Nothing Phone 2 Review: Something special

The Nothing Phone (2) is truly something special. It has taken a phone that was essentially all-looks-no-substance and turned it into a well-rounded device with looks and utility to match. Not just that, Nothing OS 2.0 is possibly one of my absolute favourite mobile phone operating systems – it looks distinguished, classy, and clean while being fluid all the way through. The performance has improved vastly and battery life is superb as well. Now, for the price tag of ₹44,999 going all the way up to ₹54,999, the phone may seem overpriced to some. The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is present on much cheaper phones such as the iQOO Neo 7 Pro and the camera stack is nothing to write home about. 

Nothing. It’s too early to award this brand “legendary” status – which the likes of Apple, Samsung, and Google have gotten over the years – but it definitely looks like it's on the way. The genius of Carl Pei’s marketing combined with the idiosyncratic design characteristics of Nothing products lead to these gadgets being some of the most hyped to ever exist. And “nothing” (heh) changed with the new Nothing Phone (2). Whether it is appreciation for the newer features of the Phone (2) or disapproval due to the similar design cues, the Nothing Phone (2) is making headlines. The similarity in the design compared to the Nothing Phone (1) (review) may disappoint some, but one cannot deny the Phone (2) has improved specs almost all the way across the board. However, this comes at quite a steep price hike. So, is the Nothing Phone (2) worth it or is it “nothing” special? The headline may have given the plot away, but let’s delve deeper.

Nothing Phone (2) Review: Build and Design

The Nothing Phone (2) could easily be confused for the Phone (1) at first glance. The Nothing Phone (2) is available in two colours – White and Dark Grey. I got the latter for review and this is just slightly darker in colour when compared to the black-coloured Phone (1). Something I’d like to point out is that the Phone (2)’s retail box uses no plastic at all, which is commendable. However, to be opened, the box needs to be torn, which is a bit jarring for me, since I usually preserve my smartphone boxes.

The Phone (2) has a thin aluminium frame with transparent glass on the back. It is 8.6 mm thick and weighs 201.2 g – not too bad. The biggest change in design when compared to the Phone (1) is the curved rear glass. It is protected by Gorilla Glass (but Nothing hasn’t disclosed the version). I’m glad Nothing went for the curved glass approach over the complete flat look, since it is not only nicer to look at, but also more comfortable to hold.

Behind the transparent rear panel, you can see the entire Glyph system with the same design as before, but now, broken up into smaller segments. The components inside are neat and look lovely, you will see a few exposed Torx screws and a bunch of panels hiding the innards. No inconsistent glue work and no unsightly wires – just pure art. In my opinion, at least. 

The Nothing Phone (2) stands out in a sea of similar-looking smartphones. And while it has garnered some criticism for playing it too safe with the design (owing to how similar it looks compared to the Phone (1)), it is intentional. Nothing wants to establish this look in users’ minds to ensure that when anyone sees a Phone (1) or (2), there’s no mistaking that it comes from the house of Nothing. 

There’s personality, for sure. Whether you call the glyphs a gimmick or not, it is eye-catching, no doubt. It has that industrial flair that I’m a big fan of. And the rest of the build, including the gentle curve of the rear glass panel, the brushed aluminium frame, and the lovely symmetrical bezels, all look top-notch and premium. The Phone (2), however, is only IP54 rated which is slightly disappointing since it still can’t survive a submersion. 

Nothing Phone (2) Review: Display

Tucked in between those gorgeous symmetrical bezels is a 6.7-inch LTPO OLED FHD+ display with a peak brightness of 1,000 nits. It can reach up to 1,600 nits in HDR video playback. It supports 10-bit colour and HDR10+ as well. The screen is, once again, protected by an unknown version of Gorilla Glass. The LTPO display, in theory, can vary the refresh rate all the way from 1 Hz up to 120 Hz to conserve battery life, however, I have never seen it drop below 10 Hz in about 5 days’ worth of usage. 

What’s even more appalling is that the display bumps up the refresh rate to 120 Hz on the Always-On Display, which is just ridiculous. I used Android’s native refresh rate indicator to check this. I even tried leaving it on for several minutes to see if it lowers the refresh rate after a while, but it just doesn’t. Bewildering and obviously, bad for your battery life, which is why I turned it off permanently. I hope Nothing can fix this issue with a software update in the future.

The display houses a small centred cutout for the selfie camera and there’s also the earpiece grille above the screen that doubles as the second speaker. There’s an optical fingerprint sensor beneath the screen and it was decently fast during my testing period. 

The display is quite bright for the price. I recorded 988 nits of peak brightness on Auto Brightness mode and 506 nits when I cranked up the brightness to max manually. Screen legibility is excellent in sunlight and the viewing angles are impressive too. The display supports DCI-P3 and sRGB colour spaces and it looks very vibrant when watching HDR content on YouTube. Netflix did not detect it as HDR-capable, sadly. All-in-all, a vivid and bright display but the adaptive refresh rate issue is slightly concerning.

