Oppo Reno3 Pro launches with dual 44-megapixel selfie camera

Oppo’s Reno smartphones used to be about zoom. Or fast charging. But the latest phone in the lineup, the Reno3 Pro, is all about selfies.

The Oppo Reno3 Pro launched in India on Monday, and will be globally available soon. Its standout feature is the dual, 44/2-megapixel selfie camera that takes bright photos in poor lighting conditions. 

I took the phone for a spin, though my hands-on comes with a caveat: The phone’s software isn’t quite finished and will get a big update on March 5. 

The Reno3 Pro is powered by an octa-core Mediatek P95 processor, which is alright but not nearly as powerful as the latest, top-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon chips, at least on paper. It’s got a 6.4-inch, Super AMOLED display, 8GB of RAM and comes with 128/256GB of storage.  

The quad rear camera has a 64-megapixel main sensor, a 13-megapixel telephoto lens, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide lens, and a 2-megapixel mono sensor. The 44-megapixel selfie camera is assisted with a 2-megapixel depth-of-field sensor. Finally, the Reno3 Pro has a 4,025mAh battery with Oppo’s ultra-fast, 30W wired charging.

The version described above should not be confused with the Chinese variant of the Reno3 Pro, which is significantly more powerful. 

The display

Visually, it’s getting harder and harder for smartphone manufacturers to stand out from the pack, and if it weren’t for the dual, hole-punch selfie camera, it would be similar to pretty much every Android phone I’ve tried in the past year or so.

The Reno3 Pro’s 2,400×1,080 display is flat, has small bezels on top and bottom and is pretty bright, though not as smooth as some of the recent, high-refresh-rate screens we’ve seen. On the back, the four camera lenses are positioned vertically, and the unit I tested came in Auroral Blue color, which is a nice gradation between a light cyan and a dark blue. The phone isn’t very big; it’s a fair deal narrower and lighter than my iPhone 11 Pro Max and honestly, I prefer the Reno3 Pro’s form factor. 

Smartphone performance is hard to judge these days — all but the cheapest, entry-level devices, perform well. I did experience some bugs with the Reno3 Pro. On several occasions, the phone would just shut down after being turned on, and it took several tries to bring it to life. 

Battery charging wasn’t the fastest I’ve seen — that distinction goes to Oppo Reno Ace — but the Reno3 Pro still charges very fast: you can get from 0-100 percent battery in about than an hour. 

To unlock the phone, an in-display fingerprint sensor is coupled with face recognition. Neither worked perfectly, but most of the time, they were good enough. 

The Oppo Reno3 Pro’s rear camera is alright, but it won’t exactly impress anyone who’s held a recent iPhone or even a top-tier Xiaomi phone. Surprisingly, the colors aren’t oversaturated as on so many phones these days. They might even be a bit too dull at times. 

The high megapixel count, if you turn it on, will net you more details in daylight shots, but come night and the photos deteriorate quickly. Dedicated night mode helps, but it can be slow and the results vary widely. 

Portrait mode looked horrible on the phone’s display, but the resulting photos were far better, so you’ll need to take a photo or two first to see what you’re getting. 

Ultra-wide shots have noticeably worse quality than the ones taken with the main camera, so you’ll probably reserve them for group photos and similar situation when nothing else works. 

The telephoto camera is better, with 5x zoom easily beating the same setting on my iPhone. Going further than that is not advisable. 

A lot of megapixels for a selfie camera

Where the Oppo Reno3 Pro shines is in selfies taken in night clubs, poorly lit hallways, abandoned graveyards. You get the picture: low-lit scenarios. The selfies are bright and detailed, although the colors are frequently off. In near total darkness, Reno3 Pro’s camera performed poorly, even worse than the iPhone 11 Pro Max’s camera (which isn’t the best for selfies, anyway). 

For some reason, the selfie camera takes 40-megapixel photos by default, while 44-megapixel shots need to be enabled manually. I don’t see a lot of logic in this setup, though it could be chalked up to the camera software being unfinished. In any case, due to the high megapixel count, you’ll get huge, detailed photos, though they do tend to be a little washed out.

Oppo Reno3 Pro launches in India on March 6. The 8/128GB costs INR 29,900 ($410), while the 8/256GB costsINR 32,990 ($452). The phone will “soon” be launched in other markets, including ones in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Middle East, North Africa and East Europe.