Oppo Reno 8 Pro Audiophile Review 🔥 (with Sound and Camera Samples)
The Oppo Reno 8 Pro has the Marisilicon X chip that produced mind blowing results when shooting videos and pictures in the dark, displayed in full glory when I reviewed the Find X5 Pro. Now Oppo has brought that same low light performance to the mid-range Reno8 Pro. But I’m also gonna talk about something no one has ever covered about this phone, that is its audio. So apart from talking about its camera and specs, we are gonna listen to some sound samples, and discuss whether this will make a great audiophile source device.
Specs
It’s running on the mid-range MediaTek Dimensity 8100-MAX SoC. It’s got a big 6.7 inch screen, 2412 x 1080 FHD with 120hz refresh rate.
It has a 4500 mAH battery, and under regular use conditions it does last all day. When it’s empty you can charge it back to full in less than 30 mins with an 80W SuperVOOC charger.
Oppo has opted to include the charger, and as you know, that is not very common nowadays, which makes it a huge plus. The trade off is that it does not have wireless charging.
I would describe its fingerprint sensor as tight and snappy, although it’s located so far down, it’s not easy to reach it with my thumb.
Cameras
What’s really distinct about this phone is the extra large lens elements at the back. Perhaps to inspire more confidence in its camera quality. It’s got a 50Mp main camera powered by the popular Sony IMX766 sensor, 8Mp ultrawide, and 2Mp macro lens. The front camera is a 32Mp one powered by the Sony IMX709 RGBW sensor.
Photos
But actually using these cameras, only the front and main camera is any good. With it, I managed to get clean pictures that look quite color accurate. Well, you still do get that typical oversharpening that you see in phone cameras, and sometimes the color leans a little greener. But pictures overall still do look pretty high quality.
In low-light conditions I was quite impressed by how bright the phone was lighting up the scene. It’s like someone shot a flare in the sky. Indeed Marisilicon X will not disappoint if you need great low light performance for pictures and videos.
However, the ultrawide and macro cameras were disappointing to say the least. The color accuracy was a hit and miss, and pictures appear blotchy in the background, less like photos, more like watercolor paintings. In other words I would have been just as happy if Oppo didn’t include those cameras. Just saying.
Videos
Also, this phone has 960fps slow motion, only available if you shoot in 720p but even so, at that speed, everything looks like a still photo. It’s just not something that I would use. Oppo can secretly remove this feature and I wouldn’t even notice.
960fps Slomo mode (720p)
However this phone does do a decent job when shooting videos in daylight, whether in 4K or 1080p. And you’re gonna get great stabilization and good microphone pickup. Samples can be found here.
But when shooting at night, though it does light up the scene very well as you’d expect, its stabilization does not seem to work as well as in daytime. I was walking at the same speed, yet the camera’s very shaky. Not great for shooting walkie talkie videos at night.
Audio
The Reno8 Pro uses the tfa98xx phone DAC. It’s a pretty old DAC but when I plugged in the Sony WH-1000XM4, I was quite impressed. Yes it sounded less bassy than other phones I’ve used. But it did actually bring a bit more clarity to my audio, a lot less bloat. I’ve made a binaural recording of what it sounds like compared to another mid-range device, the Google Pixel 6A, listen to it here. I recommend that you listen to this recording with headphones if you wanna hear all the details.
If you don’t like how your headphones sound, and you wanna tweak it, the Reno8 Pro supports RealSound, which is a collaboration between Oppo and Dirac Research. There are modes for Movies and games, those give you a wider spatial audio experience.
And there’s also a music mode. That’s what I use mostly, because it lets you tweak the audio in various ways. You’ve got EQ presets and you’ve got a graphic EQ as well. And since this is a global sound setting, you do get to enjoy your preferred sound quality regardless of the app you’re using. This gives you a lot of flexibility especially if you’re an audiophile and you prefer to stick with wired audio. I’ve made a recording of how the different settings impact the sound. You can listen to it here.
Audio Codecs
The Reno8 Pro doesn’t have a headphone jack so I used a cheap USB-C to 3.5mm dongle from Apple.
But if you’re into wireless audio, the Reno8 Pro supports a wide range of codecs, including a few hi-res codecs like LDAC and LHDC. And even though this phone is not running on a Qualcomm chip, it does support aptX. So, great. It appears that Oppo did get licensing approval for including aptX on a MediaTek chip. But apparently, not for aptX Adaptive, cause even if it does show up on the list, when I tried to activate aptX Adaptive with earbuds that support that, it defaults to regular aptX. So if you intend to stream Hi-Res audio on the Reno8 Pro, it will have to be either through LDAC or LHDC.
Speaker Performance
In terms of speaker performance, this phone has got stereo speakers that deliver loud, full bodied audio that does not sound thin at all, whether you’re playing games or watching videos. Have a listen.
Conclusion
To conclude, the Reno8 Pro will make a great audio source if you’re an audiophile looking to upgrade your device. If the camera is what’s important to you, as long as you’re using the 1x focal length, the Reno8 Pro will not disappoint, especially in low light conditions. That’s when you’ll really appreciate having that Marisilicon X chip.
Price
Oppo Reno8 retails at S$799 (8GB RAM + 256GB storage) in Shimmer Gold and Shimmer Black, starting from 23 August 2022. Oppo Reno8 Pro retails at S$1,099 (12GB RAM + 256GB storage) in Glazed Green and Glazed Black, starting from 6 September 2022.
