Oppo Reno 10x zoom hands-on review

Introduction

Remember the Oppo N1? All the way back in 2013 Oppo was experimenting with moving bits on its smartphones and what started as manually rotating camera was then motorized for the N3. Fast forward to today when we have the Oppo Reno 10x zoom with a shark fin style motorized pop-up cam. But that's not what the clunky name is there for - the phone has a periscope telephoto camera on the back that gets you 10 times closer to the action thanks to a 'lossless' hybrid zoom.

We were invited to spend some time with Oppo's latest handsets and the Reno 10x zoom was naturally our top priority. Only the second phone to have a periscope cam, this one has the same reach as the camera on the P30 Pro. We were more than a little torn between that and the rising selfie cam - which one is cooler?

But before we get to that let's get the specs out of the way.

Oppo Reno 10x zoom specs

• Body: Aluminum frame, Gorilla Glass 5 back, 162x77.2x9.3mm, 210g; Ocean Green and Jet Black color schemes.
• Display: 6.6" AMOLED, 1080x2340px, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 387ppi, Gorilla Glass 6.
• Rear camera: Wide (main): 48MP, 1/2.0" sensor, f/1.7 aperture, 26mm equiv. focal length, laser/PDAF, OIS. Telephoto: Periscope 13MP, f/3.0 aperture, 130mm equiv. focal length, laser/PDAF, OIS. Ultra wide: 8MP, f/2.2 aperture, 16mm equiv. focal length, autofocus.
• Front camera: Motorized pop-up 16MP, f/2.2 aperture, 26mm equiv. focal length.
• Video recording: Rear: up to 4K 2160p@60fps, EIS up to 2160p@30fps, slow-mo up to 1080p@240fps. Front: up to 1080p@30fps.
• OS/Software: Android 9.0 Pie, ColorOS 6.
• Chipset: Snapdragon 855 (7nm): octa-core CPU (1x2.8GHz & 3x2.4GHz Kryo Gold & 4x1.7GHz Kryo 485 Silver); Adreno 640 GPU.
• Memory: 6/8GB RAM, 128/256GB storage, shared microSD card slot.
• Battery: 4,065mAh, Li-Ion (sealed), 20W VOOC fast charging.
• Connectivity: Dual-SIM; LTE-A, 6-Band carrier aggregation, Cat.18 (1.2Gbps/150Mbps); Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac/ax MU-MIMO; GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo; NFC; Bluetooth 5.0. USB Type-C, no 3.5mm jack.
• Misc: Optical under-display fingerprint sensor.

So yes, the Reno 10x zoom is a proper high-end device with all the parts you'd expect to find in 2019. The missing ones too - for a 3.5mm jack you need to look at the regular Reno, but then you'd be getting a midrange chipset and no periscope zoom, even if the motorized selfie cam is still there.

Okay, let's dive right in with the shark fin Reno 10x zoom. And let's avoid puns of this sort from here on.