Hands-On

OPPO Reno5: Ideal upper midranger

It’s a stellar overall package for its price

Published

February 22, 2021

OPPO’s Reno line has slowly carved out an identity as somewhat of an affordable premium smartphone. Priced at around half of what flagships today cost but offering about two-thirds of the features, the OPPO Reno line has the makings of the ideal upper midranger, and the Reno5 fits that description to a T.

How it looks

The Reno5 (both the 4G and the 5G variants) come in either Galactic Silver or Starry Black. The Black has a more traditional glass finish, thereby being more magnetic to fingerprints and smudges, while the Galactic Silver has a frosted matte finish making it more palatable if you don’t like using a protective case.

The Galactic Silver Reno5 is flashier. The color kind of shifts depending on how light hits it. If you’re into phone finishes that catches the eye, this is totally the way to go.

Button placements are pretty standard. On the right hand side is the power button while the volume buttons are on the left. At the bottom you’ll find the speaker grille, USB-C port, and 3.5mm jack (nice).

At around 180g and with these dimensions (159.1 x 73.4 x 7.9 mm) with a 6.4-inch display, the Reno5 sits very close to my personal sweet spot in terms of overall smartphone size. It’s a little too light to my liking but it never feels fragile.

The ‘Oxygenation’ of ColorsOS

There’s been some buzz about how OnePlus — a sister company of OPPO under the BBK electronics umbrella — is becoming more and more like OPPO. What’s getting lost in all that noise is how OPPO is turning into OnePlus just as much as the latter is being ‘OPPO-fied.’

This is most evident in ColorOS 7.2. From its cluttered and bloatfull past, the UI skin that OPPO layers over Android has gotten more breathing room letting more oxygen come through. The customizations available run deep — everything from light vs dark mode, the shape and size of the icons, to the accent color of the settings menu.

Also present are the gesture shortcuts that longtime OnePlus fans will be familiar with like drawing a V to open the flashlight, O to open the camera, and double tap screen to wake. These are all OxygenOS staples that have found their way to OPPO and sometimes other Android skins too.

Some purists or overly zealous brand supporters might dismiss this as blatant copying, but is it really that big an issue especially when these are all quality of life improvements no matter how subtle they may be?

All things considered, ColorOS is now overall more appealing thanks in large part to applying design decisions first applied on OnePlus’s OxygenOS.

OLED, 5G, and Snapdragon 765G

This section is probably the least contentious about this phone. Its display, performance, and promise of next gen mobile connectivity work exactly as advertised. The 6.4-inch OLED display has a 90Hz refresh rate. It’s nice and smooth with the deep blacks typically found on OLED displays. It could use a bit more brightness when under intense daylight, but it’s in no way unusable under such circumstances.

The 5G variant will cost you a little more and it’s not at all a bad deal considering most especially if you live or frequent areas with 5G coverage. We used the OPPO Reno5 as a hotspot hub for half a day and it did not feel at all like we were on mobile hotspot.

Shifting talk over to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765g SoC, this seems to be the best-performing midrange chip. It won’t leave you wanting in terms of general smartphone use. We didn’t use it a lot for gaming on this particular handset but previous experience dictates it’s pretty darn good for mobile gaming as well.

Battery life is also pretty straightforward. Standby time is great and the 4300mAh will last you a day on moderate usage. That goes down to around five hours when used primarily for gaming and with 5G connection.

Fun with the cameras

The Reno5 sports a quad-camera system: 64MP main, 8MP ultra-wide, 2MP macro, 2MP depth. But all the fun really happens in the software sid of things.

It still features OPPO’s fun AI Color Portrait mode that isolates the subject from the background by draining the color out of the background and putting the subject front and center in full color.

This same feature also works on the 32MP selfie camera.

Even more exciting, this feature is now also available in video mode so there are more ways for you to have fun with it.

Another addition is the Night Flare Portrait that captures your subject in a nice stylized night shot filled with color and creamy bokeh.

More than just portraits

Naturally, the cameras along with the AI engine behind its imaging works not only for these fun and funky portrait images and videos. As a standard shooter for documenting your daily life, it’s more than reliable. Check out these samples:

A nice meal for lunch

Naturally, save room for dessert

Ultra wide. Take stroll after downing some delicious food

Capture things in good detail

Snap a quick selfie

Or ask someone to take a quick portrait photo

Is this your GadgetMatch?

The easy answer is yes. The OPPO Reno5’s overall package is the ideal upper-midranger. There’s a lot of fun to be had with its camera features, it looks great, and performs just about as good as any phone in its price range.

It also doesn’t hurt that in the Philippines, OPPO went out of its way to make sure it can be had in may different ways including through TelCos and via installment basis.