Nothing Phone (2) Review: Glyph Interface

Possibly the biggest driver for sales of the Nothing Phone (2), the glyph interface is now far more beefed up than the original version on the Phone (1). Firstly, the number of LEDs have gone up and the new Glyph Interface now comes with 33 addressable LED zones compared to 12 on the Phone (1). There’s also an Auto-Brightness feature for the LED lights now, which was much needed on the Phone (1) and I’m glad Nothing has brought it to this next iteration.

Now, in our review of the Phone (1), the reviewer said, “The Glyph interface is pretty bare bones and doesn’t have much room for customization yet but I’m very interested in seeing how Nothing develops it further, maybe even opening it up for third-party developers.”

Thankfully, that’s exactly what’s happened with the Phone (2). There’s more customisation than ever before with new features and third-party app integrations that make it more of a utility than a gimmick. There’s also lots of fun to be had with some of the new features. 

Let’s address all the functions. There’s 10 new ringtones and notification sounds, but if that doesn’t satisfy you, Nothing has added a Glyph composer this time around. You can create a fully custom ringtone in this app by tapping different pads that trigger different LED zones and sounds. Once you’re happy with the rhythm, you can simply record the sequence and use this Glyph tone composed by you for any of your contacts! We played with this for hours, composing our own masterpieces, trying to one up each other at the Digit test centre!

Nothing has also added Essential Glyph Notifications. So, if you want to avoid distractions but still be notified by what’s really important to you, you can select particular apps or contacts that will be able to get through to you when others won’t disturb you. So, if your phone is on silent, everything else will not light up the LED lights on the back, but messages/notifications from your selected apps and contacts will light up one of the LED areas persistently, so you don’t miss the updates deemed most important by you. There’s also a Flip to Glyph feature that auto-silences the phone in an instant when you place it screen down.

The glyphs also indicate your volume levels, charging levels, and timer progress. Of course, you can use them as a portable ring light through your camera app as well. What’s most exciting is the third-party app integrations we’ve got this time around. For now, two apps have been added – Uber and Zomato. An LED segment acts as a progress bar for your Uber and food deliveries, so you can see exactly how far your ride or your food is from you. All without turning on the display.

With the Phone (1), the glyphs were very superficial – only existing for the wow factor, without real utility. The Phone (2) has flipped the narrative. The glyphs have a purpose – and that is to disconnect and disengage from the constant act of checking your phone. It is attempting to provide a way to be more present in the moment while still keeping tabs on important information that we’ve come to expect our phones to provide us. Yes, I love the improvements to the Glyph Interface. But is it complete? No, not even close. There could be a LOT more functionality added, but it feels like Nothing has taken several steps in the right direction with the Nothing Phone (2).

Nothing Phone (2) Review: Performance

The Phone (2) has seen a considerable price bump, but not without some serious hardware upgrades. One of these upgrades is the processor. The Phone (2) is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, an undeniable improvement over its predecessor’s mid-range Snapdragon 778G+ SoC. You get up to 12 GB LPDDR5X RAM and up to 512 GB UFS 3.1 storage. This ensures that the performance is more akin to flagships. That’s corroborated by most of the synthetic benchmarks I ran. 

In AnTuTu, the phone scored more than 1.2 million, easily beating out phones such as the Google Pixel 7a and OPPO Reno 10 Pro+. In fact, its score is very close to the flagship Galaxy S23 Ultra (review) as well! In GeekBench, the phone flew past the scores of the Pixel 7a (review) and OPPO Reno10 Pro+ (review) once again, but the iQOO Neo 7 Pro (review) – which is much cheaper – managed to squeak out slightly better scores in some CPU tests. Not in PCMark Work though, where the Nothing Phone (2) beat out all three phones. 

In GPU benchmarks, the phone scored 2,800 points in 3D Mark Wild Life Extreme, which is excellent. However, it couldn’t squeeze out great scores in GFXBench – particularly Manhattan 3.1 – where it lagged behind the competition. Nevertheless, real world gaming is smooth and lag-free on Very High graphics settings. The phone doesn’t support High Frame Rate gaming though (at launch), it is capped to 60 fps. We also ran the CPU Throttling Test and the phone throttled to 69 per cent of its peak performance in 15 minutes, which is common for phones with cooling systems. The phone got slightly warm when I ran this test, but it never got uncomfortably hot. So, the thermals and cooling is pretty impressive on this phone.

In real life usage, there are barely any hitches. In fact, there were no instances of bugs or app shutdowns like we experienced on the Phone (1) during launch. It was smooth sailing all the way. Additionally, the clean Nothing OS 2.0 is incredibly smooth and fluid. It is a slightly modified version of stock Android 13 and it looks and feels incredible. Nothing has also promised 3 years of OS updates and 4 years of security updates, which is not the best (that honour is reserved for Samsung) but good enough.

