Oppo Reno3 Pro 5G / Find X2 Neo review

ColorOS 7 and Android 10

The Reno3 Pro 5G comes with the latest installment of Oppo's ColorOS - version 7 on top of Android 10 and comes with plenty of changes compared to the last iteration of the software. Now, the OS is looking a bit more stock-ish but it's still hard to compare it to Pixels, Motorolas and OnePlus phones.

You can still choose between the standard app drawer and the simplified approach with all the apps scattered across the home screens, while the app icons themselves are super customizable. You can set up a custom shape, adjust the corner rounding. Of course, applying third-party icon packs is also possible.

Home screen, recent apps, app drawer and home screen customizations

Navigation options are aplenty too. There's good old software button navigation as well as the gesture-based navigation option. The latter comes in two flavors - swipe from the bottom and swipe from the side bezels. The former is well-known by Oppo and OnePlus users - you just swipe upwards from the bottom to perform a back, home, and recent apps actions.

The side swipe behaves just like the stock Android gestures with a little extra on top. There's an option that lets you swipe and hold for a quick switch between the last used app but that can also be performed with a swipe and throw from the bottom of the screen. And if you have the navigation bar enabled (not the software button navigation bar) a horizontal swipe left or right will switch between apps too. This is probably the most versatile gesture-based navigation we've used so far, so kudos to Oppo for that.

Navigation gestures and options

Speaking of gestures, you can finally set a swipe down gesture to open up the notification shade instead of opening global search. It was a much-needed option by a lot of users who are struggling to deal with the trendy tall aspect ratios.

The notification shade itself has also gone under some changes. The icons are no longer different colors - they are all gray when inactive and turn green when the said setting is turned on. Swiping down one more time brings down the quick toggles within thumb's reach. Clearing the notifications can only be done by swiping left or right and it's a setting. There's no way to dismiss the card with a swipe in both directions. The recent apps menu, on the other hand, is full on stock-looking.

Notification shade

The general settings menu comes with brand new icons and colors that help you get around easier. We found the Display and Brightness sub-menu to be quite extensive. You will find the system-wide dark mode there along with Eye Care mode that changes the color temperature of the screen for more comfortable reading at night. We almost missed the Always-on display option, which is under the name "Screen-Off Clock" and gives you a choice between different styles and how it behaves. The Screen Light Effect is like the edge notification lighting on Samsung phones and you can assign different styles to different notifications.

General settings menu and always-on display

Picking up the phone lights up the fingerprint reader area for a quick while but doesn't work with a tap when the phone is lying flat on the table. You will have to gently push the phone because we noticed that the FP area is triggered by the accelerometer. A double-tap-to-wake is always an option but this will light up the whole screen.

Screen-off gestures

Fingerprint reader itself is flawless. We found it to be super fast, accurate and responsive. Also, the area is big enough so you don't have to be that precise when placing your finger on top. The scanner training takes a little while, though. You would have to place your finger and wait more than usual before doing it again during the training process. Maybe this adds to the overall accuracy of the scanner and the software needs a little bit more time to take a better picture of your fingertip. In any case, it's definitely worth it because we had absolutely no issues with it.

Drawing letters on a turned off screen is still a feature with ColorOS 7 and you can launch a bunch of apps with the available letters. As usual, the torch and the camera app are probably the most useful assignments.

Our overall opinion of the ColorOS 7 is mostly positive. It feels more mature than ever, has a bunch of useful features and it's snappy and fast even on non-flagship hardware. We didn't have any hiccups or hangs of any sorts.

Performance

We've already seen the Snapdragon 765G in action so we have a pretty good idea of what to expect from the handset's raw performance in synthetic benchmark tests. The SoC is based on the 7nm manufacturing process and is compiled of an octa-core CPU (1x2.4 GHz Kryo 475 Prime & 1x2.2 GHz Kryo 475 Gold & 6x1.8 GHz Kryo 475 Silver) and Adreno 620 GPU. One of the key features is that the 5G connectivity as it employs Qualcomm's budget 5G modem - the Snapdragon X52.

Additionally, the chipset is paired with 8GB or 12GB of RAM and either 128GB or 256GB of UFS 2.1 storage. We've tested the beefier 12GB/256GB model.

Anyway, the Snapdragon 765G is fairly similar in terms of performance compared to the non-G variant, the Snapdragon 765, and the Snapdragon 730. The difference is that the 765G is supposed to be more gaming-oriented having a higher clocked Adreno 620 GPU and supports a couple of Qualcomm's gaming-related features such as Game Network Latency Manager, Elite Gaming, Game Smoother and Game Fast Loader.

GeekBench 4.4 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
  13295
• Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
  11151
• Realme X3 SuperZoom
  10115
• LG Velvet
  7660
• Oppo Reno3 Pro 5G
  7337
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  6639

GeekBench 4.4 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
  4255
• Realme X3 SuperZoom
  3553
• Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
  3524
• Oppo Reno3 Pro 5G
  2820
• LG Velvet
  2708
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  2429

GeekBench 5.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
  3332
• Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
  2732
• Realme X3 SuperZoom
  2579
• LG Velvet
  1905
• Motorola Edge
  1862
• Oppo Reno3 Pro 5G
  1815
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  1694

GeekBench 5.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
  916
• Realme X3 SuperZoom
  756
• Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
  738
• Oppo Reno3 Pro 5G
  609
• Motorola Edge
  586
• LG Velvet
  586
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  521

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
  538221
• Realme X3 SuperZoom
  477905
• Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
  459497
• Oppo Reno3 Pro 5G
  308231
• Motorola Edge
  305989
• LG Velvet
  297372
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  253271

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
  51
• Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
  43
• Realme X3 SuperZoom
  41
• Oppo Reno3 Pro 5G
  21
• Motorola Edge
  19
• LG Velvet
  19
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  17

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
  40
• Realme X3 SuperZoom
  35
• Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
  34
• Oppo Reno3 Pro 5G
  18
• Motorola Edge
  18
• LG Velvet
  16
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  15

3DMark SSE Vulkan 1440p

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
  6660
• Realme X3 SuperZoom
  5364
• Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
  4892
• Oppo Reno3 Pro 5G
  2995
• Motorola Edge
  2801
• LG Velvet
  2758