Oppo Reno 6 5G Review - A Good Looking All-Rounder

OPPO recently launched its latest series of Reno smartphones aimed at the affordable flagship segment, The Reno 6 Pro 5G and the Reno 6 5G. The Reno Series from Oppo is camera oriented smartphone from the brand, With the Reno 5 last year we did see a lot of innovations from Oppo, like the portrait mode video, FDF system, etc. This time again with the New Reno 6 5G, Oppo is promising some innovative camera features, along with the all-new 6nm MediaTek Dimensity 900 SoC. We will be bringing out an in-depth camera review for the Reno 6 5G later, today we will look at how the new smartphone from Oppo fared in our day-to-day usage. 

Design

Curved screens are quite the rage now, every smartphone manufacturer has adopted it. The Reno 6 Pro does it, but the Reno 6 5G gets a different squarish, blocky, iPhone 12ish design, And it looks good. The flat screen, the blocky design, and the well-distributed weight makes Reno 6 feel very premium in the hand and even lying on the table. We received the Aurora colored variant for review, the glass back has a stunning pearlescent effect, which the company calls Reno Glow design. And surprisingly the back is also fingerprint and smudge-proof. Full marks to Oppo for the design of the Reno 6 5G, even though it looks like an iPhone 12, the execution and choice of materials are very good considering the segment of the device. 

Display 

The Reno 6 5G, gets a 6.4” FHD+ (1080x2400 pixels) AMOLED panel with a 90Hz refresh rate and 180Hz touch sampling rate. While this is nothing groundbreaking it’s the configuration is becoming increasingly common in 2021. The display itself is very good, with good visibility in the sunlight thanks to 750nits of peak brightness and bright punchy colors overall. The Reno 6 5G also supports HDR10 and Widevine L1 making consuming OTT content a pleasurable exercise. The display is also protected by Gorilla Glass 5 and also comes with a factory-fitted screen guard. In-display optical fingerprint scanner is present as well, which turned out to be quite fast in unlocking the phone. 

MediaTek Dimensity 900

The Reno 6 5G comes with 8GB of LPDDR4x and 128GB of UFS 2.1 type storage, this is a common combination in the segment. The Chipset here though is special, It’s the MediaTek Dimensity 900. The Reno 6 5G is one of the first smartphones in India to use this 6nm processor. Using the latest TSMC 6nm production process this octa-core processor is exceptionally light on power, which we noticed while gaming and running benchmarks on the device, even after repeated tests, the Reno 6 5G did not heat up to noticeable levels. 

This new chipset also supports an integrated 5G modem with enhanced 5G capability along with power-saving technologies. The Reno 6 with the Dimensity 900 supports a lot of 5G bands and will serve you well when 5G services are launched in the Country. Wi-Fi 6 with 2x2 MIMO is also supported, while testing with our Wi-Fi 6 Mesh router with MIMO support, we never experienced signal or speed drops even while switching nodes across floors. Streaming high bandwidth 4K video was a breeze. 

Audio

With the Reno 6 5G, Oppo has omitted the 3.5mm headphone jack but the company does not leave you high and dry, a USB Type-C headset is provided inside the box. The audio quality using the supplied headset is good while listening to music. Network and Call quality on Vodafone 4G network was decent, on JIO 4G network it was excellent, VOIP calls on WhatsApp, Instagram, and Zoom was excellent as well. Bluetooth 5.2 along with aptX codec is supported and audio quality using Bluetooth headsets and headphones was very good, with zero latency, even watching movies was enjoyable. 

Now it is not all good, the Reno 6 5G, comes with a single downward-facing mono speaker, yeah we were shocked too. The speaker though is loud enough and has a good definition too, but due to the design of the phone it is very easy to block, and while consuming content the lack of stereo speaker is quite evident. 

Camera 

The Reno Series from Oppo has always been camera-focused, and it's no different this time as well. The Reno 6 with Dimensity 900’s power brings a lot of new things to the table. While we will be publishing a separate in-depth camera review very soon, we would like to give an overall picture here.

The Reno 6 5G, packs a 64-megapixel primary camera with an f/1.7 aperture with phase detection Autofocus; an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera with an f/2.2 aperture, and a 2-megapixel obligatory camera with an f/2.4 aperture. It sports a 32-megapixel camera on the front for selfies with an f/2.4 aperture and a pixel size of 0.8-micron. There is no optical image stabilization here but it still manages quite well with low light handheld shots. The camera also supports dual view video capturing front and rear camera view at the same time, “pro-mode” for manual photography and “Film Mode” for manual videography is also available for people who like to tweak the camera settings further along with slo-mo, timelapse and AI filters. Keeping in mind the importance of selfie cameras for vlogging and video calls, the 32MP front camera is very good and offers AI-based bokeh mode, screen-based flash, digital stabilization, etc. For Video, the Reno 6 offers a max resolution of 4K at 30fps, which is a limitation of the Mali-G68 MC4 GPU, having said that 4K 60FPS users are still very low and the Reno 6 provides good quality 4K 30FPS video with good dynamic range and sharpness, the selfie shoot can record only in 1080p 30fps which is bummer if you were looking at recording some creamy 60FPS selfie footage. 

Software 

Well, I have always been a fan of ColorOS, the New ColorOS 11.3 on the Reno 6 doesn’t disappoint. Tons of customizations options are available along with a theme store, screen recording, call recording it is all there. Even though Reno 6 doesn’t have a curved display, edge lighting customization is available. One negative about the Software side of things are the bunch of pre-loaded applications the device comes with – Moj, Snapchat, FinShell Pay, LinkedIn, Booking.com, Josh to name a few. Most of these can be deleted or disabled from the settings though. Overall ColorOS 11.3 experience is superb and pretty close to stock android with added customizations on top. 

Battery 

The Reno 6 comes with a 4300mAh battery, and the capability to fast charge using the supplied 65W super vooc 2.0 charger. In our testing, the battery life on the Reno 6 has been fairly decent. On days with normal usage, Mostly phone calls, social media, a bit of camera usage, lots of WhatsApp usage, and Bluetooth music streaming we easily ended our day with 20-30% battery. On days with heavy testing, benchmarking, gaming, and camera tests, we could run out the battery by evening. In average usage scenarios, the Reno 6 could easily last a full day of usage, additionally, the Supervooc charger can fully charge the phone in 30mins, which really put the battery anxiety to rest.

Verdict

The OPPO Reno 6’s is a well-rounded package of capable cameras, stylish iPhone 12ish design, premium build quality, and great software with ColorOS 11.3. The New processor also brings horsepower into the equation. If you are looking for an all-out gaming phone then you know there are other options available but if you are looking for a phone in the 27-30k range that does it all then Reno 6 5G is for you.