Nothing OS 2.0 allows for tons of customisation in terms of custom widgets, monochrome icons, Quick Settings widgets, and lock screen widgets. The UI also has large folders and larger single app icons. You can simply enlarge an app if you use it very often for easy access. Users can also choose between Nothing’s Monochrome UI or Original Google-like UI (with colourful icons). The Monochrome UI looks fantastic and Nothing has even introduced an app that will force all icons to adopt the monochrome look, which makes the phone look incredibly clean and tastefully-designed.

There’s no bloatware – only the mandatory Google apps, and some custom apps such as the Camera, Composer, Weather, Nothing X (for earphones) and Voice Recorder apps. I would also like to appreciate the haptics on the Nothing Phone (2). Possibly one of the best I’ve experienced. The feedback is pleasant and accurate to the point you’ve touched the screen. Fantastic stuff.

Nothing Phone (2) Review: Camera

Despite sporting improved cameras, this is one of the weakest links of the Nothing Phone (2). The phone sports a 50 MP Sony IMX890 primary camera (with OIS and EIS) and a 50 MP Samsung JN1 ultrawide camera on the back. The ultrawide camera also doubles as a macro shooter. The selfie camera is a 32 MP Sony IMX615 lens. 

Now, I said this was the weakest link of the Nothing Phone (2) and that’s evident after you spend time with the Phone (2)’s camera after playing around with flagship offerings. Sure, the phone can take some amazing shots in daylight with plenty of detail, low noise, and good levels of sharpness. However, I always found the dynamic range to be slightly lacking, even in good lighting. I found that the details in shadows can get crushed quite often. Also, the colours are a touch too saturated and skin tones aren’t accurate to real life as well. Here are some camera samples, do note that they are compressed for the web:

There’s a 2x Super High Res zoom feature as well that takes some good shots with nice detail and sharpness. There’s a bit of oversharpening in some areas here though. Portrait shots from the main lens are mediocre. The edge detection isn’t the best and the skin tones aren’t accurate – at least for Indians. The bokeh looks pleasant though. 

The ultrawide photos look good. Noise is low and colours match the primary camera. However, once again, the dynamic range is lacking. This camera supports autofocus which allows you to take some nice macro shots. The pictures have good detail and sharpness. Colours also look lovely. The 32 MP selfie camera’s results are decent with low noise and good contrast. The colours are decent and the dynamic range is quite good. 

Moving on to low light, this mode triggers automatically and there’s no way to control it manually. A missed opportunity, in my opinion, since some photos end up looking dark even with Night Mode active. The photos are good enough in most cases, but we noticed some results looking quite soft and noisy. Definite room for improvement here.

As for videos, the phone captures up to 4K at 60 fps while the selfie camera is capped at 1080p at 30 fps. 4K videos look decent – there’s good contrast and dynamic range but colours could be better. The detail is also lacking. Footage also suffers from some unnatural shake motions when Action Mode is active.

Nothing Phone (2) Review: Battery Life

The Nothing Phone (2) comes with an upgraded battery over the Phone (1) with higher capacity – 4,700 mAh vs 4,500 mAh. The chipset is also known to be extremely efficient and with AOD turned off, the Phone (2) delivered spectacular battery life results. In our 4K video loop test, the phone lasted a whopping 18 hours and 2 minutes, which is one of the best results at this price. The phone used up 4 per cent battery when playing Call of Duty: Mobile for 15 minutes and 7 per cent battery when running GPS for an hour.

The Phone (2) also supports 45 W wired fast charging which powers the phone from zero to hundred in 57 minutes, according to our tests. Not the fastest, but a decent enough result. There’s also support for 15 W wireless charging and 5 W reverse wireless charging (which is great for charging TWS earphones with Qi charging support).

Nothing Phone (2) Review: Verdict

The Nothing Phone (2) is truly something special. It has taken a phone that was essentially all-looks-no-substance and turned it into a well-rounded device with looks and utility to match. Not just that, Nothing OS 2.0 is possibly one of my absolute favourite mobile phone operating systems – it looks distinguished, classy, and clean while being fluid all the way through. The performance has improved vastly and battery life is superb as well. Now, for the price tag of ₹44,999 going all the way up to ₹54,999, the phone may seem overpriced to some. The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is present on much cheaper phones such as the iQOO Neo 7 Pro and the camera stack is nothing to write home about. 

