After the release of the Oppo A9 2020 in Nigeria came the Oppo Reno 2 Series which are the Oppo Reno 2 and Reno 2F. The Oppo Reno 2F prides itself with an excellent camera, eye-catching design and an AMOLED notch-less display.
For the purpose of this review, we shall be talking about the Reno 2F. The Oppo Reno 2F is the affordable version of the Reno 2 and you can tell how similar both devices are
The device is available in two color options-Lake Green and Sky White. The review unit given to us is the Lake Green variant which sort of reflects colour depending on how light hits it.
In this article, we will be unboxing and reviewing the Oppo Reno 2F
OPPO Reno 2F Key specs
- 6.5-inch Full HD+ (2340 x 1080) AMOLED on-cell display, 394ppi
Corning Gorilla Glass 5 (front and back) - Dimension: 161.8 x 75.8 x 8.7 mm
- Weight: 195g
- OS: Android 9 pie with ColorOS 6.1 on top
- Octa-core MediaTek Helio P70 with Mali-G72 MP3 GPU
- 8GB RAM and 128GB ROM extended via microSD up to 256GB
- Rear camera: Quad-Camera consisting of 48MP F1.79 (main) + 8MP F2.2 (ultrawide) + 2MP F2.4 (mono) + 2MP F2.4 (bokeh) Ultra Night Mode 2.0
- Front camera: 16MP F2.0 pop-up front camera
- Dual-SIM (nano) with 4G LTE, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, A-GPS, BDS, GLONASS, 3.5mm audio port, USB-C
- Security: Fingerprint scanner (in-display) and Face Unlock
- Battery capacity: 4,000mAh battery w/ VOOC Flash Charge 3.0
OPPO Reno 2F Unboxing
The device comes wrapped in a rather elongated silver box with the inscription of the brand name on both sides. Unwrapping the box, you are greeted with a smaller pack that houses the screen protector, user manual, a transparent back cover and a pin ejector.
The Oppo Reno 2F is well packed inside the next compartment, we couldn’t wait to bring out the phone out of anticipation. Wrapped around the phone is a black moisture-resistant nylon and on top of it are some of the key specs of the phone.
Underneath the box are the VOOC 3.0 charger, a USB Type-C cable, a premium looking earphone stylishly packed inside a box, a transparent back cover and a pin ejector
Design
When it comes to design, Oppo is one of the most innovative and creative brands out there and the Reno 2F is a testament to this. The Oppo Reno 2 is quite a looker with ridge pattern at the back. The device feels solidly built and the back is protected by Gorilla Glass 5 making it more resistant to accidental scratches.
However, it accepts fingerprint smudges and Oppo did a good job by providing a transparent case with the phone. With this, you will be able to protect the phone from stains without covering its beauty.
From the back, one can easily notice that a lot of attention to details is paid to how the Reno 2F’s cameras are stacked vertically on the rear. The ceramic O-Dot is also present, but instead of sitting below the cameras, it’s now located above them.
At the top of the phone is the 16MP rising front camera. Oppo is one of the first brands to implement a pop-up camera and they have managed to perfect this technology.
At the sides, you have the volume button at the left, the power button and the SIM slot at the right. The phone supports two SIM cards and a memory card.
At the bottom bezel, you have the 3.5mm audio port, a microphone, USB 2.0 type-C port followed by a single bottom-firing speaker.
Display
It is not an exaggeration that the Reno 2F is an attention grabbling smartphone. moving upfront, the Reno 2F comes with a notch-less AMOLED display with little chin at the bottom.
It is a 6.5-inch panel with the trendier 20:9 aspect ratio. It outputs a native resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels, which translates to sharp 401ppi.
If you like watching and playing games, you will love the immersive experience the device offers as there’s no notch to obstruct the full view. Also, using the smartphone under direct sunlight is quite satisfactory
When it comes to the display, we have no complaints here as the Oppo Reno 2F offers good colour reproduction and of particular interest is the brightness which can go as high as 600nits.
The software has two colour modes –the gentle and vivid. We prefer the gentle mode as it is a bit more colour accurate but if you like a more vivid and saturated colour, you can go for the Vivid mode.
The front is also protected with corny Gorilla Glass as well which should offer some sort of protection against accidental falls.
For security and unlocking of the phone, you have the optical under-display fingerprint reader which we found to be quick and responsive.
