Oppo Reno 10 Pro Plus 5G review: Return to glory

The first Reno phone, the Reno 10X Zoom, is considered legendary. Those who know, would know. And for those who don’t, well, it was the first phone in the world to make periscope-style telephoto cameras a thing, even before Samsung got into the whole birdwatching game. The difference: Samsung kept iterating on it while Oppo didn’t.    

Five years later, it is making a comeback with the Reno 10 Pro Plus 5G and we can’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu. It’s no apples-to-apples comparison as the Reno 10 Pro Plus can go only as far as 3X optically while the 10X Zoom could do 5X, but it’s the closest thing to recreating the latter’s glory. Like the 10X Zoom, the Reno 10 Pro Plus is also shooting for the moon in other areas, while keeping the price still low relative to a competing Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus.

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One of those areas is design. Reno phones have had a storied history of remarkable designs. The Reno 10X Zoom in ocean green can give you goosebumps even today. The design of the Reno 10 Pro Plus, too, can transcend time and space and while you can’t really put name tags on an aesthetic choice, I personally find it soothing. The model we have for review is called glossy purple, but it’s anything but glossy or purple. It is a light shade of pink and the gloss is bare minimum. It is very velvety, almost like silk. The camera housing is just the opposite. It wants to be seen (and the great wobble, to be felt), inside what can only be called a sea of calmness. Oppo has handled the two extremes well.

The chassis, which is a combination of curved glass and polycarbonate, is fairly sleek and light even though the Reno 10 Pro Plus is not a small phone. It can be a bit slippery but you’ve really got to hold this phone in person to know how good it feels. So very well made, so very high-quality. Oppo does not give you any IP rating in this phone, though. This is a missed opportunity in my opinion. That’s the only thing that’s keeping me from giving it a 10 on 10. Maybe next year.

The screen is 6.74-inch, OLED, with 1.5K resolution and a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. It can peak 1100nits when outdoors under sunlight and 1400nits when showing HDR content (up to HDR10+ is supported natively). The figures are next-to-flagship grade and while an LTPO panel would have been nice, only by critical nitpicking would you find any complaint with the Reno 10 Pro Plus’s display. It is exquisite. Rounding off the package is an optical in-screen fingerprint reader. It is fast and reliable.

The same degree of reliability extends to the phone’s general performance and battery life. The Reno 10 Pro Plus with its Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset and 12gigs of RAM is one snappy performer. The only niggle with this phone is that Oppo caps high-refresh rate gaming so those looking for out-and-out competitive gaming may find it a bit underwhelming. The 4,7000mAh battery inside this phone lasts a full work-day while 100W fast charging support tops it from 0-100 percent in about 33 minutes.

Coming to the main USP— the camera setup. Spec-wise, the Reno 10 Pro Plus looks mighty impressive. It has the 50-megapixel Sony IMX890 sensor at the helm while another 64MP sensor sits behind a powerful periscope telephoto lens for an advertised 120X digital zoom. Marketing mumbo-jumbo aside, the real attraction of this telephoto lies at up to 3X, more specifically to shoot portraits. Those are stellar if you ignore few minor discrepancies here and there. Especially when you give it lots of light, the Reno 10 Pro Plus captures portraits so life-like and appealing, for a second, you’d think a DSLR took it. You’d think the mirage would break when you move these photos to a big screen, no sir, the Reno 10 Pro Plus’s portraits live up to their name except maybe in some fringe cases that involve some serious messed up hair, even an odd pet or two, or when you subject it to tricky and artificial lighting. Low-light portraits maybe more hit and miss in comparison but you’re more likely to get a hit out of this camera (phone) than a miss, so that’s saying something.

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The main camera, though it’s generally good, needs some more tuning I feel, something that a software update can fix. In the current state, its photos come out sharper than I like giving them an overtly processed look which accentuates as the intensity of light goes down.

There is another 8-megapixel ultrawide in this phone. It produces soft(er) photos regardless of the lighting and isn’t anything to write home about. It lacks autofocus, too, and so it can’t double as a macro either. The 32-megapixel camera on the front does have autofocus, though. Selfies shot with it come out nice and detailed.

Oppo Reno 10 Pro Plus 5G— should you buy it?

The Reno 10 Pro Plus may seem a tad expensive at Rs 54,999 and surely there are areas where Oppo could have left its most loyal fan base wanting, but then when you factor in its direct competitor (and no, it’s not OnePlus or iQOO or even Motorola), aka the Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus and compare its pricing which is almost 2x (Rs 94,999 for 8GB/256GB), it all starts to make sense. The Reno 10 Pro Plus doesn’t seem expensive then. It seems reasonable.

But at the same time, the phone is far from perfect. Lack of IP rating is sorely missed. Lack of LTPO could be a dealbreaker for some. Low-light photography could be better. But most importantly, Oppo’s take on software – ColorOS 13.1— infused with excess amount of bloatware needs a rethink for it to become a threat to Samsung. Oppo is on the right track, though, and the Reno 10 Pro Plus is a big first step to joining the big leagues. The Reno 10X Zoom was ahead of its time and for the longest time, it felt like Oppo had given up on making a true successor. Until the Reno 10 Pro Plus happened and after spending some time with it, we have no doubts in saying, it’s a return to both form and glory.