OPPO Reno 4: A camera for creators [Full review]

OPPO launches their newest midrange smartphone with features perfect for aspiring creators at a budget-friendly price point. It’s equipped with innovative imaging functions for you to explore different styles that suit you best.

Design and build

The OPPO Reno4 comes in two different colorways—Space Black and Galactic Blue. One of the first things I noticed  is how surprisingly slim and light the phone is. It weighs 165g but feels substantial enough in the hand.

My particular model came in the ‘Galactic Blue’ colourway, and this only enhanced the sleekness of the phone. With the all-new “Reno Glow” technique used on the casing, the Reno4 sparkles while maintaining its matte and smudge-proof finish.

On its right it has the power button, while on the left it has the volume rocker and card tray for two nano SIM cards. On the bottom, it has the speakers, USB Type-C port, microphone, and headphone jack. The speakers support Dolby Atmos and produce great mids and high frequency; not bad lows as well but I wish it had an extra boost for its volume.

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Up front, the Reno4 is equipped with a 6.4-inch Dual Punch-hole AMOLED screen with a 90.7% screen-to-body ratio.

Camera with features made for creators

The phone is equipped with a 32MP Selfie front camera along with a 48MP HD quad-camera at its rear. This quad camera features the 48MP main lens, an 8MP ultra wide-angle lens, 2MP macro lens, and 2MP mono lens. I thought it was only a triple camera because the mono lens was placed separately and smaller than the other three.

All these cameras offer various photo modes available to the user. AI Color Portrait mode mutes the background into black and white while leaving the subject in color. There were a few inconsistencies when the subject’s clothing match the background—the AI changes that part into black and white as well.

Night Flare Portrait mode creates impressive bokeh and night shots by utilizing the Low Light HDR algorithm. Ultra Night Selfie Mode uses the powerful 32MP front camera to enhance and brighten subjects in low-light environments. Ultra Dark Mode is another nighttime photographic mode that is automatically triggered when the user takes a photo in a dimly lit setting.

Meanwhile, in brighter daytime settings the Ultra Clear mode uses a high resolution algorithm to take photos at up to 108MP, achieving retina-level clearness. The Reno4 can also take videos in 960fps, and contains unique modes such as Smart Slow-Motion for cinematic shots, Front Steady Video for stabilizing vloggers on the move, Ultra Steady Video for action shots, and Ultra Steady Video Pro for wider-angled action shots. Filtered modes similar to the ones used for photography include AI Color Portrait Video and Monochrome Video.

All your photos and videos can be edited with the free SoLoop Smart Editing software included with the phone. This app allows users to combine photos into a video story and easily enhance clips with music, themes, templates, and filters.

Under the hood

Inside the Reno4 is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G CPU. The single-core CPU sees a 46% increased performance from the Reno3 Pro, while the multi-core performance is enhanced 40%. This CPU is supported by offering 8GB + 128GB of RAM hardware.

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In terms of battery, the Reno4’s 30W VOOC 4.0 can charge the phone to 50% in just 20 minutes and reach a full 100% charge in less than an hour—57 minutes to be exact. However, while charging the phone heated up a bit and measured 41°C. This battery works in tandem with the phone’s Super Power Saving Mode (which allows 5% of battery to support apps like WhatsApp chat for 1.5 hours or a phone call for more than 1 hour) and Super Nighttime Standby (which consumes only 2% of electricity for around 8 hours while the user is sleeping). 

The Reno4 runs on Color OS 7.2. This OS allows the user to enhance their experience through quality of life conveniences, such as ‘Icon Pull-down Gesture’ (swiping up on either the left or right edge of the screen to move the app icons to the bottom half of the screen for ease of use). ‘OPPO Share’ uses WIFI p2p technology to allow users to send files wirelessly between OPPO, Xiaomi, Vivo, and realme devices. ‘Quick Return Bubble’ can minimize apps and allow users to easily switch between tasks as a bubble floating on top of other apps. 

“Smart” features

The Reno4 smartphone contains plenty of smart features to help with its performance but it still needs a lot of improvement. The AI-enhanced Smart Sensor allows for four main features: Smart Spying Prevention, Smart AirControl, Smart Rotation, and Smart Always-On Display. All of these have to be activated in your settings.

The Smart Spying Prevention feature uses a smart recognition algorithm to automatically detect if there is a person snooping on your phone. If there is a stranger detected peeking at your phone, the phone will hide details about notifications that pop up on the screen. However, this feature is pretty common nowadays as users can always choose whether to have their notifications previewed or not when locked.

It also has three Smart Lock features. The On-body detection keeps the the device unlocked as long as it’s in motion (like when you’re holding or carrying your device) to avoid constantly unlocking your phone. The device is also supposed to detect when it’s been set down (like one a table) for it to lock but it wasn’t very accurate based on our experience. The Trusted places option keeps the device unlocked when it’s in a specific location (like you’re home). Lastly, the Trusted devices keeps it unlocked if it’s detects another gadget connected through Bluetooth.

Smart AirControl allows users to simply scroll up and down on apps like TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram in order to easily navigate them. In addition, phone calls can be answered with this same gesturing. However, it didn’t work well as we tried it on all the four apps. It also didn’t work trying to answer phone calls.

Smart Rotation detects a user’s facial positioning to orient the screen and rotate accordingly, and can even sense if you are lying down. This was also inconsistent and didn’t work in both bright and dark settings. Meanwhile, the Smart Always-on Display makes sure the phone screen does not dim or shut down while the user is looking at their phone. 

Pocket-sized Cinema

For binge-watchers, the Reno4 comes packed with cinematic features. This includes utilizing immersive Dolby Atmos sound and the OSIE Ultra Clear Visual Effect. This optimization technology supports third-party apps like Instagram and TikTok to enhance video quality and visual effects by improving picture saturation and contrast and minimizing noise. The Reno4 is also Netflix HD Certified and supports 1080P streaming.

Verdict

The OPPO Reno4 is priced at P18,990 with a flagship camera and other creative features that would be useful for creators or those aspiring to be. It also comes with a midrange processor, AMOLED screen and Dolby Atmos. It had a lot of smart features that still need a lot of improvement. However these won’t really affect one’s day-to-day usage of often-used functions.