However, Nothing has charged you a premium for the experience, which, in my opinion, it delivers in spades. The experience is fluid and refined with no bloatware, the once-gimmicky glyphs have some actual functionality now, and there are other niceties like the premium body and design. Of course, there are other options in the market – the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G for pure, unadulterated performance at a lower price and the OnePlus 11R (review) for its all-rounder abilities. You could also get the OPPO Reno 10 Pro+ at ₹54,999 for better camera performance. Nevertheless, we still maintain that the Nothing Phone (2) is a solid option – one that’s quirky, has instant recognisability, and an excellent software experience.

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iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G Review: Best price-to-performance ratio

After testing the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G for about two weeks and using the smartphone, I can confidently say that this is probably the best price-to-performance ratio you can get in the market right now. For a ₹ 34,999 price tag, this smartphone takes the fight to devices that are twice its price or even more! 

iQOO has launched yet another smartphone with an outstanding price-to-performance ratio. The iQOO Neo 7 Pro comes as a smartphone centered towards the mobile gamers out there. The smartphone promises a lot. For example, one of the best gaming experiences with the help of an independent gaming chip, a premium AMOLED display, and more. The iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G is the "Pro" variant of the iQOO Neo 7 that was launched earlier this year, which itself had a gaming DNA.

So how much of an upgrade does the iQOO Neo 7 Pro offer in terms of the premium we pay on the device? How much of a difference does this secret Independent Gaming Chip offer? And finally, is the smartphone worth the ₹34,999 starting price? Let’s find out!

DESIGN

Design wise, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro looks very similar to its younger sibling, the iQOO Neo 7. The smartphone has a similar shape with the flat screen and a curved back. We also get the same square-ish dual tone camera module and a similar edge-to-edge hole-punch display. However, there are more premium touches here and there. 

First and foremost, the vegan leather back panel, which we only get in the orange colour. While I’m not sure if I like the colour, the vegan leather back provides a very premium in-hand feel. The orange is a bit too bright for my liking, but the golden hints here and there go with the orange colour well. We get a golden frame, the iQOO logo is golden on the back panel, so the colour combination is nice, but we aren’t sure how many people will prefer this over more traditional colours.

The weight of the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G is also pretty good. The smartphone is lightweight at just 197 grams, which makes it easy to carry and hold on to, for longer gaming sessions. Overall, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro has a very familiar design, which is very similar to its younger sibling, the iQOO Neo 7. 

DISPLAY

Coming to display, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G uses a 6.78-inch AMOLED display with an FHD+ resolution. The display on this smartphone is pretty much the same as the one on the iQOO Neo 7, so the experience is also similar. The FHD+ resolution is pretty much standardised in this segment with most devices having similar resolution. Here, we get a 1080 x 2400p resolution, which makes for a 381ppi pixel density. The detail and sharpness is as good as any other smartphone in this range.

While in terms of details and sharpness this display fares well, it does feel slightly dull in terms of the vibrancy and brightness as compared to some of the competing devices. For example, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro’s display isn’t as bright as competing devices like the OnePlus Nord 3 5G, which showed a maximum brightness of 868 nits in our Lux Meter test. The iQOO Neo 7 Pro showed a maximum luminance of 707 nits, which is even below the slightly cheaper Poco F5.

However, luminance is not everything. In terms of colour accuracy, this display is right up there with the competition. The iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G showed very impressive colour accuracy in our testing. The smartphone showed a brilliant DeltaE of 1.5 in the colour checker analysis in sRGB colour profile, which is too good for a smartphone. DeltaE signifies the error in the colours on a display, which means the lower it is, the better. For perspective, a DeltaE of under 4 is considered good for smartphones.

Even in the grayscale test, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G showed impressive results in the sRGB profile. Here, the RGB balance is very good and even with an Average Gamma of 2.27 and an average DeltaE of 1.7.

In DCI-P3 tests also, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G performed well, but the results weren’t as great as the sRGB colour profile. In the colour checker analysis, the smartphone showed an average DeltaE of 3, which is again pretty good, but since lower is better, it doesn't seem as good as the 1.5 DeltaE in the sRGB colour profile. It is also important to note here that the DCI-P3 tests were ran in the “Bright” colour profile on the smartphone, so we are not sure if it was actually the P3 colour profile.

Overall, this is a brilliant display. Yes, the display doesn’t seem as bright and as vibrant when put next to smartphones like the OnePlus Nord 3 5G, the Oppo Reno 10 Pro, or even the Poco F5, but the colour accuracy is brilliant, the responsiveness with the 120Hz refresh rate is absolutely slick, and we get nice and sharp details on this AMOLED panel. Good stuff.

PERFORMANCE AND BATTERY

Coming to performance, this is where iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G feels the most at home. The smartphone comes with Qualcomm’s second-latest flagship chip, the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 paired with up to 12GB of RAM. Further, we also get an “Independent Gaming Chip,” which acts as a secondary chip that supports the SD 8+ Gen 1 to offer a more seamless and smooth gaming experience, without putting much stress on the main chip.

