Oppo Reno 7 Pro 5G Review: Camera performance on roar!

What are the basic things you look for in a smartphone before buying except for the price? Quirky design, good camera features, decent battery life, etc. are a few things that strike my mind. Oppo brings it all in the recently launched Reno 7 Pro 5G. The Oppo Reno 7 Pro 5G is competing with smartphones in the premium segment like the Xiaomi 11T Pro, Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G, OnePlus 9 RT, among others. With stylish design, fast charging, and a good camera, Oppo Reno 7 Pro tries to stand out in every aspect. But what is important is how much it fares and if it is able to grab your attention!

Priced at Rs. 39,999, the Oppo Reno 7 Pro comes in a single variant of 12GB RAM, expandable up to 7GB and 256GB storage. Compared to its predecessor the Reno 6 Pro, which was launched around 6 months back, not many changes can be observed in the Reno 7 Pro except for design and some other features. With that said, the complete power of buying a phone lies in your hand. And to help you out, I have used the Oppo Reno 7 Pro for almost 2 weeks, and here is what has been observed. Read it out to decide!

Oppo Reno 7 Pro 5G: Design

The year 2022 is seeing smartphone brands launching phones with a shiny, glittery back panel that can change hues depending on the light, especially in blue colour. And Oppo has not disappointed us with its new Reno 7 series. The phone is available in two colour options- Starlight Black and Startrails Blue. I received the phone packed in a box along with a transparent plastic back cover, charger, and SIM card ejector.

A bit inspired by Apple's iPhone design, the Reno 7 Pro comes with a boxy look. The phone gets a shimmery back panel with a matte finish. It also holds a big rectangular camera hump divided into two parts. The hump is surrounded with a breathing light (light strip), which glows when you get a call, receive messages, or even charge the phone. Though the back panel is smudge resistant, the lower part of the camera hump does attract the same.

Despite having an aluminium frame, the phone is slim (7.45 mm) and light weight (180 grams), making it comfortable to hold and carry. Coming to the front, the phone offers very narrow bezels and a 6.5 inch display with a fingerprint sensor and a front camera at the corner.

However, the Oppo Reno 7 Pro does not support a headphone jack, which can be a drawback for people who love and prefer wired earphones.

Oppo Reno 7 Pro 5G: Display

The phone comes with a 6.5-inch full HD+ AMOLED display along with a 90Hz refresh rate. The screen delivers commendable colours, contrast, and brightness. The brightness of the phone can be adjusted manually to soothe the eyes. However, I kept the auto switch on for the same and it worked adequately. Though with a 90Hz refresh rate the screen is quick in response. But at this price range, Oppo could have given a higher refresh rate.

Oppo Reno 7 Pro 5G: Performance

The Oppo Reno 7 Pro runs on the MediaTek Dimensity 1200-Max and boots ColorOS 12 on top of Android 11. The first thing to disappoint me was the bloatware. There were certain pre-installed apps on the phone, which are of not much use. However, the best part is, these apps can be uninstalled. Also, under the review period, I was not disturbed by any advertisements or unnecessary notifications other than from the apps which were being used by me.

Oppo Reno 7 series provides the Omoji feature, similar to the Memoji avatars offered by Apple. The Omoji (digital avatar of yourself, or one from the pre-existing ones) can even be personalized to use as a display for the locked screen. And trust me these look cute! The Reno 7 Pro also supports several interesting features targeting different age groups of users. Like Kid Space for kids and Simple Mode for the elderly.

The performance of the phone is satisfactory in terms of doing regular activities like watching videos on YouTube, Disney+ Hotstar, scrolling social media apps like Instagram, Facebook, among others. Even long hour gaming sessions on the phone offered a decent experience to me. During my usage of the phone, I did not notice any slowdowns or heat up.

Coming to the audio quality, it is quite decent and loud. While talking about the connectivity, of course, the 5G connectivity cannot be checked until the service is made available in India! With the 4G connectivity, the calling experience including the video calls has been satisfactory.

Oppo Reno 7 Pro 5G: Camera

Oppo is known for offering good camera features. And this time the company claimed the phone to be the portrait expert. But did the claim turn out to be true? I would say, Yes.

The phone has a triple rear camera with a 50MP main camera (Sony IMX766 sensor) along with an 8MP ultra-wide-angle and 2MP macro camera. The camera hump also supports a flashlight and Colour Temperature Sensor. The front camera supports a 32MP selfie camera (Sony IMX709 sensor).

The images clicked in the daylight with the 50MP lens have great clarity and capture even minute detailings with great dynamic range. The colours look vibrant and most importantly real, that is almost similar to what we see!

I did not like the pictures clicked with the wide-angle lens though as it left the image quite dull. While talking about the micro lens it did a great job in capturing the minute details with clarity. I loved the picture quality of the images clicked in the night mode. It was noise-free, sharp, and the colours looked good too.

Click here to check the samples.

I was amazed with the bokeh effect offered by the phone. While shooting video or capturing images, the effect was on point. Though I did struggle in maintaining the distance required to get the desired effect but once achieved, it felt worth the effort. The front camera also gave decent clicks. However, the automatic beautification filter is on by default and you need to turn it off to avoid beauty effects.

Despite Oppo not implementing optical stabilization, while recording videos by moving at a fast pace, I was surprised to see the stabilization and clarity provided. Other than these, the phone provides options to click images in extra HD mode, panorama, expert, slow motion, time-lapse, dual-view video, among others.

Oppo Reno 7 Pro 5G: Battery

The phone can survive around 1.5 days on a single charge with its 4500mAh battery. In terms of my daily usage which includes playing games, surfing the internet, watching videos or films, attending calls, video calls, using social networking applications, among others, the Reno 7 Pro offered a decent battery backup.

While on weekends with continuous usage, the battery survived almost a day on a single charge. Charging is quick as the phone comes with a 65W fast charger. Under the review period, the phone took around 30-35 minutes to fill its battery from 0 to 100 percent.

Oppo Reno 7 Pro 5G: Verdict

I feel the camera of Oppo Reno 7 Pro is praise-worthy, mainly because of the portrait and bokeh mode. It also offers a premium look, good battery backup, and decent performance. Though there are still certain areas for improvement. At a time when smartphone brands are coming up with Android 12, the Oppo Reno 7 Pro still runs on Android 11. It also lacks a high refresh rate of 120Hz. However, in the Rs. 40,000 price range, the competition is tough and if you are looking for alternatives, you have options like Xiaomi 11T Pro, Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G, among others.