Oppo Reno Z Review

The flagship OPPO prices are often not "Chinese", despite the fact that the company itself has not earned the reputation of Huawei. But the model OPPO Reno Z - this is just an attempt to reduce the price without losing the key features and not cutting down the functionality. And you know what? Successful attempt something!

Appearance:

What can stand out a modern typical Android-smartphone with a drop-shaped notch at the top of the screen?

Of course, the "three-dimensional" texture of the back. That is, this is how manufacturers think that this is what makes a smartphone. Yes, it looks cooler than the iridescent colors on the hull of Huawei, and even more so than the usual piano brand glass in a typical smartphone. But it would be better if OPPO stood out with an interesting texture of a leather covering or even soft-touch plastic. This is today a rarity. Where are you, leather LG G4, I miss ...

As you can see, there is no fingerprint scanner on the case - it is built into the screen here. We'll talk about it a little lower.

Bottom - USB-C and, suddenly, 3.5 mm. That is, it is good, of course, but a bit strange, considering that the OPPO often has more expensive smartphones without analog headphone output. Yes, many other manufacturers do the same, but this does not make it any less strange.

On the right - the power and lock button, on the left - the volume control buttons.

Also on the left is a slot for two nano-SIM. Memory cards are not supported here, but the 128 GB internal memory is “enough for everyone”.

On the back side, you can see a dual camera, flash and ... mirror? In fact, according to company representatives, this is just a protrusion so that the phone rests on it when it is on its back and the cameras do not scratch. Well, prudently.

Screen and Interface:

OPPO Reno Z has a very decent screen that even supports HDR10. For example, you can watch YouTube videos in HDR (if the videos themselves were made using this technology), although the color rendering in this mode is slightly disappointing. Sometimes there are extra shades, sometimes bright colors "overlap" the neighboring. The Sony Xperia 1 display in HDR10 is much better.


Maximum brightness level (min./max.)                                 437
Contrast (more = better)    infinite
Color gamut (sRGB) (90-100% - ideal, more = worse)         99%
DeltaE (less = better)                                                             4.82
Gamma (ideal - 2.2)                                                               2.3
Color temperature (ideal = 6500K)                                       7500K

But the rest of the screen no complaints. Good color rendering (not in HDR), high brightness, sufficient clarity adjusted for PenTile in AMOLED.

The interface is a proprietary development of Color OS version 6.0. In my opinion, this is a very convenient and functional, although slightly “toy”-looking interface. In the “Theme Shop” application you can find other design options, but I like them even less.

Performance and autonomy:

In terms of performance, the OPPO Reno Z is a smartphone from the mid-top (or top-middle) segment. 

And if you are an enthusiastic and religious fan of Qualcomm Snapdragon, I inform you that OPPO Reno Z has the coolest modern MediaTek processor - Helio P90. From a constructive point of view, the chip on the 12nm process technology (14 nm in the Snapdragon 660 is worse, 10 nm in the Snapdragon 710/730 is better) with a block of four powerful Cortex-A75 and four Cortex-A55. That is, the processor part repeats the Snapdragon 710 and 730, in which the cores of the Kryo 360 are based just on the 75th and 55th Cortex. The Snapdragon 660, for reference, is based on the older (i.e., slower with the same number of GHz) core Cortex A73 and A53.



The processor is not hot, vigorous and trouble-free, but it doesn’t cause any enthusiasm, because in 30,000 smartphones this set of qualities is by definition, and MediaTek (Chinese processors instead of American Qualcomm) are usually taken to make a mobile phone cheaper than its counterparts on imported components. Even Huawei understands that there is a discount for the Chinese origin of the processor, so a much more powerful Honor 20 costs about the same 28 thousand. And in our case, the difference in prices for processors, apparently, went to red caviar and courtesans for OPPO managers.

The battery capacity of 4035 mAh provides a very decent autonomy, although it is impossible not to notice that the version with Qualcomm Snapdragon, say, the 7xx series (with a more economical process technology) would be better in all senses.

Well, briefly about the equipment. Firstly, it is already a bit annoying that for some reason the 3.5 mm jack is placed in not the very top devices. And what the top guilty something? If the 3.5-mm and the truth are not needed - remove it altogether. If necessary - put everywhere, what's the problem? My OPPO RX17 Pro, which, although older, is a higher class, does not have this connector. And Reno Z has it, and even FM radio is supported. Well for injustice?