The Independent Gaming Chip (IGC), is basically a hardware solution for frame rate interpolation, where the smartphone forces extra frames in games to be able to offer the highest possible FPS for a longer period of time. While there is no way to test this IGC independently, the gaming experience on the smartphone felt super smooth. I played games like Call of Duty: Mobile and Battleground Mobile India on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro, and the experience was nothing less than absolutely slick.

During my gaming sessions, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G kept the frame rates constant and the gameplay was absolutely smooth even on the highest graphics and frame rate settings. It did heat up a bit during long gaming sessions, but never was it “too hot to handle.” One thing I’d like to mention again here is that the weight of the smartphone made the gaming experience more than comfortable and I was able to hold on to the smartphone for long hours without things getting uncomfortable. Coming to benchmarks, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G, as expected, left the competition in the dust with some of the highest numbers we have ever seen on any mid-range smartphone. The iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G easily sets a new performance benchmark in this segment, coming above some of the most powerful smartphones in this range. Devices like the OnePlus Nord 3 5G and Poco F5, which were some of the top performing devices in this range now don’t seem as astonishing after the iQOO Neo 7 Pro’s numbers.

On AnTuTu, the smartphone gave an impressive score of about 1.23 million, which is not only the highest in the mid-range segment, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G also beats some flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S23 series, the Vivo X90 Pro, and even the iQOO 11, which is iQOO’s flagship for this year itself. This just proves how good of a performer the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G is.

On Geekbench, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G scored 1723 points in the single-core test and 4430 points in the multi-core test, which is again one of the highest in its segment and even above a few flagships of this year. Impressive. On PCMark Work 3.0, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G’s performance wasn’t up to the mark. The smartphone scored 11485 points, which is very good, but not the highest we have seen in the mid-range.

In GPU-based benchmarks also, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G leaves the competition in the dust. In fact, the smartphone punches above its weight here as well, with a 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme score of 2661 points, and the highest GFX Bench scores in the tests we ran on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G.

So the performance of the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G is the best we have seen on a mid-range smartphone in a long time. It not only beats its competition by a margin, but takes the fight to the flagships of today with a solid performance across benchmarks and GPU tests. Brilliant stuff.

The battery on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro is also good. We get a 5,000mAh battery, which also seems optimised for gaming. For example, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G did not drain much battery while gaming or watching content, but the smartphone drained a significant amount while using GPS. In one hour of GPS navigation, the smartphone drained about 9 percent of the battery, but a 15-minute gaming session only drained 3 percent of the battery, which is very good for a smartphone.

The charging, however, makes up for any minor rough edges with the battery optimisation. The iQOO Neo 7 5G comes with 120W fast charging. I tested this from 0-100, and the smartphone only took 29 minutes to charge fully. Beautifully fast.

CAMERA

The camera on the iQOO Neo 7 5G is also decent. The smartphone comes with a triple rear camera setup, which has a primary 50-megapixel shooter, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle lens, and a 2-megapixel macro lens. The images from the primary shooter are very good. The smartphone clicks sharp and detailed images, just the colours are a bit washed out.

The portraits from the smartphone are also very good, just at times I found the edge detection to be a bit inaccurate, and here also the colours seem a bit washed out.

 

In low light shots also, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro performs well. Here also, the images remain sharp and detailed, and the colour retention is also okay, but not the best out there.

What I didn’t like about this camera is the ultra-wide shooter. The images in ultra-wide look slightly more soft as compared to the sharp images out of the primary shooter. The colours here are also a bit too saturated for my taste, which further makes it seem like the photos aren’t accurate.

VERDICT

So after testing the iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G for about two weeks and using the smartphone, I can confidently say that this is probably the best price-to-performance ratio you can get in the market right now. For a ₹ 34,999 price tag, this smartphone takes the fight to devices that are twice its price or even more! So in terms of performance, the numbers speak for themselves.

Apart from this, we get a familiar design with a premium touch, a very colour accurate display, and on top of that, a pretty decent camera which will do very well if your usage is casual and mostly for social media. The battery is also optimised towards performance, and the 120W fast charging is as fast as it gets on a smartphone in this range.

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OPPO Reno10 Pro+ 5G Review: Impressive portrait camera, but is that enough

OPPO made some tall claims with the OPPO Reno10 Pro+; the loftiest of which is being the “Portrait Expert”. I think they’ve actually nailed it to some extent. The telephoto periscope lens on the OPPO Reno10 Pro+ clicks some of the most stunning portraits I’ve ever seen. Especially at under ₹60K. The natural bokeh and crisp details make for some social-media-worthy shots, however, the camera system is not perfect. The portrait lens could use some tuning when it comes to skin tone colour and edge detection. Similarly, the primary lens could use some work on dynamic range; and the ultrawide camera needs a complete overhaul. However, it is a valiant attempt from the company. OPPO has truly managed to deliver a competitive portrait experience for a fraction of the price of competing flagship phones.

