OPPO Reno8 T Review | Geek Lifestyle

With the Reno8 Pro 5G bookending the previous year, they’ve regrouped, and unleashed their first salvo with the OPPO Reno8 T, a midrange beast that comes with all of the brand’s quality features–plus a few neat surprises.

With a nice callback to its chic, classy aesthetic, the Reno8 T comes packed with premium features that aim to satisfy a wide range of enthusiasts. Regardless of your lifestyle, this well-dressed piece of mobile tech has something up your alley.

Geek-sthetic

Sporting the sweet “Sunset Orange” colorway, our model feels like absolute cash out of the box. With a matte, fiberglass-leather finish, its more reminiscent of fashionable luxury bags and wallets more than anything. Sleek and shiny is good, but ruggedly stylish plays a nice, different tune.

After admiring the nice stitching and shiny, gold-plated sides, you’ll come across its main shooters. The 100MP portrait camera, 40x microlens, and 2MP depth camera adorn the top left corner, very neatly arranged parallel each other. More on those little beasts later.

The 6.4” AMOLED display offers quite the colorful window The vibrant screen, thin bezels, and punch-hole front camera lens guarantee an unobstructed viewing experience–something we all desire nowadays.

It’s also worth noting that on the top lens, you get the Personalized Orbit Light Effect, which is essentially a breathing light that syncs with notifications, game launches, and other functions. Just a bit more customizability to literally suit your mood.

Binge-Watching Factor

Going back to that 6.4″ AMOLED display, it not only produces quite the color accurate images, but it also ensures a smooth experience while watching to your heart’s content. This is coupled with the fact that it’s powered with a beefy 90hz refresh rate, making sure there won’t be any hiccups in your K-pop videos–unless, of course, you’re the one hiccupping because of TWICE.

Of course, it’s not enough that the colors pop, we need the beat to drop. Thankfully, the Reno8 T comes with dual-firing speakers on the top and bottom that provide crisp audio, even if you crank it up to 200% with Ultra Volume Mode on. Don’t like speakers? No problem. While a select few snobs would call the 3.5mm audio jack an “archaic concept”, we’re glad that OPPO made sure we can still stick our cans into our mobile phones.

Gaming Prowess

The Helio G99, Octa-core Processor and 8GB of RAM (with another dynamic 8GB) fire up your gaming sessions and make this phone quite the capable contender among its midrange contemporaries. That being said, curb your expectations when it comes to more graphically intense and demanding games like our old friend, Genshin Impact.

Yes, you can install and play the game, but in terms of graphic settings, you might need to tone things down just a smidge. Running it on medium settings with motion blur turned off already overclocks your system. This is by no means reason for alarm, but it could drain your battery quicker. That being said, after an hour of gaming, the phone warms up–but doesn’t become a pressure cooker as one would fear. You’ll experience the aberrant frame drop whenever you get mobbed by enemies, but the game stays playable and enjoyable.

Goddess of Victory: NIKKE is another story. While the loading screens are something all phones with 8GB of RAM and below must relent to, everything else is silky smooth. On high settings with framerate uncapped, I still manage to go through each skirmish without any problems.

Geek Photoshoot Capabilities

We’ve come to the bread and butter of the OPPO Reno8 T. The 100MP Portrait Camera shoots crystal clear images, and works surprisingly well in lower lighting. However, to make use of its 100MP potential, you’d have to click on the “hi-res” function, which is easily found in the settings.

That being said, its 25MP default setting is nothing to scoff at. You’ll still get quality photos with the advantage of using the camera’s other settings, which wouldn’t be available on hi-res/HDR. The AI Portrait Resolution makes the colors stand out even more, so whether you’re using firing the shooter on all cylinders or not, your photo quality won’t suffer.

Moving on to the 40x Microlens which performs like a handy, surface-level microscope. It was quite the surprising feature, given the results. This feature is definitely something to look out for, especially for content creators and reviewers who deal with projects on a miniscule scale.

The 2MP Depth Camera works really well up close, especially if you’re looking to take portraits of people. That being said, it struggles just a bit once you get a bit of distance between you and the subject, and the subject is more than just the face and torso. Still, it gives that nice bokeh effect if you crank up the aperture.

In terms of selfies, you’re all set. Whether it’s the 16MP front camera out of the box or with the bokeh effect, you’ll be getting decent selfies, regardless of the lighting. I do feel that I might look just a bit pale in the photos, but then again, it’s been a while since I’ve seen my face. This could be worked on in future patches, so I wouldn’t sweat too much about it.

Lastly, you’re getting up to 1080p/30 FPS video on both shooters, which may seem a bit underwhelming on paper, but you’re still getting decent video clips nonetheless, given the lenses you’re working with. The dual video function is also a nicely added feature that makes use of the phone’s juiced up cameras.

Everyday Reliability

Now, if you so choose the OPPO Reno 8T as your daily driver, and aren’t considering all the bells and whistles, then you need not look further. Everyday tasks will be but a breeze with its powerful processor, coupled with the overall 16GB of RAM (expanded), and 256GB of internal storage which can be further expanded to 1 TB. This, I’d argue, is overkill when it comes to power and storage capabilities, but then again, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Now, with great power comes a great, beefy battery. One thing that midrange phones are known for is having a powerful battery. It’s something they can flex against their more ostentatious flagship siblings. The Reno8 T carries a 5000 mAh battery that charges from zero to 100% in about an hour and a half, courtesy of its 33W SUPERVOOC charging brick.

Based on my personal experience, I was able to get at least two days of battery without any optimization on the OPPO Reno8 T, and with a few hours of gaming per day. I also decided to leave it alone for the most part, with minimal browsing and battery saving on. I had to charge it after the fifth day while still at 57% because, well, I had to finish the review.

Oh, and on another note, for those who…like to share certain information, the screencap function has this nice pixelation effect. How you’ll use this feature is totally up to you. I’m just here to show you that it’s readily available.

Final Geek Lifestyle Verdict

The OPPO Reno8 T is a pretty good midrange phone for its PHP 18,999 price tag as tt has a lot of potential to be a go-to for up-and-coming content creators. The cameras and overall power efficiency ensure that you’ll be making good use of the phone’s features with very little downtime.

While gaming might not be the phone’s x-factor, the consumption of media through its 6.4″ AMOLED screen is something worthy of gawking at.

Its classy aesthetics and quirky features, coupled with premium-grade functions and content creation capabilities make this phone a considerable choice for those in the market for something brand new, or anyone looking to make that hop and skip from the budget range.