Oppo Reno 4 Pro review - The price of ultra-fast charging - Android

Oppo Reno 4 Pro review: Design and display

In a world of glass and metal sandwiches, Oppo made the bold decision of employing an all-plastic build. After using the phone for a week, I can’t say it was necessarily a bad decision. The plastic back and frame make possible a compact body that weighs a mere 161g. If you, like me, prefer to carry your smartphone in your hand, the significant weight reduction is obvious. Your wrist will really appreciate it.

The matte finish on the plastic back doesn’t have the best texture. Sure it improves the grip, but it doesn’t feel premium and attracts hard-to-remove smudges to boot.

This extends to the plastic surrounding the camera as well. The glossy plastic of the module is prone to smudges and I often had to clean the lens while taking a photograph. As for the symmetric camera layout, I appreciate the thought here, but it does look a bit ridiculous.

The green accent on the power button looks great, and the headphone jack is convenient to have.

Over on the right side is the power button that doubles up as a Google Assistant key. The green accent on the power button adds a nice visual flair. That said, I didn’t like the volume buttons much. They sit too close to the frame, and there wasn’t sufficient feedback. Along the bottom edge is the USB-C port as well as the headphone jack.

The screen is a 6.5-inch AMOLED panel with Full HD resolution. Out of the box, the display is tuned for a more vibrant and saturated look. However, that’s easily changed by switching to the gentle color profile. Color accuracy is very good, but for me, it’s the peak brightness that really stood out. I measured peak brightness levels at about 790 nits, making the display usable even under direct sunlight.

The phone has excellent peak brightness levels affording sunlight visibility, and good color accuracy once set to the gentle color profile.

The phone sports a 90Hz display, which adds fluidity. As expected, it’s possible to lock it to either 90Hz or 60Hz in lieu of the default adaptive mode. I found little reason to keep it at the lower setting, as battery life was plenty good even with the phone set to 90Hz. Yes, there is Gorilla Glass 5 for protection from drops and scratches, and the in-display fingerprint scanner is as fast as they come.

The display is a bit smaller than some of the competition, and the slim bezels and selfie-camera cutout help reduce the overall footprint of the phone. The Oppo Reno 4 Pro stands out as one of the most comfortable phones I’ve held in recent times. Shame there’s no IP rating.