Sound Quality
In terms of audio quality, the device has a single firing speaker and it does produce pretty crisp and remains distortion-free output even while blasting at high volume. The shipped in pairs of earphone also sound pretty good aided by the Dolby Atmos sound enhancer.
Software
The device boots Android 9 pie out of the box layered with ColorOS 6.1 as its operating system. The colorOS 6.1 has its apps arranged in the standard mode and you can switch to a drawer mode if you so wish.
There is a Smart Sidebar feature that lets you quickly access some key smart feature on the phone. Also, you have the options to use both fingerprint and face recognition for screen unlock, and both are quite fast and reliable.
The notification panel can be accessed by swiping down from the middle of the screen which provides basic access to key features such as Oppo share, Night shield, flashlight etc.
There is a Phone Manager which is similar to what you see on TECNO, Huawei and Xiaomi devices. It handles memory cleaner functions, app permissions and encryption, and virus scanning. Also, Game Space is available and this helps to block some notifications while playing games if you don’t want to be interrupted.
Performance
When it comes to hardware and performance, the Reno 2F is not a slot. It is powered by a MediaTek Helio P70 chipset which is an octa-core processor manufactured on the 12nm FinFET process. It is the same processor found on the last Oppo F11 Pro we reviewed a few months ago.
It is equipped with 4x big ARM Cortex-A73 cores and 4x small and power-efficient ARM Cortex-A53 cores in two clusters (big little). For graphics, it has Mali-G72 GPU on to make using the Reno 2F such as joy, there is 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage but you can expand it to 256GB via the microSD card slot.
During our test playing games such as PUBG and PES 2020, we didn’t any lag, except few frame drops with PUBG. The device was able to handle all other basic tasks we threw at it such as taking photos, browsing social media, navigation, messaging,
We ran a few benchmark tools on the device, below are the results:
- AnTuTu: 152,139
- Geekbench: 293 (Single-Core), 1,442 (Multi-Core), 5,772 (RenderScript)
- 3D Mark SSE: 1,273 (OpenGL ES 3.1), 1,255 (Vulkan)
Cameras
On the camera side of things, the Reno 2F is blessed with not 2, not 3 but four rear camera setup consisting of a 48MP primary, 8MP ultrawide, 2MP monochrome, and 2MP depth lenses.
Like I said earlier there is pop-up 16MP shooter. It is a standard pop-up camera, surprisingly it produces satisfactory results outdoors and indoors. When rising up, the camera lights up and you have the option to change the light effects into several colors of your taste.
The camera app is simple to use and it comes with some features as AI that helps to recognize an object or scene when taking pictures, HDR, Wide-angle, SLO-MO, Night mode, Expert mode etc.
videos, the Reno 2F can shoot up to 1080p at 30fps. Quality isn’t the best, but stabilization is indeed present. Check out our sample below:
We took the device out on a sunny day, below are pictures from both the rear and front cameras.
5X zoom
Connectivity and Battery Life
The device comes with all the standard connectivity options such as 4G LTE, Dual Wi-Fi bands, FM radio, Dual Nano Sims support, Micro Scard support, 3.5mm audio jack, Bluetooth 4.2, A-GPS with GLONASS, GALILEO, and BDS support.
The device works on all the major 4G bands in Nigeria and using it poses no issues at all.
For battery life, the device has a 4,000mAh battery with 20W VOOC 3.0 Flash Charging support. This can fill up the battery from 0-percent to 100-percent in about 1hr 20mins.
The battery lasted about 7 hours on constant use with up to 18 hours of video playback which is not bad at all.
Conclusion
After testing the device for about two weeks, there is plenty to like with just a few dislikes. The Oppo Reno 2F’s eye-catching design is an instant attention grabber. The notch-less display, good sound output, overall excellent photo quality and pretty good battery life are some of its highpoints.
However, there are no perfect devices, the Reno 2F’s video recording could be better. It is not that is that bad, especially considering its price of N129,000, the Reno 2F is a worthy contender if not the best you can get at this price segment.
Pros
- Excellent build quality and high-quality materials.
- Above average local and network connectivity and features.
- Pretty good AMOLED screen, large and notch-free, with a fast under-display fingerprint reader.
- Great battery life, 20W VOOC fast charging.
- Overall excellent photo and video quality. Very versatile camera setup.
Cons
- No water or dust resistance.
- Not so good Video recording
