Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G hands-on review

Design and ergonomics

The design has remained largely the same over the last couple of Reno generations, starting with the Reno4. We asked Oppo about when should we expect a major design overhaul and the response was that designers are constantly trying to make the chassis feel more premium and slimmer. And those efforts will carry over to the future Reno7 generation. In other words, the Reno7 will come with same looks too.

That doesn't mean we don't like the Reno6 Pro 5G's build, though. It follows the usual glass sandwich trend with a metal frame holding things together. The front has Gorilla Glass 5 protection layer while the back settles for regular glass. Well, regular might be an understatement because Oppo has once again used its Reno Glow process for those distinctive color gradients and soft-touch matte feel.

We got the Aurora variant with us and it's gorgeous. Colors shift at different angles while the top side of the frame glows in the dark. This one might be useful when looking for your phone in a pitch black room. The rest of the frame has a glossy finish serving as an accent to the matte glass back.

Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G

The camera island remains almost untouched with the vertical camera stack. The LED flash has been moved right next to the macro shooter and the bump has transitioned into a boxier overall look.

Dimensions and weight are almost identical to the Reno5 Pro 5G with the newer version being 4 grams heavier (now 177g) and is now taller and narrower. We are talking about a difference within a millimeter, though.

The front flaunts a 6.55-inch OLED with curved sides and a punch-hole front-facing camera design in the upper-left corner.

Ergonomics are good with a few small exceptions. A slightly curvier back panel would have gone a long way for the grip and the placement of the under-display fingerprint reader is rather sub-optimal. It's too close to the bottom bezel making it a bit hard to reach comfortably.

Hardware overview

Despite its impressive specs, the Reno5 Pro 5G's display feels a bit old already. Cheaper phones like the Realme X7 Max 5G and the Poco F3 GT offer just as bright 120Hz panels and even Oppo's sister company, OnePlus, has a Nord 2 to offer that has a 90Hz display but costs considerably less.

Since the phone uses supposedly the same 6.5-inch OLED panel ever since Reno4 Pro 5G, we are inclined to believe the advertised brightness levels. In manual mode, the panel can go up to 500 nits, beyond 800 nits in Max Auto and 1100 peak brightness, which is probably measured on a small white spot on the screen and is applicable to when viewing HDR10+ content. Our earlier review findings confirm these results.

The Dimensity 1200 SoC is MediaTek's latest and greatest packing an octa-core CPU working in a 1x Cortex-A78 @3.0 GHz, 3x Cortex-A78 @2.8 GHz and 4x 2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 configuration. The graphically intensive tasks are taken care by the Mali-G77 MC9 GPU. Here are some preliminary benchmarks, not that we haven't tested this chipset before.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• vivo X60 Pro
  3490
• Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G
  3091
• OnePlus Nord 2
  2792
• Realme GT Master
  2773
• Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G
  2621
• Realme X7 Max 5G
  2614
• Poco X3 GT
  2310
• Oppo Reno4 Pro 5G
  1805

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• vivo X60 Pro
  1034
• Realme X7 Max 5G
  967
• OnePlus Nord 2
  814
• Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G
  813
• Realme GT Master
  791
• Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G
  712
• Poco X3 GT
  693
• Oppo Reno4 Pro 5G
  615

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• vivo X60 Pro
  639612
• Realme X7 Max 5G
  605819
• Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G
  524692
• OnePlus Nord 2
  512164
• Poco X3 GT
  506800
• Realme GT Master
  488456
• Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G
  435166
• Oppo Reno4 Pro 5G
  317139

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• vivo X60 Pro
  96
• Realme X7 Max 5G
  86
• Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G
  81
• OnePlus Nord 2
  75
• Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G
  74
• Poco X3 GT
  74
• Oppo Reno4 Pro 5G
  37

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• vivo X60 Pro
  86
• Realme X7 Max 5G
  79
• Poco X3 GT
  68
• Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G
  61
• Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G
  57
• OnePlus Nord 2
  57
• Oppo Reno4 Pro 5G
  31

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• vivo X60 Pro
  59
• Realme X7 Max 5G
  50
• Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G
  48
• OnePlus Nord 2
  46
• Poco X3 GT
  44
• Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G
  43
• Realme GT Master
  33
• Oppo Reno4 Pro 5G
  21

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• vivo X60 Pro
  51
• Realme X7 Max 5G
  44
• Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G
  42
• OnePlus Nord 2
  38
• Poco X3 GT
  38
• Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G
  36
• Realme GT Master
  29
• Oppo Reno4 Pro 5G
  18

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G
  4236
• OnePlus Nord 2
  4224
• Realme X7 Max 5G
  4216
• vivo X60 Pro
  4203
• Poco X3 GT
  3991
• Oppo Reno5 Pro 5G
  2713
• Oppo Reno4 Pro 5G
  1668

As you can see, the chip is no match for the Snapdragon 870 powering the Reno6 Pro+ 5G but it's still ahead of its other Dimensity siblings and mid-range Snapdragon chipsets. It's also based on the 6nm process, suggesting better thermals and energy-efficiency than the rest of the 7nm Dimensity chips.

While the handset is offered in two memory variants in China, the company decided to bring just the beefier 12GB/256GB version. And the international iterations settle for UFS 2.1 storage instead of 3.1. This raises the entry barrier significantly and makes the device the most expensive Dimensity 1200-powered phone on the Indian market.

Just like the screen, the cameras didn't receive much love this time around as well. The familiar 64MP main camera with f/1.7 aperture is heading the department along with an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera and 2MP f/2.4 macro one. There's also the 2MP depth sensor with questionable usability. The punch-hole houses a 32MP sensor with f/2.4 lens.

Small bump in the battery capacity is in order. Now 150 mAh more, the 4,500 mAh battery should still be enough for a day away from the plug. That hasn't affected the charging times all that much, though, as the device still fills up absurdly fast. Oppo advertises 31 minutes to a full charge but in our experience, a full 100% charge takes about 37 minutes. We were at the 90% mark in 30min.