It may have been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the OPPO Reno 3 is still confirmed to be arriving in the Phillippines soon.
While we’re waiting for the official price to base our full review on, we want to share our initial thoughts with it, here in our OPPO Reno 3 hands-on review.
Design-wise, the Reno 3 is really similar to the Reno 3 Pro. Both units that we have here share the same Aurora Blue color gradient design. They both look sleek and shiny, but the overall color-gradient design is starting to feel old.
While they look similar at first look, the two actually have key design differences, which also reflects on their actual specs.
For one, the non-Pro model is a tad bit wider and thicker. Although, it still feels sleek and comfortable in the hands, thanks to its curved corners and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 back.
Another key difference is the screen. The OPPO Reno 3 has a more traditional waterdrop notch, instead of a punch-hole on the top left of the Reno 3 Pro. This makes the Reno 3 look basic and less futuristic.
The secondary depth-sensor on the front is now gone. But on the upside, it still uses a pixel-packed 44-megapixel selfie camera.
As you can see in the samples, self-portraits look really nice on this one. Colors are really vibrant, exposure and contrast are good and of course, the sharpness is on point.
To set it apart to the Pro model, OPPO downgraded the primary camera on the Reno 3. It now only comes with a 48-megapixel main shooter, instead of a 64-megapixel sensor.
Still, there’s the 13-megapixel telephoto lens, 8-megapixel ultra-wide, and a 2-megapixel mono sensor.
We’ll go in detail about the cameras’ image quality in our full review. But so far, the first photos we took looks good enough. The shallow depth-of-field is really noticeable, albeit we suspect some software intervention happening. There are parts that shouldn’t be blurred, but are blurry nonetheless.
On the upside, the colors and contrast are fine, dynamic range is decent, too. Although the White Balance is a hit or miss.
It may have not the same cameras, but the OPPO Reno 3 does inherit the same MediaTek Helio P90 processor that the Pro model has. It also has 8GB of RAM, although the storage was cut in half to 128GB.
The OPPO Reno 3 ran seamlessly in our initial tests. Social media browsing, taking pictures, and just navigating to the interface is really smooth.
Most games ran on high frame rates, without any noticeable frame drops. Popular titles like Mobile Legends, Call of Duty Mobile, and NBA 2K20 are playable at the OPPO Reno 3.
We’ll go in detail about its performance in our full review, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, you can its benchmark scores below.
OPPO Reno 3 benchmark scores
OPPO also kept the same 4,025mAh battery from the Reno 3 Pro. We need to run our full test on this device to see how long it will last. Again, watch out for that in our review.
However, the 30W VOOC 4.0 fast charging was downgraded to 20W VOOC flash charging 3.0. It charged the OPPO Reno 2F in under two hours during our review, and we’re expecting to see the same on the OPPO Reno 3.
Just like the OPPO Find X2 and other newer OPPO devices, the Reno 3 runs on the latest Android 10 with OPPO’s ColorOS 7 interface on top.
The interface looks clean and straightforward. There is much more to uncover on this UI in our upcoming review.
Well, that’s it for now. Make sure you stay tuned as we’ll be publishing our full review of the OPPO Reno 3 once the official price in the Philippines is out.