So far, the mid-range segment has always been a tough competition for any smartphone maker. Going for high-end design or focusing on outstanding performance? If both, the phone won't be a mid-range smartphone anymore because phone makers have to raise the price. Officially launched in India not long ago with the more-premium Reno2, Reno2 F is Oppo's latest attempt to conquer consumers the mid-range segment. The key highlight of this phone is, of course, its full-screen design thanks to the shark-fin pop-up camera style. In this review, we will look into more details on the display, performance, camera, and battery aspects of this new mid-range phone from OPPO.
Reno2 F is equipped with a large 6.5-inch AMOLED screen, featuring Full HD + resolution (2340 x 1080 pixels). As mentioned, the display has a full-screen design with no notch or punch-hole and a 19.5: 9 aspect ratio so it is very easy to hold and use the device with just one hand. The AMOLED panel offers high brightness, clear visibility when using outdoors. Vibrant colors with deep blacks are also noticeable advantages of the AMOLED panel. Unfortunately, Oppo still does not offer many color mode options, selectable only between cold, default, and warm options.
As mentioned, the Reno2 F only has a single speaker at the bottom but has Dolby Atmos audio technology, so the sound quality is better than the average single-speaker smartphones. The speaker is loud but the sound is not distorted and has a high level of detail. Combined with the large edge-to-edge screen, the Reno2 F gives a good user experience whether you're watching movies, surfing the web or playing games.
The current market trend is the Dark Mode and Apple, Google, and Samsung have already joined the trend. Dark Mode not only helps reduce eye strain when used in low light conditions but also consumes less battery than conventional mode if the phone uses an AMOLED panel like Reno2 F. However, at present, Oppo has not used Dark Mode on its smartphones yet, hopefully it will update in the future.
Reno2 F comes pre-installed with Android 9 Pie with customized ColorOS 6.1 interface, fully inheriting Oppo familiar features such as driving mode, gesture control, alternate navigation keys, ...
In terms of performance, the Reno2 F has the same Helio P70 chip as the F11 Pro but gets 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal memory. The chip is already one year old, and MediaTek not long ago launched the Helio G90 and G90T duo with many performance improvements. Even though the Helio P70 is enough to meet the daily needs of users. But this is a product in the high-end segment, if Oppo equipped with a newer and more powerful chip, Reno2 F will become much more attractive.
Reno2 F played well Dead Trigger 2 at 60fps on the highest graphics setting. Meanwhile, PUBG Mobile is locked at 30fps, but in return, the game runs smoothly and there is less frame drop. With familiar games at the highest graphics settings, Reno2 F plays smoothly for most of the measurement time. In complicated fire scenes or scenes with too many details, we saw a slight drop in the fps but it is not really significant.
Reno2 F has a thick body but is optimized so that the rear camera cluster does not protrude too much. That is why its battery only has a capacity of 4,000 mAh, which is the standard for today's smartphones. However, the Helio P70 chip still gives a very good battery life, enough to use from 1.5 to 2 days depending on how much you use it.
Besides the long battery life, another plus point in the battery aspect of Reno2 F is VOOC 3.0 fast charging technology with a charging capacity of 20W. Oppo announced that the Reno2 F can be fully charged in less than 80 minutes, but it took a little longer when we tested it. Specifically, the device needed 1 hour 36 minutes to fully charge from 5%, but that's still is an impressive number.
According to the current trend, the main camera cluster of Reno2 F has up to 4 cameras, including Sony's main 48MP sensor IMX586 sensor with an f / 1.7 aperture; 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera with an f / 2.2 aperture; 2MP depth-of-field camera with an f / 2.4 aperture and 2MP black and white camera (B / W) with an f / 2.4 aperture. Meanwhile, the Reno2 F's selfie camera has a resolution of 16MP, f / 2.0 aperture, but due to its pop-up design, it does not have a front camera flash like Reno2 but only simulates by increasing the screen brightness.
In favorable lighting conditions, the main camera of Reno2 F gives very good image quality. The photo has a high level of detail, a wide dynamic range, and a high level of detail. While the colors are a bit more vibrant than they actually are, it makes the photo more vivid, more vibrant.
The main camera of Reno2 F tends to boost the image significantly in low-light environments like the original Reno, which makes the image have more noise and low detail. The device has a Night Mode that significantly improves this situation, in exchange for longer shuttering time. It might take up to 5 seconds to shoot and is not suitable for capturing scenes with many moving subjects.
Reno2 F is capable of hybrid zoom up to 5x, but in most cases, we do not need that much zoom. When zooming, the color quality and detail of the image is significantly reduced.