So the way
smartphones normally work is you get a phone one year and then about a year
after that you get that phone's successor right!
But Oppo have
taken that convention and like just four months ago we were talking about the
Oppo Reno 3 Pro and yeah i'm about to tell you about the Oppo Reno 4 Pro.
Whats in the
Box?
So talking
about the packaging, it's an almost plain white box you get a clear case, your
instruction manuals and a SIM ejector tool, the smartphone obviously and a USB
C cable plus a pair of earphones and this is the important bit a 65 Watt
Charger provided with the box itself.
Whats the
Difference? Reno 3 Vs Reno 4
So the Reno 3
Pro was a good $400 phone, the Reno 4 Pro is its 4 month later successor. So
the reason i'm making this i guess the question that's on my mind is how much
better can they actually make it a fair bit
Charging Time
Reno 4 Pro can
fully charge in about 35 minutes versus 55 minutes or to put it another way if
you started charging them at the same time then by the time the Reno 3 Pro is
hit 25 the 4 Pro is on almost 50.
Processor
Reno 4 has a
better chipset which is a snapdragon 720G versus Helio p95 on the Reno 3
Antutu
Benchmark
In the Antutu
Benchmark, the Reno 4 Pro scores around 280,000 versus 200,000, that's a 40%
imProvement in a gap of four months which is huge.
CPU Temperature
and Cooling
Now, because
they started integrating Graphite into the cooling architecture in the Reno 4,
the temperatures are lower too.
I actually ran
the benchmark 3 times and by the time we were done the Reno 4 CPU was at around
34 degrees while the Reno 3 was at 49 degrees.
Display
Oppo have given
the display a bump. The new one actually looks remarkably similar to the one
found on the Oneplus 8, which is a good thing.That phone is like 35 more
expensive.
So that means a
2400X1080 Amoled, 90 hertz panel with slight Curves and i've actually put a
fair bit of thought into this whole concept of putting a curved display on a
mid-range phone.
But i think it
actually makes sense from Oppo's end.A lot of tech people were not the biggest
fans of curved displays because they can be impractical, but i think because
this is a feature that you basically never see on mid-range phones,to an
average consumer it kind of elevates it it makes the Reno 4 Pro look
immediately higher end than it is. It'll Probably sell more units.
Design
To top the
whole thing off they've redone the design.
Now i actually
thought the Reno 3 Pro looked kind of nice but i think next to the 4 it does
look a little outclassed mind you the Reno 4 is still made of plastic.
It still has
that single speaker and the Headphone jack on the bottom like the Reno 3.
But it's the
way they've created this slightly coarse grippy finish which it makes it feel
very similar to the matte glass on the Oneplus phones. The only way you can
tell it's plastic is that there's a slight bit of flex in the material
Size and Weight
The new Reno 4
it's about 20 grams lighter than its predecessor Reno 3. When i first picked
the phone up, i thought the batteries weren't inside so at this point i'm
thinking this is a lot of imProvements for a four month gap
Camera
Talking about
the Camera, the one thing i've noticed is that even though the camera module has
definitely gotten bigger since last gen. I wouldn't say the cameras have
necessarily gotten better.
But Oppo has
tried to compensate for this by adding even more features to it.
Most of them
good some of them not.
For example,
Something they call "night flare portrait mode" You're Probably used
to the idea of a night mode and a portrait mode but this is the first time that
a company is actively encouraging you to use them together and this mode
basically brings out the light in the foreground and exaggerates the bokeh from
any background lights behind you.
I totally get
that for a purist even the concept of this is vomit inducing but for me
personally i'm actually not bothered with whether it's real or not this quickly
became one of my favorite
Now this new
camera can technically take 108 megapixel shots and this is software based. So
they're not going to be as good as true 108 megapixel shots.
But they are
noticeably more detailed than photos taken on auto.
One thing you
do feel the lack of here is optical image stabilization. It would Probably be
the first thing i would add back in if i had the choice but to try and
compensate they've added ultra steady video mode which increases the frame rate
and irons out bumpiness and this also actually works on the front camera which
you don't normally see
Camera Features
I quickly
discovered that, there's actually quite a few interesting video modes one that
lets you filter out just the
Red, Blue or
Green light. I don't think i've ever seen this before.
Also there is
this AI color portrait which gives only the human subjects color and i have
seen this before but
what makes it
better here is that instead of flicking on and off when it detects people. The
color fades in and fades out which feels less jarring than i'm used to seeing.
Cons (Where
Reno 3 beats Reno 4)
Couple of
things that i'm not a fan of Reno 4 camera is that ot is technically capable of
shooting 960 frames per second slow motion. But when doing so it looks like
it's only actually recording at a quarter of that and just using interpolation
to create intermittent frames so it doesn't look 100% real and the night mode
on the Reno 3 Pro was Probably one of my favorite features for a mid-range
phone it was exceptional in the dark and the Reno 4 Pro is good but not as
good.
It creates
higher contrast night shots which can look better at a glance but zoom in and
it doesn't get as much detail.
In the general
photo quality is fine here and it shoots photos quickly which is important if
you don't have optical image stabilization because it can help to prevent
blurring.
The front
camera is okay it's not as good as the 44 megapixel dual selfie camera on the
Reno 3 Pro but it's fine. No real complaints about it and it does still support
front camera night mode.
Price
I don't have an
exact price for the Reno 4 Pro by the way but i've been working on the basis
that it should be around the same ballpark as the Reno 3 Pro although the New
Reno 4 looks like a miracle which is 40% faster charging,40% faster
performance, Better Display, Better Design. I will update the price as soon as
it gets revealed.
Conclusion
So that was all
about the new Oppo Reno 4 Pro it's not an everything upgrade but considering
that it's come out four months after the Reno 3 Pro,
considering
that Oppo have basically used a third of the time frame that companies normally
have between phones. It's more than i expected. It takes a lot of the things i
liked about the Reno 3 Pro. Like battery life, Like design, like
Display and it
makes them better.
You can get a
full two days of use out of this thing and it left me with just two constant
reminders that this isn't a flagship phone the lack of optical image
stabilization and the average haptics in the phone.
I find this
such an interesting case study because i mean flagships aren't improving 40%
every four months so are we going to get to a stage where the mid-range very
quickly starts to catch up with the high end because at this rate of
Progression it wouldn't take very long.
