OPPO Reno5 Pro: A people-oriented, 173-gram “light” streaming imaging device

Although it has only been more than half a year since the release of the Reno4 series, OPPO obviously does not want to lose the product advantages it has just established in the increasingly competitive market. Therefore, on December 10, we saw the even more advanced OPPO Reno5 series.

It would be fine if the products were updated step by step - OPPO and consumers cannot ignore the pioneering significance of the Reno4 series as a "5G video phone", so even though the Reno5 series has once again made great progress in hardware parameters, the pressure on it is actually greater than that of the previous generation of products.

From the perspective of market trends and consumer demand, how to further consolidate the advantages and unique consumer awareness of the Reno series in appearance, imaging, entertainment, etc. on the basis of inheriting the product concept of the Reno4 series is the task that the OPPO Reno5 series must accomplish at this turning point at the end of the year.

173 grams, a rare "light" flow at the end of 2020

Frankly speaking, it is actually very difficult for the smartphone industry to come up with new ideas in terms of appearance today. However, if companies want to survive and consumers want to buy their products, bankrupt mobile phone manufacturers must constantly innovate and come up with new ideas in a very small space - this seems to be an impossible task.

OPPO is actually very clear about this truth. As the saying goes, flowers look the same year after year, but the phones are different year after year. On the one hand, it honestly faces the current situation of "homogenization", and on the other hand, it comes up with various micro-innovative new designs in its own areas of expertise.

On the front, OPPO Reno5 Pro is mainly striving for a more immersive experience, with a 6.55-inch hyperbolic flexible perforated screen. As the left and right frames of the body narrow backwards, its screen-to-body ratio reaches 92.1%. In addition, the Reno5 Pro screen supports a 90Hz refresh rate and a 180Hz high sampling rate. In actual hands-on experience, OPPO's consistent visual immersion comes to the fore, and the appropriate color tuning is also impeccable.

Since the front of the phone gives way to the screen, OPPO has put as much effort as possible into the back panel. In line with the screen, the back of the phone also adopts a hyperboloid design, which not only provides a neat and orderly visual experience, but also complements the curvature of the hyperboloid and the arc of the palm when held in one hand, making the grip feel perfect.

It is worth noting that according to OPPO, the back shell of Reno5 Pro adopts a new star diamond process. Compared with Reno4 Pro, the brightness of the back shell has increased by 35%. In the light scene, we can clearly feel the "blinding" brilliance of the back shell. If you walk with Reno5 Pro, it will be difficult not to become "the brightest guy in the whole GAI". Here, we strongly recommend that you do not use a mobile phone case. At most, you can use a transparent one. Such a beautiful machine is covered up, which is a bit contrary to the designer's painstaking efforts.

If the appearance of Reno5 Pro can already satisfy the "cute and beautiful girls", then the control of the body weight will definitely surprise them even more.

Unlike traditional 5G mobile phones that are developing in the direction of "same weight and same weight", Reno5 Pro, based on the large 4350mAh battery, has reached the lightest level of 7.6mm and 173 grams.

I have to say that this is definitely the rarest "light" stream among 5G mobile phones at the end of 2020.

As mentioned earlier, by 2020, the appearance of smartphones has become increasingly homogenized. However, through Reno5 Pro, we can find that the trend of homogenized appearance is definitely not an excuse for manufacturers to ignore consumer experience and fail to make progress. After all, whether it is craftsmanship or control of body weight, Reno5 Pro has surpassed the mainstream level of the industry.

Hundred-level beauty, image artifact

There is no doubt that in the longer term, 5G will completely revolutionize the form of existing smartphones at the product level. However, judging from the current data, 5G's high bandwidth still remains at the stage of making content dissemination more "thick", and video applications completely replace pictures. According to data released by QuestMobile, in the first half of 2020, the usage time of short videos on China's mobile Internet accounted for 20% of the total usage time, second only to instant messaging.

Based on this trend, OPPO Reno5 Pro has no reason not to follow the trend of the times and further consolidate the imaging system that has already achieved huge advantages.

In terms of configuration, Reno5 Pro is equipped with a four-camera combination of 64-megapixel main camera + 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle + 2-megapixel portrait + 2-megapixel macro, which is enough to meet most shooting needs even for professionals.

Of course, photos are largely "emotional", and no matter how many parameters are added, they cannot represent the final imaging effect of the camera. To know how good the imaging system of this phone is, we still have to test it through sample photos one by one.

In large aperture scenes, Reno5 Pro can take good care of the details in the shadows. For example, the signpost in the picture above is clearly displayed under the lens of Reno5 Pro. What's more valuable is that Reno5 Pro can also take care of the highlights of the sky at the same time, making the whole photo present a more balanced look and feel.

According to OPPO, Reno5 Pro's Super Night Scene can optimize the night photography experience. Judging from the actual sample photos, this function is indeed well-deserved. Not only are the shadows rich in details, but it also takes into account the highlights of the lights and the saturation of the colorful train body, and the overall look is very soft. Judging from the finished film, this eye-pleasing look is indeed rare in night scenes.

It is worth mentioning that OPPO calls the Reno5 Pro camera "Water Light Portrait". The reason for this name is mainly because it is equipped with FDF full-dimensional portrait video technology, supports 100-level beauty adjustment and AI video enhancement and other functions.

Judging from the sample photos, the beauty effect of OPPO Reno5 Pro does not have the smearing feeling common in traditional mobile phones. Instead, it makes some more natural "micro-sculpture" on the basis of ensuring the original skin texture, making the characters in Reno5 Pro more natural and beautiful.