Touted to be the new “Portrait Expert” on the block, the OPPO Reno10 Pro+ 5G has finally launched in India to much fanfare. The company has made big claims about the Reno10 Pro+’s periscope telephoto lens’ portrait shooting abilities and at ₹54,999, there’s pressure to stay true to the claims. Moreover, the phone houses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC, which we’ve even seen on some mid-range contenders, so the camera has to knock it out of the park for this phone to be a good value proposition. This is the first Reno series phone we’re seeing from OPPO after a brief hiatus since the company did not launch the Reno9 series in India. So, naturally, I was excited to try out the Reno10 Pro+ to see how much of an improvement it is compared to the OPPO Reno8 Pro (which we reviewed) and how it stacks up against competitors. Let’s find out!

OPPO Reno10 Pro+ 5G Review: Build and design

The OPPO Reno10 Pro+ has a revamped design compared to the Reno9 and Reno8 series. There’s a new pill-shaped camera module; a massive design departure compared to the Reno8 and Reno9 series which had a rectangle camera module stuck to the top left of the phone. The new camera module looks striking; it definitely sets the phone apart and the module neatly incorporates all three lenses as well as the “Powered by MariSilicon” branding. This means it uses the same MariSilicon X chip as the Find X series. The module does jut out from the main frame considerably, meaning it will wobble on a flat surface.

The back panel is coated with Gorilla Glass 5 for protection and it has a shimmery effect that exudes a premium feel. The rear panel, however, is quite the fingerprint magnet; racking up substantial marks within seconds. The impression you get so far is that this is a premium device; well worth its ₹54,999 asking price when it comes to design, but that image shatters when you find out that OPPO has used a plastic frame for the phone, which is not really acceptable at this price.

The OPPO Reno10 Pro+ houses the charging port, a speaker, and the SIM tray at the bottom, and then there are the power and volume rockers on the right side. The top houses another speaker and the IR blaster (a welcome addition). The display is a beauty to look at with minimal bezels that are quite uniform. There’s an in-display optical fingerprint sensor that worked perfectly during our testing, but I would have preferred to have it higher on the screen as the stretch is a bit too much to reach it.

The phone is not IP rated and it comes with AGC Dragontrail Star 2 glass as protection for the display. OPPO claims this rivals the performance of the Corning Gorilla Glass 5, however, we haven’t tested its drop resistance. For a high-end device, OPPO has managed to keep it quite lightweight and slim making holding it extremely comfortable but the device is ridiculously slippery, so use it with a case. Thankfully, one has been provided right in the box.

OPPO Reno10 Pro+ 5G Review: Display and Sound

Sporting an OLED 10-bit colour display, the OPPO Reno10 Pro+ impresses with its immersive screen. The display sports a 1.5 K resolution (2772 x 1240 pixels) with 100 per cent P3 wide colour gamut and support for HDR10+. I would have preferred 2K resolution but 1.5K is pretty crisp as well. HDR works seamlessly on YouTube and Amazon Prime with stunning, vivid colours; but it is missing on Netflix, so far.

There’s ProXDR support that bumps up the contrast and dynamic range of HDR photos viewed on the Reno10 Pro+ that make them look even more spectacular. The display also supports 120 Hz refresh rate with an option for Dynamic refresh rate that switches between 45, 60, 90, and 120 Hz as per the requirements to conserve battery life. All good things, but when I select High refresh rate (120 Hz), apps such as Instagram and Twitter still default to 90 Hz. Why OPPO, why? Don't market it as a 120 Hz phone then!

That aside, the display looks beautiful, HDR content looks stunning with decent detail and great colour. The viewing angles are fantastic and the display is bright enough to be legible even in bright sunlight. OPPO has rated it at 1100 nits of peak brightness on High Brightness Mode and in my testing, I got a peak brightness reading of 992 nits, which is close enough.

The display’s incredible 90.6 per cent screen-to-body ratio makes the content look even more immersive; honestly, it engulfs you in a visual paradise. The addition of Dual Track stereo speakers – one at the bottom and one at the top, makes for an upgraded content consumption experience. The speakers are loud, carry the heft in the bass region, and don’t sound tinny – which is usually the overarching problem in smartphone speakers. 

OPPO Reno10 Pro+ 5G Review: Camera

In the marketing campaign of the OPPO Reno10 Pro+, the company has made it abundantly clear that they are positioning this device as the camera-first experience – hence the tradeoffs in other areas – Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 instead of 8 Gen 2, LPDDR5 RAM instead of LPDDR5X and more. “The Portrait Expert” is the tagline, and well, for its asking price of ₹54,999, this is one of the best portrait phones in its segment. OPPO has finally brought back the telephoto periscope lens on a Reno phone after many years, which is fantastic news. But, it’s not perfect, I’ll explain more later. Let’s first start with the specs of the camera system.

