightly increased asking price of S$999?

Let’s find out.

Well designed, for a midrange handset

The Reno13 Pro feels great in the hand. At 195g, it’s not particularly heavy, and the phone is slim enough to fit into any pocket. The rear camera array lays flatter than competing phones in the same price bracket, which makes it look more appealing and stable when placed flat on a desk.

Our Plume Purple colourway has a beautifully textured back glass that eliminates the problem of fingerprints or oil smudges. The textures even create the silhouette of a butterfly’s wing.

OPPO says it’s done by “using grayscale direct-write laser exposure on a texture layer, creating intricate flows of light and shadow by altering the grating directions at the microscopic level”. We’re not knowledgeable enough on that, but the result is gorgeous.

The back is crafted from a single piece of glass, and the camera module is integrated with the rear plate. Thus, there are no awkward gaps where lint and dust can get stuck. 

On the front, the 6.83-inch flexible AMOLED display (2,800 x 1,271 pixels resolution) can support up to 120Hz refresh rate, although it doesn’t go down below 60Hz for battery efficiency.

The 1,200-nits peak brightness offers decent legibility under bright sunlight, but it doesn’t get as high as other midrange competitors, which can be as high as 4,000 nits these days. 

The phone gets an upgraded IP69-rated dust and water resistance (read what this means here). Thanks to that OPPO has introduced the ability to take photographs underwater (up to 2-metre depth, 30 minutes) without needing a case.

Underwater photography mode can be found in the “More” section in the native camera app. When triggered, the phone disables touch controls, switching its photography and recording to the volume buttons instead.

Once the mode is exited, the phone will automatically expel water. 

That said, OPPO recommends not charging your Reno13 Pro immediately after it surfaces from a swim. 

ColorOS

We’ve covered ColorOS 15, OPPO’s skin of Android 15, rather extensively in a previous feature and in our OPPO Find X8 Pro review.

We won’t speak much about the OS since it’s essentially the same. Our only note is that OPPO’s tendency to load bloatware into their Reno series hasn’t changed.

On the Reno13 Pro, you get two folders of pre-installed games and apps. Some of the pre-installed apps, like Facebook, Netflix, or even TikTok, can be overlooked since most people commonly use them, but the rest don't feel right because you're basically paying to see ads.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, there are two other folders, Hot Apps and Hot Games, which suggest games you probably never heard of.

We’ve given other phones (like the Poco X7 Pro) penalty points for unfriendly user experiences. OPPO's Reno13 Pro will have to take this L.

Aside from that, ColorOS 15 is a pretty polished operating system. New features like AI Speak and AI Summary work very well, and we can see it being handy for people who would rather listen to articles or need to speed through online content.

AI photo editing features like AI Eraser also do a good job of removing unwanted people and objects from photos. 

Like its flagship counterparts, Reno13 Pro can also enjoy using OPPO's Touch to Share feature. All that’s needed is for iPhone-using friends to download the O+ Connect app from the App Store, and it’ll work based on a Wi-Fi Direct connection to send photos across.

OPPO promises three years of software updates and four years of security updates, which isn’t too bad for a midrange phone. However, it would be nice to see these extended a little longer.

Imaging performance

The OPPO Reno13 Pro gets a triple rear camera array.

• 50MP main camera (f/1.8 aperture, 84° FOV,  OIS, autofocus)
• 50MP telephoto camera (f/2.8 aperture, 1/1.56-inch Sony IMX890 sensor, 85mm, 3.5x optical zoom, OIS, autofocus)
• 8MP ultrawide camera (f2.2, 116° FOV, autofocus)

From OPPO's choices, it's clear that Reno13 Pro focuses on having great all-rounder shots, paired with some competency in portraiture photography thanks to its 3.5x optical zoom.

In brightly lit scenes, the main camera produces vibrant, detailed images very well.

The colour balance is generally quite accurate, and the HDR effect does a very good job of balancing out overexposed and underexposed areas to get a well-balanced photo. 