In response to the booming social video trend, Reno5 Pro has also added many eye-catching features. For example, the dual recording function can record "two-way" content by turning on the front and rear cameras simultaneously. This undoubtedly solves a major problem for bloggers of e-commerce live broadcasts.

Performance benchmark, running "Genshin Impact" without pressure

The importance of the imaging system is self-evident, and the overall performance expression still plays a decisive role behind it. In this regard, Reno5 Pro is not much inferior to other flagship models on the market. In terms of performance, it is equipped with the annual popular processor Dimensity 1000+, and supplemented by 8GB ARM of LPDDR4X. From the configuration point of view alone, Reno5 Pro has lived up to the expectations of the "performance party".

In addition to the excellent hardware quality, Reno5 Pro has also not neglected the construction of the software level. For example, Color OS 11.1 can intelligently pre-start frequently opened games through AI algorithms, allowing us to enter the game faster; Hyper Boost has also been upgraded to version 4.0, which can intelligently dispatch system resources and improve the overall performance of the game.

Of course, configuration is just cold data after all, and it cannot represent the actual experience. In this section, we chose the new "pay-to-win" online game "Genshin Impact" which has earned $245 million in revenue in two months to test its game performance.

From the actual experience, "Genshin Impact" can run at around 30 frames on Reno5 Pro. In addition, the mobile phone screen with a 180Hz touch sampling rate itself supports a 90Hz refresh rate, making the overall control of "Genshin Impact" very smooth.

Considering that the installation package of "Genshin Impact" is more than 8GB and focuses on an open world, it consumes a lot of computing power of the mobile phone. It can be inferred that since Reno5 Pro can run this game smoothly, it should be able to run most online games on the market in the next few years.

Fully charged in half an hour, no more battery anxiety

The high bandwidth and low latency of 5G networks have indeed brought us a major experience upgrade, but like a double-edged sword, the high power consumption of 5G networks has also invisibly increased the battery life anxiety of smartphones. After all, even the wealthy China Mobile is forced to choose to shut down 5G base stations at designated times at night. The fewer base stations there are, the higher the consumption of mobile phones when searching for signals.

Since the underlying battery technology of smartphones has not undergone revolutionary changes for more than a decade, when faced with this industry problem, most smartphone manufacturers will choose to increase battery capacity unilaterally. However, this will bring a problem, that is, smartphones will lose some of their portability. Taking the iPhone12 Pro Max as an example, its body weight reaches 226 grams, which has become a veritable "half a catty and eight taels".

Just when we thought that in the 5G era, smartphones would inevitably rush towards the direction of "fitness equipment", OPPO gave us a different answer: in a small body of 7.6mm thick and 173 grams, Reno5 Pro is packed with a large 4350mAh battery, achieving perfect two-way progress in battery life and portability.

In the battery life test, the Reno5 Pro was allowed to run "Genshin Impact" for an hour, and it only consumed 18% of the power. From this point of view, the 4350mAh large battery equipped with the Reno5 Pro can indeed alleviate the user's battery anxiety to a great extent.

As one of the first manufacturers to shout out the slogan "five minutes of charging, two hours of talk time", OPPO obviously also knows the charging time problem that comes with large batteries. Fortunately, Reno5 Pro supports 65W super flash charging.

After actual testing, Reno5 Pro can be charged to 63% of the power in just 15 minutes, and 100% of the power in half an hour.

Although the battery technology of smartphones seems to be locked by "Smart Child", Reno5 Pro has taken a different approach and found another "compromising but effective" product path to innovate mobile phone battery from the perspective of charging. For the industry, this move still has certain reference significance.

The fundamental characteristic of Reno5 Pro is "people-oriented"

Competition in the smartphone market in 2020 is extremely fierce. According to IDC data, the shipment volume of China's smartphone market in Q3 2020 was only 84.8 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 14.3%. This market trend actually poses a difficult problem for smartphone manufacturers: How can they truly please users?

Through Reno5 Pro, we discovered OPPO's answer: people-oriented. These four words used to be the mark of Nokia's most glorious era. Later, its decline was also because it forgot its original intention and no longer took user needs as the basic principle of product development.

There are three highlights in Reno5 Pro: one, appearance; two, photography; three, battery.

Although these three functions are common things. However, there is an old saying that it is easy to draw a dragon or a tiger, but it is difficult to draw a cat or a dog. What it means is that it is actually more difficult to do well in things that we come into contact with every day, because we are too familiar with them. If we want to continue to improve, we also need to make more efforts. It is not difficult to improve the marathon record by one second, and it is a world event to improve the 100-meter race by 0.01 seconds.

Even though it is so difficult, because these three aspects are functions that users must be exposed to for a long time every day, OPPO has worked hard in these three aspects. The so-called "building a strong fortress and fighting a stupid battle" did not chase after flashy things, but put all the efforts into the real underlying experience, giving Reno5 Pro capabilities far beyond the industry level.

For example, Reno5 Pro maintains a thin and light appearance while being equipped with a large 4350mAh battery. This highlight is beyond the reach of even Apple's flagship products.

More importantly, these three functions have a very clear user group - young people.

Of course, we are not saying that other mobile phones cannot meet the product needs of this group of people, but most mobile phones nowadays are focusing on "all-round performance". Coupled with homogeneous competition, this will largely make it difficult for consumers to buy a comprehensive and balanced low-water-level mobile phone.

This is what makes Reno5 Pro so rare. It actually actively abandons a part of users and, through focused functions, tries to satisfy the group that pursues appearance, photography and battery life as much as possible. In this way, Reno5 Pro naturally becomes the undisputed king of this market segment.

From this perspective, the people-oriented Reno5 Pro actually has a precise grasp of what it gives up and what it gains. What it gives up is the flashy and impractical things, and what it gains is a real user experience.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.