Sunday, November 22, 2020

OPPO Reno4 Z 5G Review

The number of 5G-enabled smartphones in the Philippines is steadily growing, and the OPPO Reno4 Z is one of the new ones to enter the country. It packs a MediaTek Dimensity 800 chipset, 48MP quad-camera, and a 120Hz refresh rate. For under PHP 21K, is it worth buying? Find out in this review.

Design and Construction

Starting at the back, the OPPO Reno4 Z 5G has a glossy panel in Ink Black, which we have on hand, and Dew White colors. It looks premium but loves to attract fingerprints and smudges. The good thing, though, is that OPPO included a free jelly case in the package.

From here, you can also see the protruding camera module and the OPPO branding on the lower right.

On the front, you can find its hole-punch for the dual-selfie camera and the earpiece at the center top.

On the right side sits the flat power button that doubles as a fingerprint scanner.

On the left, we have the tactile and clicky volume rocker and a dual SIM card tray. Sorry, but there’s no support for microSD cards.

Up top is a secondary microphone, while at the bottom are the loudspeaker, primary microphone, USB Type-C port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Even with its polycarbonate build, the OPPO Reno4 Z 5G still looks more premium and solid. The lightweight, solid build, slim profile, and curved frame make it comfortable to grip, even for people with small hands.

Display and Multimedia

The OPPO Reno4 Z 5G has a 6.57-inch LTPS LCD with a 2400 x 1080 resolution, which equates to a pixel density of 401ppi. For protection, it has Gorilla Glass 3+ with a pre-installed screen protector.

It has slim bezels and an LCD panel that can produce decent viewing angles, accurate colors, and the screen still looks great, and you get slim bezels for a decent viewing angle. If you want, you can also adjust the color temperature in Settings. Its brightness level is decent as well and still legible under direct sunlight. The Reno4 Z 5G stands out in this category thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate, which produces smooth animations and transitions.

Audio-wise, this device has a single loudspeaker at the bottom. Quality is decent, like with most mid-range smartphones. Mids and highs are clear, but the lows are weak. We also don’t recommend turning up the volume to its maximum, as the output sound distorted. We still recommend using a TWS or a wired headphone for a better audio experience.

Cameras

The OPPO Reno4 Z 5G has a total of six cameras. That’s a quad-camera setup at the back consisting of a 48MP main camera, an 8MP ultra-wide, 2MP monochrome, and a 2MP macro. Its dual hole-punch shooters at the front consist of a 16MP main and a 2MP depth sensor.

The rear cameras perform pretty well in various conditions, whether outdoors or indoors. The colors are accurate and the details are well-preserved. Portrait shots, on the other hand, can produce decent subject-background separation but the subject tends to be grainy in some conditions.

For low-light shots, details are muddy and peppered with noise, even with Night Mode turned on.

Selfies, as expected of OPPO smartphones, are great, with sharp details and accurate colors. Even with AI Beauty activated, the skin still looks natural when it’s at the recommended setting.

As for videos, you can shoot up to 4K resolution at 30fps. Quality is good with accurate colors and sharp details. There’s video stabilization as well, so you can expect smooth videos when panning.

OS, UI, and Apps

The OPPO Reno4 Z 5G runs on Android 10 out of the box with OPPO’s Color OS 7.1 skin on top. Like with most Android UIs, you can personalize your icons, app animation speed, and on-screen buttons for navigation.

OPPO’s ColorOS comes with many of its own stock apps, including Soloop, ORoaming, OPPO Relax, and many more. It also has third-party pre-installed apps like Lazada, Facebook, and Agoda. The good thing is that you can opt to uninstall it if you think you won’t be using it.

Performance and Benchmarks

The OPPO Reno4 Z 5G is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 800 processor, Mali-G57 MC4 GPU, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. Out of the 128GB of storage, we get a usable 112GB out of the box.

We tried playing graphics-heavy games such as Call of Duty and Asphalt 9, and we only encountered very few hiccups when using the highest settings. The phone also warms up, but nothing out of normal. When it comes to day-to-day tasks like browsing the web and navigating around social media, it is smooth throughout.

For biometrics, you can use Face Unlock or the side-mounted fingerprint scanner. Both options are fast and responsive.

For benchmarks, check out the scores below:

• AnTuTu – 303,108
• Geekbench – 517 (Single-core), 2,156 (Multi-core), 2,067 (OpenCL)
• 3D Mark – 3,273 (SSE – OpenGL ES 3.1) 3,155 (SSE – Vulkan)
• PC Mark – 8,010 (Work 2.0)
• AndroBench – 952.93 MB/s (Sequential Read), 201.64 MB/s (Sequential Write)

Connectivity and Battery Life

The OPPO Reno4 Z comes with the usual connectivity features such as NFC, WiFi 802.11, Bluetooth 5.1, USB Type-C, and a 3.5mm jack. As the name suggests, it also supports 5G and the current 4G LTE networks.

When it comes to battery, the device gets a 4,000mAh capacity. We ran it through the PC Mark’s battery test, and we got a total of 11 hours and 19 minutes. Meanwhile, in our standard video loop test, which involves playing a 1080p video in Airplane mode at 50% brightness and 50% volume with headphones plugged-in, and we got 13 hours and 8 minutes of playback. The Reno4 Z 5G can definitely last a whole day of heavy use. For charging, it supports OPPO’s 18W VOOC fast charging and takes more than an hour to charge using the 18W VOOC charger included in the package.

Conclusion

The OPPO Reno4 Z 5G has a price tag of PHP 20,990, and it is exclusively available on Globe and Smart postpaid plans only. For that, you’re getting a screen with a high refresh rate, solid cameras, and long battery life. It can also be considered as one of the more affordable options for those looking for a 5G-enabled smartphone but don’t want to spend much on more expensive flagships.

OPPO Reno4 Z 5G specs:
6.57-inch LCD (2400 x 1080) display, 120Hz refresh rate, 120Hz touch sampling rate, 401ppi
Corning Gorilla Glass 3+
MediaTek Dimensity 800 octa-core CPU
Mali-G57 MC4 GPU
8GB LPDDR4x RAM
128GB UFS 2.1 storage
Quad rear cameras:
• 48MP (main)
• 8MP (ultra-wide)
• 2MP (monochrome)
• 2MP (macro)
4K video recording at 30 FPS
Dual front cameras:
• 16MP (main)
• 2MP (depth)
Dual Nano-SIM
5G (dual mode), 4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth 5.1
USB Type-C
NFC
A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, Beidou, QZSS
Fingerprint sensor (side-mounted)
Face unlock
ColorOS 7.1 (Android 10)
3.5mm headphone jack
Dirac 2.0
Hi-Res Audio certified
4,000mAh with 18W fast charging
163.8 x 75.5 x 8.1mm
184g
Ink Black, Dew White