OPPO Reno2 is the latest flagship smartphone of OPPO under the Reno-series. We were trying our hands on OPPO Reno2 since its launch here in Middle East and in this article we are going to share a detailed hands-on review of OPPO Reno2 with all readers of Geeky Stuffs.

This review is divided in various section to cover each aspect of the device separately and talk about the pros and cons of each section.

OPPO Reno2 : Hands-on Review


Retail Box and Unboxing


OPPO Reno2 comes in an unusually long box, very similar to the previous Reno series smartrphones. Inside the retail box you will find the device, USB cable, charger, earphones, a bumper case, some booklets and user manual.

There is no Type-C to 3.5mm adapter provided in the box because the Reno2 comes with the 3.5mm jack, good news. The smartphone case provided in the box is of very nice quality like the OPPO Reno 10X Zoom but unfortunately, it will hide the beauty of the OPPO Reno2 completely as it is not transparent.

You can watch our OPPO Reno2 unboxing video below.



Design


OPPO Reno2 sports a premium unibody design and comes with the combination of glass and metal. The design is pretty similar to previous OPPO Reno series smartphones series considering the camera module placement and rest of the design factors.

On the front side, there is a 6.5-inch screen with 93.1% screen-to-body ratio that is same as the Reno 10X Zoom . There is the signature shark fin designed pivot raising mechanical front camera module with 16MP front camera at the top with a microphone. An in-display fingerprint sensor and a set of sensors provided as well on the front side. The screen is protected by the Corning Gorilla Glass 6 and the back of the device is protected by the Gorilla Glass 5.

At the bottom, there is the USB Type-C port, 3.5mm jack, microphone and a speaker grills along with the antenna line. The SIM card slot is provided on the right along with the power key. The SIM 2 slot can be used as a microSD card slot. On the left, there are volume rockers and on the back, there is the quad-camera setup at the top left centre of the device along with the flash and microphone. There is no camera module bump on the back of the device and the whole camera setup is below the protection of Gorilla Glass 5.



The back panel of both color variants of OPPO Reno2 is very reflective and gives premium look to the device. The Luminous Black color varint is unique and gives the impression of LED lighting across the OPPO branding and edges of the phone. The Ocean Blue is more greenish instead of blue but the reflection on it is very impressive.

The design of the OPPO Reno2 is really beautiful and shows the effort OPPO is putting and the improvements made over the revious generation Reno, for example the reduction of the thickness of the frame. The device looks premium from every angle. The bezel on the sides are nearly negligible and due to nice screen-to-body ratio, it is still manageable to use the device with one hand

Overall the design of OPPO Reno2 is great and there is nothing negative that you would like to point out other than the lack of any waterproofing.

Hardware Specs


OPPO Reno2 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G processor that is the advanced version of the Qualcomm SDM730 Snapdragon 730 and comes with dedicated features for gaming. It consists of a 2.2 GHz Kryo 470 Gold dual-core and 1.8 GHz Kryo 470 Silver hexa-core units. The GPU used is Adreno 618.

The amount of RAM in OPPO Reno2 is 8 GB and internal storage is 256 GB. As mentioned earlier, SIM 2 slot can be used to expand the storage. There is an in-display fingerprint sensor provided that works perfectly and accurately.

Reno2 yses three different cooling technologies - cooling gel, triple graphite layering and copper pipes to keep the device cool and manage the device's temperature when the heavy load is applied on it, especially while high-end games.

When it comes to performance, OPPO Reno2 performs brilliantly. We performed various benchmarking tests on our OPPO Reno2 and the performance of the device was impressive considering the hardware and its segment. You can watch our OPPO Reno2 benchmarking test videos below.





Camera and Imaging


OPPO Reno2 comes with quad rear camera setup. It consists of 48 MP primary camera, 13MP telephoto lens, 2MP monochrome lens and 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens. Other specification of rear camera are the Optical Image Stabilization, 5x hybrid zoom and phase detection autofocus. There is dual-LED flash provided too.

The UI is easy to use and comes with lots of options. On the viewfinder, user can access to important camera modes, switch between rear and front camera, image and video mode. At the top, there are options provided to switch to wide-angle mode, turn on/off flash, change color saturation, apply filter and to go to settings.



The most highlighted feature of OPPO Reno2 camera are the Portrait mode, Ultra Night mode, Ultra Steady Shot for video recording and zoomin capability. Portrait mode is basically the combination of wide aperture mode and special six filters. You can change the depth of field to ceated needed bokeh effect. The output images are great in quality with lots of details and well-defined edges in Portrait mode.

The Ultra Night Mode performance is really impressive and works great in low-light situations. Also, the Ultra Steady Shot works pretty well and provide good quality stabilized videos. Even though OPPO Reno2 supports 20x digital zoom, the picture quality is not usable at the higher zoom level. So it is better to stick with the upto 5X hybrid zoom only.

For video recording, OPPO Reno2 also provides the Sound Focus that focus on the audio source while zooming on it. This feature was first introduced by HTC U11 and it is nice to see other brands utilizing it.