Portrait shots aren’t too bad either, and while the beautification mode does smooth out the subject’s skin and reduce blemishes, it’s not too overdone if you leave it on the default setting.

When Night mode is turned on, low-light shots are well-exposed, and the phone works hard to ensure bright light sources aren’t overexposed. 

The ultrawide camera is pretty decent with similar colourisation to its main camera. You’ll notice a bit of fish-eye distortion if you’re taking photos with many lines or architectural shots with a lot of symmetry.

Benchmark performance

The OPPO Reno13 Pro uses the midrange Dimensity 8350 chipset, announced in late November 2024. For reference, MediaTek's flagship tier is the Dimensity 9000 series (with the OPPO Find X8 Pro carrying the Dimensity 9400).

We don’t have any other phones running the same SoC to compare against, but we’ll be comparing the Reno13 Pro to some midrange alternatives running chips like the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, and competitors in the S$1,000 price range. 

Putting it to the test

To find out how the competitors line up specs and price-wise, check them out in this link.

To find out more about the tests we conduct and what they relate to, we've jotted them down here.

Benchmark Performance remarks

Unfortunately, the numbers are quite average across the board. While we can’t expect the phone to compete with the Xiaomi 14T Pro (which carries the flagship-tier Dimensity 9300+ chip), it’s surprising that the Reno13 Pro even lags behind the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE, which uses a lower-clocked Exynos 2400e processor. 

The phone performs similar to the Honor 200 Pro, but Honor's phone retails at S$200 less.

While its synthetic benchmarks are not competitive enough, the phone does run smoothly during normal daily usage. Unless you’re intensively editing videos or playing graphically intensive games, the Reno13 Pro shouldn’t encounter any issues. 

Battery Life

Our new 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.

The large 5,800mAh battery inside helps the Reno13 Pro outperform most of its competitors, although it does lose to the Nothing Phone (2), which has incredible battery stamina. 

The phone also supports 80W SuperVOOC fast wired charging, with a compatible charging head and cable in the box.

The 80W fast wired charging lets the phone juice up from 0 to 50% in just 24 minutes and from 0 to 100% in 54 minutes, which is great. However, for the full 80W charging speed, you’ll want to use the included charging head and cable.

While there is 50W wireless charging, it does not exist on the Reno13 Pro sold in Singapore.

Conclusion

The OPPO Reno13 Pro continues the Reno series’ compelling philosophy, but the Reno series itself may suffer in the long run as its competition gets more challenging.

These phones are priced at the upper midrange level, which makes them a hard sell. We’ve mentioned this in our OPPO Reno11 Pro review before.

Being S$999 makes it difficult to recommend these phones because there are flagship-lite competitors with more performance. It's also a few hundred bucks shy of proper high-end devices with flagship hardware, which a hardworking student can manage if they save up for another month or so.

Its value problem has been exacerbated this year beyond a price increase. Reno13 Pro is more expensive than the Xiaomi 14T Pro (S$949) at the same 12GB RAM +512GB storage configuration. With Xiaomi's alternative delivering great photography, a flagship experience, and better performance, even employing G-IDLE to promote the Reno cannot help justify the loss in value.

If you mainly shoot portraits, then perhaps there’s an argument to be made for the Reno13 Pro. However, if you want to make the most out of your thousand-dollar purchase, you can easily find several alternatives (recent examples: Xiaomi 14T Pro, Poco X7 Pro, Honor 200 and 200 Pro) that exceed Reno13 Pro in at least two ways for less or equal money.

The OPPO Reno13 Pro retails at S$999 for the 12GB RAM + 512GB storage configuration, and can be purchased at local telcos (M1, StarHub, Singtel), OPPO Concept Stores, the official OPPO website, OPPO Online Flagship Stores on Amazon, iShopChangi, KrisShop, Lazada, Shopee, TikTok and Zalora, major consumer electronic stores, and other authorised retailers.