Oppo Reno7 5G/Find X5 Lite review

Design, build quality, handling

The Oppo Reno7 5G is an eye-catchy smartphone; there are no two ways about it. It is available in Stary Black and Startrails Blue, inspired by the cosmos and meteorite showers, respectively. And while the Black model is your typical run-of-the-mill matte plastic piece, Oppo claims the Startrails Blue uses an industry-first Laser Direct Imaging (DLI), a process of creating millions of pyramid-shaped crystal structures. And we have exactly this color options for our review today.

The LDI process creates many shiny patterns that mimic meteor showers or light trails if you will, and each of these patterns should be independent of the rest on a micro level. The result is quite beautiful, plus it reflects light in a cool yet subtle way, and that's why the back can go from bluish through greenish and back to purplish in a second when you rotate the phone.

The plastic back is slightly curved towards the long parts of the frame and provides more grip than usual, which means there is some truth to those millions of microscopic crystals.

The front is what you see on most smartphones nowadays - one large AMOLED display with a small perforation around the top left corner to make way for the selfie camera. The chin is quite thick, but the remaining screen bezels are reasonably thin. A flat piece of Gorilla Glass 5 handles the protection here, and you get an additional protective film that was applied in the factory for scratch-resistance purposes.

The frame is also made of plastic but with a glossy finish this time and has a barely noticeable curve. It is thin and doesn't provide much of a grip.

Finally, there is no ingress protection whatsoever on the Oppo Reno7 5G, which is probably the only disappointment we had with its build. A basic IP53 protection would have been nice for sure.

And now, let's take a closer look at the Reno7 5G.

As we said, most of the front is home to the 6.43-inch AMOLED panel, which supports HDR10 and 90Hz refresh rate. There is a small perforation around its top left corner for the 32MP selfie camera.

Above the screen, you can spot one thin grille for the earpiece. It doesn't serve as a second speaker though; the phone has just the one at the bottom.

There is an under-display fingerprint scanner, which works quite well - fast and reasonably accurate.

The camera island on the back is beautiful in its simplicity. It is jutting out of the back a bit, and it uses a flat piece of what looks like plastic. The 64MP primary, the 8MP ultrawide and the 2MP macro cameras are here, as well as a single LED flash.

There are a lot of markings on the back of the Reno7 5G and it would have been nice if Oppo found a way to stuff those elsewhere - Sony puts them within the SIM slots for example.

The phone does wobble a bit on a desk because of the camera island, but if that bothers you, the case will solve this problem for you.

The plastic frame is thin and shiny. It houses the tri-card slot on the left and the two volume keys. The card slot is not that long, yet it manages to accommodate two nanoSIM cards and a microSD by putting those on both sides. Nice!

The power/lock key is on the right side.

You can notice a lonely microphone on the top of the Reno7 5G.

The primary mic, the USB-C port, the 3.5mm audio jack and the speaker are all at the bottom.

The Reno7 5G is indeed a compact and lightweight smartphone - it measures 160.6 x 73.2 x 7.8 mm and weighs 173 grams.

The Reno7 5G is a pleasure to work with, though even with millions of crystal structures, it still cannot provide a solid grip. Though, to be honest, few phones that are not of the rugged class can do that. It does look unique and stylish, and it doesn't destroy the whole handling experience in the process.

The phone has a solid, gap-free build, and we think many people will approve of it. We found its grip good enough to use the Reno7 5G without a case, but if that's not your experience, there is a good case bundled with the phone. In fact, due to the lack of waterproofing, the case might give you some minor protection against that as well.