Oppo Reno6 5G review

One less camera but essentially the same setup

Compared to the Reno5 5G, the Reno6 skips the depth sensor and borrows the rest of the cameras from its predecessor. It's hardly a downgrade given the rather questionable utility of the depth sensor anyway. The main 64MP, 1/2.0", 0.7µm pixels sensor is here to stay, and it's once again paired with an f/1.7 aperture.

The ultrawide unit is familiar as well - 8MP f/2.2, 1/4.0" with 1.12µm pixels. The dedicated macro camera relies on a 2MP sensor with an f/2.4 lens.

And as for selfies, the device uses a fairly large for a selfie camera sensor - 32MP, 1/2.8", 0.8µm and an f/2.4 aperture.

Camera menus

There's nothing too sophisticated about the default camera app. The main camera modes are arranged in a typical carousel formation, while Macro mode is tucked away in the More sub-menu. You will find four toggles on the viewfinder - one for the ultrawide, one for the main 1x mode, and two zoomed ones of 2x and 5x. Both crop from the center of the main camera, of course.

The default Camera app

The usual controls for HDR and the AI mode can be found on top of the viewfinder. The Settings menu gives you the standard list of options.

Daylight samples

Main camera

The main 64MP camera performs as expected considering the price range, meaning it's rather good for daylight photography with a wide dynamic range. Sharpness is good, and there's plenty of fine detail for pixel-peeping.

There are some inconsistencies at times, however. The exposure can be slightly off sometimes (leaning towards darker images overall). Additionally, whites can look a bit warmer than they should be.

12MP daylight samples

Taking the phone inside for a couple of indoor shots results in a drastic drop in detail. We blame the noise suppression algorithm mostly, judging by the small soft patches that occur. Speaking of noise, we had only one sample that showed a significant amount of noise, so we think it's a rather rare event.

12MP daylight samples

Shooting in the full 64MP resolution wouldn't benefit you much. You do get a bit more detail that comes along with noise and softness.

64MP daylight samples

2x zoom

There's no dedicated 2x zoom camera, however, the 2x mode outputs crops from the main camera which look quite nice.

The images are nice and detailed so perhaps there's some additional processing going on in the background or even multi-image stacking because these photos turn out better than we would expect.

Daylight 2x zoom samples

Whatever the case may be, we see a minimal loss in sharpness while inheriting all of the benefits of the default 16MP photos. Sadly, this also means that the small issues we found in the standard 16MP images are present here, too. That doesn't change our great impression of the zoomed photos. We can even argue that the 2x zoom samples look almost indistinguishable from some budget telephoto shooters.

Ultrawide camera

We weren't expecting much from the ultrawide camera, but we were pleasantly surprised by it, at least when it comes to certain processing aspects. We liked the colors, contrast is okay, and the level of detail is rather sufficient. To be honest, that's more than you could ask from a mid-range 8MP ultrawide unit.

Otherwise, expect soft-looking photos with a narrower dynamic range and your regular edge softness. Color fringing is absent, though, and the barrel distortion is limited thanks to the software algorithm.

Daylight ultrawide samples

Macro camera

It's just like pretty much every other dedicated 2MP macro camera out there - struggles with dimmer conditions, sharpness is okay, but the detail is lacking (it's a 2MP sensor after all), the absence of autofocus makes it harder to shoot moving objects and colors are a bit desaturated. Contrast needs a little boost too.

Macro camera samples

Low-light samples

Main camera

The low-light photos look quite impressive, and it seems that the HDR algorithm is doing a pretty good job. Dynamic range is wide, and the level of detail even in the shadows is great. Light sources may appear clipped at times, while sharpness and contrast need a little bump too. But images are overall bright enough and just a tad noisy in the shadows.

Low-light main camera samples

The Night mode doesn't bring such drastic improvements to the image but it cleans up whatever little noise there is and brightens up the shadows. It does take about 5 seconds to do its magic.

Night mode main camera samples

The Night mode produces generally brighter photos, although it's hard to tell the difference sometimes. More importantly, adds quite a bit of sharpness, boosts the contrast and renders light sources better. The noise suppression algorithm is a double-edged sword in the Night mode as it clears up the remaining noise in the dark areas of the image but washes away some detail along the way. Our recommendation is to use both modes for a single scene and decide which one is better afterward.

2x zoom

It may not be a clear cut whether the default Photo mode or Night mode takes better 16MP pictures; it's evident that the Night mode 2x zoom samples look a lot better. The default ones are soft, lack detail and are washed out. The Night mode clears up the image, brings out some detail from the shadows and adds much-needed contrast and sharpness.

Low light 2x zoom: Normal • Night mode

Still, we can't say that all of the zoomed Night mode samples are usable, so it's a hit or miss.

Ultrawide camera

The ultrawide camera is hard to recommend at night as it produces muddy, low-contrast and noisy images with a narrow dynamic range. The Night mode brightens things up and adds some artificial sharpening, but it's not enough to give it a pass.

Low-light ultrawide: Normal • Night mode

Here's how the primary camera on the Oppo Reno6 5G stacks against the rest of the competition in the controlled environment of our Photo Compare Tool.

Oppo Reno6 5G vs. OnePlus Nord 2 5G and the Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G in our Photo compare tool

Portraits

To our surprise, the portrait shots are far from impressive. With sufficient ambient light, the noise isn't visible, but even the slightest drop in light affects the picture's clarity. Sharpness and detail aren't on par with the competition, but the edge detection algorithm seems rather good. You can expect a nice foreground blur, too.

Portrait samples

Color accuracy, on the other hand, is good, although the subjects' skin tones come across a little pale.

Selfies

The 32MP selfies look sub-par, especially in terms of sharpness and level of detail. The photos don't look like they are 32MP, and noise is aplenty in almost all lighting conditions. Moreover, colors are dull, and images look soft overall. Dynamic range is wide, though, and keeps a well-balanced exposed without overexposing the subject's face at the same time.

Selfies: Normal • Portrait

HDR doesn't work in selfie Portrait mode, hence the burned background on the third scene, and the photos look softer too. The edge detection seems to be pretty consistent and surprisingly accurate as it clips only some small hairs off of the subject's hair.

Video recording

The handset caps at 2160p@30fps recording using the main camera; the ultrawide can only go up to 1080p@30fps due to its limited resolution. Let's start with the 4K footage.

It doesn't impress with a high level of detail, and it's not exactly sharp, but it pretty much nails the rest. We'd like to call the colors accurate, the dynamic range wide and the contrast - good. Noise is hard to spot, even on uniform surfaces.

The 1080p@30fps video produced by the ultrawide camera is downright disappointing. Although, we are hardly ever impressed by midrangers doing ultrawide videos. Anyway, the ultrawide video looks muddy, a tad noisy and suffers from a narrow dynamic range and lacks any kind of detail. Contrast needs boost and colors, too.

We also tried out the Ultra Steady mode that's supposed to provide gimbal-like stabilization. And this is the case here for the most part. However, the video is capped ad 1080p@60fps, so it won't be very sharp, and there's an apparent jello effect that distorts the image with each step. We experienced similar behavior on the last model.

Here's a much sharper, better-looking 4K video for reference, although very shaky. No EIS in 4K.

Once you are done with the real-life scenarios, take a look at our video compare tool to see how the Oppo Reno6 5G stacks against the other phones we've reviewed.

2160p: Oppo Reno6 5G vs. OnePlus Nord 2 5G and the Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G in our Video compare tool