Oppo Reno 3 Pro review - All about the cameras - Android

The line between a flagship and a mainstream smartphone can often be blurred. The good news? Features such as multiple rear cameras, hybrid zoom, Super AMOLED displays, punch hole front-facing cameras, and high-wattage charging are no longer just for premium phones. The Oppo Reno 3 Pro boasts all these and more. But is it worth your money?

Let’s find out in our Oppo Reno 3 Pro review!

What is it like to use the Oppo Reno 3 Pro?

When you look at the Reno 3 Pro you will probably notice one of three things: The front-facing punch hole selfie camera, the color, and the cameras. The Reno 3 Pro is available in three colors: Auroral Blue (the model I have), Midnight Black, and Sky White. The choice of colors is patterned on the “beauty of the changing light of sky.”

Taking a quick tour around the device, the back of the phone is plastic, as is the chassis. Along with the normal buttons (power, volume) and the SIM tray, there is a USB-C port for charging and file transfers, plus a 3.5mm headphone jack.

As the eye is the window to the soul, so the display is the window to your smartphone. The Reno 3 Pro comes with a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display, with two punch holes for the front-facing camera system. The screen has a resolution of 2,100 by 1,080 pixels, giving it a 20:9 aspect ratio. Blacks are deep and the colors are generally vibrant. The display is bright, and, according to Oppo, it has a maximum brightness of 800 nits. It also has Full Care Display Certification from TÜV Rheinland, which implies that it is kind to your eyes.

The Reno 3 Pro uses an under-screen fingerprint reader that Oppo calls it Hidden Fingerprint Unlock 3.0. The company claims you can unlock the device in 334ms when the screen is on, and within 358ms when the screen is off. During my time with the Reno 3 Pro I had no fingerprint misreads.

Color OS, Oppo’s take on Android, seems to be more about “color” than “OS”, which is a good thing. What you get is Android 10 with all the changes needed for features like the punch hole cameras on the front. There is a drawer mode, so you don’t have to keep all your app icons on the home screen, as is often the case with Chinese brands mimicking Apple. Last, ColorOS 7 has a Dark Mode, to take full advantage of the AMOLED display.

Is the Reno 3 Pro good for taking photos?

The Reno 3 Pro has no fewer than five cameras plus a depth-of-field sensor. On the back there are four cameras: a 64MP standard camera with a 1/1.72-inch sensor and f/1.8 aperture; a 13MP telephoto with a 1/3.4-inch sensor f/2.4 aperture; an 8MP ultra wide-angle with a 1/4-inch sensor and 109-degree field of view; and a 2MP depth camera with a 1/5-inch sensor.

When working together, these cameras offer you 0.6x wide-angle shots, 1x normal photos, 2x optical zoom, 5x hybrid zoom, and 20x digital zoom.

While the primary camera is listed as 64MP, it is binned down to 16MP. You can set the camera to use the entire 64MP resolution if you wish. Zoom is not available in 64MP mode, it switches over to the telephoto.

Portrait mode produces images with a computer-generated bokeh effect, a feature that has improved across all phones of late. You can get some good results as long as you are prepared to discard the images that don’t quite work.

For low-light situations, Oppo included a Night mode and an Ultra Dark mode. The latter activates automatically when the phone detects very low-light situations. Overall, the results are impressive. However, don’t expect the camera to be able to see in the dark.

The front-facing camera is a 44MP dual punch hole setup with its own depth-of-field sensor for bokeh shots. Normal photos are actually 40MP (not 44MP) and portrait photos are 10MP. Interestingly, the bokeh effect displayed live during shooting is not the same as the one produced after the photo is taken. Sometimes the live version can be drastically wrong (blurring out bits of the face), but the final photo is generally much better.

The front-facing camera also has access to Ultra Dark. The idea is to make it easier to take selfies at night. However, I must confess, I couldn’t get this to trigger, instead I just got warnings about “more ambient light” needed. Maybe this will be improved in a software update.

03/03/2020 08:58 AM

androidauthority.com