Secondly, the fingerprint scanner built into the screen works just amazing here. This is the best on-screen scanner I've ever seen - and I've seen quite a bit lately (Xiaomi Mi 9 / Mi 9 SE / Mi 9T, Honor 20, Huawei P30 - from the newest ones). In my RX17 Pro, the scanner works, albeit fairly accurately, but still slower than in Reno Z. Yes, and Reno Z makes fewer mistakes (I would say, I don’t make any mistakes, but I tested the smartphone for just a week). Great job OPPO!

Well, the last - charging time. OPPO Reno Z by default comes with a self-developed VOOC 3 fast charging, which is an hour I charged a fully discharged smartphone to 95%. In principle, this is not bad and cooler than many competitors (especially for those where powerful charging is not even supplied), but the same OPPO RX17 Pro can charge up to 100% of the standard adapter in 40 minutes.

Camera:

Unfortunately, I myself have not had the opportunity to get acquainted with the OPPO Reno and OPPO Reno 10x Zoom, but for almost a year now I have been going with the OPPO RX17 Pro. In general, I like the way the OPPO camera processes images (I see a lot in common with my RX17 Pro and the tested Reno Z). Yes, in some places it is plainly clear that this is only processing, and even “drawing”, but all this is done very unobtrusively and gently. No acid or unnatural colors.

That is, in terms of luminosity, HDR, the color reproduction of the OPPO Reno Z camera is very cool and much better than its competitors for the price.


 But with what the camera Reno Z is definitely bad - so it is with sharpness. The OPPO algorithms are simply not designed for cameras with 48 megapixels — even when you turn on this very mode, 48 megapixels, you still get “soap”. Well, like soap ... Let's just say - if you plan to view pictures from a smartphone on a 4K TV, then the OPPO Reno Z photos will seem blurred to you. On Full-HD - fine. In this sense, the same RX17 Pro will be better.


But it is worth considering that in reality in the OPPO Reno Z there is no optical zoom at all. The second lens serves here only for auxiliary needs, such as the same background blur. However, given the blurring of the main camera, you can imagine what happens when you also turn on the 2x digital zoom.

On the selfie, sometimes there is a subjective lack of contrast, but it is not a problem to strengthen it with filters. In general, OPPO makes some of the best selfie cameras in mobile phones. In any case, they simply do not have competitors in this price category.

In the video - not bad, but it could be better. There is clearly not enough stabilization - if you shoot on the go, then don't even try without any DJI Osmo. But the quality is generally pleasing. And even in 4K, there are no extra lags or wild supersaturation, as is often the case with Xiaomi / Huawei / Honor.


It would be possible to find fault with that, in 4K, there are not enough 60 frames per second, but for such money, this mode is not available anywhere. Xiaomi Mi 9 is still much more expensive.

With sharpness on Full-HD, the video is not very (like the competitors), but in 4K - everything is fine.

If the front camera, which overlaps the screen, still annoys you, then you can take the Xiaomi Mi 9T - it leaves it (automatically and quickly) from the case. Plus, this smartphone has better performance and autonomy, but the fingerprint scanner on the screen works much worse than the OPPO Reno Z. On the camera, you will win in sharpness, but you will lose everything else (shooting with a lack of lighting, color reproduction, video).

Communication capabilities, multimedia:

Audibility in the conversation and detail in the voice messages in the messengers is good, the interlocutors did not express their dissatisfaction with the sound quality. Speaker acts as a stereo to the main speaker at the bottom. Dolby Atmos sound support is claimed, but I managed to feel this volume only in headphones (I tested it with lossless music through foobar2000 on Bose QC35 wireless noise suppressors, wired AKG headphones from the Samsung Galaxy S9 + and accidentally got a hand when cleaning Xiaomi desk drawers Piston), with normal playback, there are no such sensations. Speaker volume is slightly above average.


Wireless protocols: there is NFC, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, support for many frequency bands, everything works and connects, no problems. Declared support for VoLTE at the processor level.

Conclusion:

OPPO Reno Z is a very decent mobile camera for its 28 thousand rubles and is definitely the best selfie camera in this range.


Actually, there are no objective flaws in the smartphone. One could complain about a small amount of RAM (4 GB) - yet, the competitors already have up to 6 GB. But, frankly, the difference in the ordinary use of the smartphone will not notice. Someone else will scare the processor Helio P90 - well, Snapdragon really would have been better, but there are no objective reasons to grieve.

Where to buy it:

You can buy it at ebay