The OPPO Reno 10 Pro+ 5G comes packing a 50 MP Sony IMX890 primary camera with f/1.8 aperture and OIS. There’s a 64 MP OV64B ½-inch periscope telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom and 6x optical-quality in-sensor zoom. This is a very large sensor for a telephoto camera, which should provide you with great low-light results and a natural-looking bokeh effect. You can also zoom all the way up to 120x digitally too! To complete the trio of rear lenses, you’ve got a humble 8 MP ultrawide shooter with 112-degree FOV. The company has also packed a 32 MP Sony IMX709 selfie camera with AutoFocus technology.

The primary 50 MP camera is capable of clicking some good shots with saturated colours and great detail. However, the dynamic range is not the best in the business. Highlights can get overblown at times, and we’ve seen some object haloing happen in tricky lighting situations. OPPO tries to retain detail in the shadows in most pictures, but the algorithm sometimes messes up the highlights in the process. Still, we're nitpicking, and in most cases, you’re going to get a detailed, social-media-ready picture. We've attached photo samples below, but do note, they've been compressed for the web.

The telephoto periscope lens is where all the magic happens. The 3x magnification level especially coughs up some stellar results with great detail retention, decent colours, and good dynamic range. The bokeh looks superb and you can adjust it to your liking after clicking the picture as well. The telephoto lens even delivers awesome portrait results on inanimate objects, such as the golden fence below. Sadly, it is not all perfect. The telephoto lens has the tendency to wash out skin tones at times; it makes some subjects’ skin tone lighter than it is. Additionally, the edge detection is not top-tier level. If OPPO manages to fix these issues via a software update, this can easily be one of the “Portrait Experts” that even competes with ₹80K-1lakh+ phones. 

Now, the portrait lens also offers 6x in-sensor lossless zoom and the quality this offers despite not actually being a 100 per cent optical zoom is incredible. Crisp details, great colours, and fantastic bokeh blur is what you get at even 6x zoom levels!

6x in-sensor zoom sample

The 8 MP ultrawide lens feels like a misfit when compared to the other two stellar lenses. It is decent, no doubt, but the images are noticeably softer, distorted around the edges, and lack good dynamic range. Not only are some shadows crushed, but some highlights get overblown too.

We also tried our hand with low-light photography, and as expected, the ultrawide lens was the weakest link with soft, grainy results. The 50 MP primary lens manages to capture good detail in Night Mode with very little noise. The samples below are in low lit conditions and they look fantastic and usable without any editing needed. 

Portrait 3x shots in low light, however, are inconsistent. Do note that in low light conditions, the telephoto lens is disabled and instead, the primary camera digitally crops to 3x or 6x shots. So, look at the difference between these two portrait shots taken in low light, one after another. The lens can’t seem to figure out the exposure right. Also, it gets the edge detection very wrong in low-light, at times. However, we’re hoping OPPO can, yet again, nip some of these issues in the bud via OTA updates. Time will tell, and we’ll update the review!

Lastly, let’s delve into the 32 MP selfie camera. This is actually my second favourite lens on the OPPO Reno10 Pro+ after the periscope telephoto lens. I was impressed with the level of detail in selfies and how OPPO actually stayed true to the skin tones of individuals. The dynamic range is also impressive! Portrait selfies, however, while being crisp and detailed, have mediocre edge detection. This is something OPPO really needs to work on. Also, at times, the selfie camera's Auto-HDR can overprocess the pictures.

Video recording tops at 4K at 60 fps and the footage is decent, nothing revolutionary. Selfie video is capped at 1080p, which is a shame since the processor is capable of 4K selfie videos.

Overall, the OPPO Reno10 Pro+ 5G has all the hallmarks of being a fantastic camera-centric smartphone. There are just a few hitches that need to be ironed out, and you could have a winning camera formula capable of competing with the flagships without actually sporting a truly flagship price tag. In the ₹50K-₹60K price range though, the OPPO Reno10 Pro+ provides stiff competition to the likes of the Google Pixel 7!

OPPO Reno10 Pro+ 5G Review: Performance

The OPPO Reno10 Pro+ 5G is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC which is manufactured on the 4 nm process. There's only one variant which comes with 12 GB LPDDR5 RAM and 256 GB UFS 3.1 storage. No expandable memory. Now, despite being a top-of-the-line SoC that was launched just last year, OPPO has already faced some flak regarding their decision to use this chipset. This is because cheaper phones such as the iQOO Neo 7 Pro and the OnePlus 11R (review) also sport this chipset. Naturally, consumers feel that at ₹54,999, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 or MediaTek Dimensity 9200 SoCs are warranted. 