The OPPO Reno5 is by no means a perfect smartphone (no such thing exists anyway), but for what you’re getting in relation to its pricing, it’s a stellar option.

Hands-On

OPPO Reno15 F 5G hands-on

More question marks than exclamation points?

Published

March 6, 2026

Manila Connoisseur

The OPPO Reno15 Series 5G made its way to the Philippines last month, and reception has been pretty great so far.

With a powerful camera package, AI, and a slew of upgrades, there’s a lot to love and not much negative to say. But that’s with both the standard and Pro models.

On the other hand, with the Reno15 F 5G — the series’ supposed budget-friendly “lite” variant —there were more question marks than exclamation points.

I attack this piece once more from a consumer standpoint: shelling out PhP 23,000 to PhP 26,000 for a midrange smartphone that feels and performs like it’s a few notches below its segment doesn’t sound too pleasant.

Performance

With a Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 processor, the OPPO Reno15 F performs pretty much like any sub PhP 20,000 mid-ranger. It’s acceptable, but does not punch above its weight as expected.

No major hiccups for light and casual usage. But performance struggles a lot for demanding video games.

It also heats up significantly just 10 minutes into a title like Honkai: Star Rail. This is a stark contrast to the marketed 25℃ and up to 10 hours straight of smooth gameplay.

Although, the experience was still enjoyable with several wins and MVP runs in Call of Duty Mobile. It only means the F variant remains a more camera-centric phone rather than an a hard-hitting all-arounder.

As with other devices, the 7000mAh battery with 80W SUPERVOOC is a strong suit. You’re fueled from dawn ’til dusk, with much to spare. Recharging takes a breeze, too.

Display

The OPPO Reno15 F has a 6.57-inch 120Hz display, with a 92.8% screen-to-body ratio. At least, that allows you to focus on content on the screen.

Content leans more towards the cooler tone, so you’ll have to adjust it manually if you want a warmer or more vivid look.

The 397ppi pixel density is fine to ensure sharper visuals, while the 1400 nits peak brightness is helpful outdoors.

Camera

The device’s 50MP main camera captures decent quality. The color science leans on being natural anew, without being too dull nor washed out. You can pull off smooth portraits too.

I hardly used the phone for stills as I focused on videos, but here are some samples, on the occasions I was able to take the handset with me:

The 50MP front camera is an intriguing add-on, as it is capable of up to 4K video and a wide 100° field of view.

What this does is it essentially removes the need to flip your phone for the popular “0.5” shots. And the quality doesn’t get compromised given the pixel count.

Here are some selfies from different focal lengths:

To its credit, filming with the back camera at 60fps does look and feel smooth, although it can be improved.

Same with the front camera; and the zoom range can be switched from 0.6 to 2x without cutting the recording.

Although, it’s still best to use a selfie stick or small tripod if you’re just after talking head videos.

Speaking of which, here are a few I’ve made with just this device:

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But for travel and on-the-go captures, as OPPO markets for the series in general, even the Reno15 F can cover a lot of background along with your or your groups’ faces.

Make no mistake, there are some useful AI editing features here. In particular, AI Portrait Glow gives your raw capture an effect to make it look it was taken with flash.

I do not recall the device heating up as well when taking many photos or videos, so you can say it’s more optimized for that task rather than gaming.

Connectivity issues

Meanwhile, AI LinkBoost 3.0, as in the case of the OPPO A6 Pro, doesn’t seem to punch above its weight either.

Once, I also played Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and the session opened to a jittery start despite being on Wi-Fi and having a stable connection. I don’t know what triggered this.

Design, feel

We got the Aurora Blue variant which does kind of resemble the northern lights when you tilt the phone a certain way and when light hits its back panel.

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The cursive “Reno” on the large, protruding camera island gives it more style.

However, it’s all just aesthetics. On the downside, the phone is all sorts of slippery.

I couldn’t hold it properly without think of it slipping away from my hands; nor could I put it on my lap with confidence.

So I guess it’s good that it has structural integrity and waterproofing, because you’ll need that.

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The 6.57-inch body does have a good balance between being too compact and too large, like ultras and pro maxes.

It has a squarish body and has already adapted to the premium, aluminum frame look from the sides.

Is this your GadgetMatch?

Sadly, the OPPO Reno15 F 5G is a Swipe Left unlike its bigger, more capable siblings. There are plenty of plus points for the camera package but take that away, and I don’t see much difference between the Reno15 F and something like the A6 Pro.

Granted, the asking price of this phone will drop significantly in a few months. But throw in a little more, and you’ve got a legitimate mid-ranger that’s more on the premium side rather than the cheap end of the spectrum.