OPPO Reno2 comes with a 16MP front camera with a shark-fin design. It provides video recording with adjustabale beautification and bokeh effect. There is timelapse mode provided as well. The HDR mode is available only for the images and as obvious, so is the fronmt cam panorama mode. In the Portrait mode, user can adjust both the beautification and bokeh effect.

The performance of OPPO Reno2 front cam is impressive. Even though it comes with single front cam, the depth of field detection is very nice and the artifacts reduction is great.

Overall the camera performance of OPPO Reno2 is nice and it fulfils the promises given by the brand for both front and rear cameras.

Software and OS


OPPO Reno2 runs on the Android 9 OS with Color0S 6.1 on top of it. ColorOS is a very feature rich, productive and user friendly UI.

The speed of ColorOS is very nice and you will rarely feel any lag on it. You can select the UI with or without App Drawer depending on your choice. There is a standard virtual keys and gestures based navigation provided along with the floating Assistive Ball.

OPPO Reno2 : Detailed Hands-on Review

On the left of the Home screen there is Smart Assistant provided that shows various useful cards based on the usage of the device including Calendar, Step Tracker, weather and more. There is also a Smart Sidebar that let use access apps quickly and perform various different tasks without launching any particular app.

It comes with a built-in screen recorder, voice call recorder and many options in various sections of settings that allows the user to customize the device to great extent and improves the productivity.

Screen and Display


OPPO Reno2 comes with a huge 6.5-inch AMOLED screen with impressive 93.1% screen-to-body ratio, thanks to the notch-less display and the shark fin front camera module. The viewing angles are nice as well. Response to touches are quick and accurate all the time.

With 1080 x 2400 pixels resolution, you will get 401 PPI. So you will not notice any pixels on the screen and will enjoy the super sharp and crisp display. It comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 6 protection and will protect the screen from minor impacts and damage. There is also a pre-fitted screen protector provided on the device.

OPPO Reno2 also comes with Night Shield mode that filters out blue light to easy viewing. OPPO claims that maximum brightness goes as high as 800 NITS in outdoors but still in bright sunlight of Saudi Arabia I felt difficulty in seeing content clearly on the screen of OPPO Reno2. I am not sure whether it was because of the screen protector or the brightness not reaching to the max in outdoors.

If you find the screen of OPPO Reno2 too big and difficult to operate with one hand then there is One-Handed Mode provided as well.

Overall the screen and display quality of OPPO Reno2 is nice and pleasing. The screen is big, bright, sharp and comes with nice viewing angles.

Gaming and Entertainment


When it comes to gaming, OPPO Reno2 performs brilliantly and the credit goes to the powerful processor and GPU. The 3D graphics rendering is smooth and graphics come with lots of details. You will not feel any lag or frame drops while playing the most high-end games on it.

It features the all-new Game Boost 2.0 that consists of Frame Boost, Touch Boost and Engine Boost to enhance the gaming experience. It also achieved the High Performance Game Tool Certification Certificated by TÜV Rheinland for its gaming performance.



Even though OPPO Reno2 comes with a metal body, it does not get much hot if you play high-end games for longer duration. The big full HD screen and stereo speakers contribute too in enhancing the gaming experience of user, thanks to the three different cooling technologies: cooling gel, triple graphite layering and copper pipes used in OPPO Reno2

Along with the Google’s Play Music, there is also a music app by OPPO provided and it comes with some nice features. The audio output from the speakers is loud and clear, thanks to the Dolby Atmos. The sound quality from provided earphones is great. Surprisingly, it comes with a 3.5mm audio jack too. It also supports the HRA (High Resolution Audio) that plays Hi-res audio files.

The big screen is good to watch the videos and play games. The included Video app does not do much than compiling all videos in the device at one place and letting you just listen to the audio of the video. But it supports nearly every video codec and format available and you will enjoy watching videos on it for sure.

Battery


OPPO Reno2 comes with 4000 mAh Li-Po non-removable battery. The battery is big enough but so is the screen size, resolution and processor’s requirements. Still battery of OPPO Reno2 performs pretty good, thanks to the AMOLED screen, optimized ColorOS and 8nm processor structure. With moderate usage, battery survives more than one day easily and can be managed by tweaking the options to make it last longer as well like reducing the screen resolution or prohibiting the apps to run in the background. In any case, you will get at least 6 hours of screen on time for sure.

OPPO Reno2 : Detailed Hands-on Review

There are few power saving modes provided as well that reduces the device performance and restricts many hardware functionality to increase the battery life.

VOOC Flash Charge 3.0 is capable of charging the device from 0% to 50% in just 30 minutes that is low compared to SuperVOOC that we have seen on some other flagship OPPO Smartphones.

And it would be nice if there was wireless charging feature provided in the OPPO Reno2.

Conclusion


OPPO Reno2 is one of the most beautiful and powerful smartphone currently available in the market in its price range and segment. It comes with an eye-catching design, beautiful screen, nice camera features and performance, overll nice performance, fast and accurate fingerprint sensor, feature-rich and productive ColorOS along with a moderate battery life.

Overall, OPPO Reno2 is a nice phone and score good points in every aspect. If you are planning to buy a mid-range smartphone with beautiful design, nice performance, camera and features, OPPO Reno2 will serve you well.
 
Top