As a result of this, the OPPO Reno10 Pro+ is not the best performer in its price category. In fact, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro that costs just ₹34,999 - that’s ₹20K cheaper - outperforms the Reno10 Pro+ in almost every benchmark. Let’s see what the tests say. 

In AnTuTu and GeekBench, the iQOO 11 (review) and iQOO Neo 7 Pro outperform the Reno10 Pro+ but the Pixel 7 (review) lags behind. Interestingly, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro which is powered by the same chipset as the Reno10 Pro+ performs considerably better in these two benchmarks. This could be because OPPO is throttling the performance to some extent to boost device longevity and reduce heat. We ran the CPU Throttling Test to check this, and in less than 20 minutes, the OPPO Reno10 Pro+ had already throttled to 78 per cent of its peak performance. The phone doesn’t heat too much though, possibly due to the upgraded cooling system.

In PCMark Work, the Reno10 Pro+ puts up a valiant effort beating out every phone but the iQOO 11, which means it will serve you well for productivity tasks such as working on excel sheets, editing photos, and more. 

In GPU benchmarks, the OPPO Reno10 Pro+ performs decently, beating out the iQOO Neo 7 Pro but falling behind the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2-powered iQOO 11. In GFXBench, both the iQOO Neo 7 Pro and the iQOO 11 are significantly ahead.

In real-life, you’re not going to see any considerable stutters or hitches in daily use. Performance is smooth, lag-free and pretty speedy. You can also play heavy duty games such as Call of Duty: Mobile and BGMI at high graphics and high frame rate without too many frame drops. However, Genshin Impact does tax the phone after about 15 minutes, and you will start to see some frame skips. Overall, a decent performer, but not the best at this price (or lower), for sure.

The OPPO Reno10 Pro+ ships with ColorOS 13.1 out of the box based on the latest Android 13. OPPO has promised three years of OS updates and four years of security updates, which matches Google phones but falls short of Samsung ones. The UI, as we’ve seen on other OPPO phones, is feature-rich; packed with customisability. However, the bloatware is so rife that we were dissuaded from the fact that this is a high-end, near flagship phone. 

There are numerous preinstalled apps and a galore of OPPO apps, some of which can’t be uninstalled. Additionally, there was this annoying non-dismissable setup notification that went ahead and installed 11 apps (including Paytm, Google Lens, and a bunch of absurd games such as Block Blast Adventure Master and Crowd Rush 3D). All without my explicit consent. For a ₹55K phone, the customer has already paid enough. They don’t have to pay further with their time. Time that would be needed to manually uninstall these unwanted apps.

OPPO Reno10 Pro+ 5G Review: Battery life

The OPPO Reno10 Pro+ houses a 4,700 mAh battery to keep the lights on. While on-screen time was pretty decent in my testing, the phone leached quite a bit of battery on standby. Going from 80 per cent at 8 PM at night to 2 per cent at 10 AM in the morning. In my 4K video loop test, the phone lasted a decent 14 hours and 12 minutes, which is not bad. The battery life is decent enough to last most users an entire day, but this is a phone you’d have to charge every night. Additionally, if you’re a heavy user, you may find yourself reaching for the charger at 6-7 PM in the evening.

Either way, the battery life is not appalling but it’s not the best either. However, the 100 W SUPERVOOC fast charging support kind of makes up for it. The phone goes from 0-100 in just 29 minutes, according to my tests. Furthermore, a mere 5 minute charge top you up to around 20 percent or even more, which is impressive. Sadly, there’s no wireless charging, even though the back panel is glass.

OPPO Reno10 Pro+ 5G Review: Verdict

OPPO made some tall claims with the OPPO Reno10 Pro+; the loftiest of which is being the “Portrait Expert”. I think they’ve actually nailed it to some extent. The telephoto periscope lens on the OPPO Reno10 Pro+ clicks some of the most stunning portraits I’ve ever seen. Especially at under ₹60K. The natural bokeh and crisp details make for some social-media-worthy shots, however, the camera system is not perfect. The portrait lens could use some tuning when it comes to skin tone colour and edge detection. Similarly, the primary lens could use some work on dynamic range; and the ultrawide camera needs a complete overhaul. However, it is a valiant attempt from the company. OPPO has truly managed to deliver a competitive portrait experience for a fraction of the price of competing flagship phones.

That aside, I think there are some other areas where the OPPO Reno10 Pro+ could really improve. Some examples are the plastic frame at ₹55K, inconsistencies in the refresh rate settings, and the bloatware-ridden ColorOS. Additionally, for gamers, this is not the most powerful offering at this price and for 15-20K cheaper, you can get phones that sport the same SoC. Personally, I cannot wait for the OPPO Reno11 series. I hope the company takes what’s bad and makes it better, but more importantly, takes what’s good and makes it spectacular.

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