Oppo Reno Ace review

Three cams as it should be, no 64MP one though

The Reno Ace has a triple-plus-one camera setup on its back - what's become the customary ensemble of a moderately wide main camera, an ultra wide angle one and a short telephoto is augmented by a dedicated black and white camera. We expected the Ace to be more similar to its Realme and OnePlus cousins, and while some of the numbers do check out, it's a mashup that's entirely the Ace's own.

The primary cam uses a 48MP 1/2" Quad Bayer sensor, so it's missing the Realme X2 Pro's higher-res (and physically larger) 64MP unit. It's not quite the same as the OnePlus 7T's 48MP module if you fully believe the specs - Oppo lists the lens aperture at f/1.7 vs. the 7T's f/1.6. Other than that, it has the same 26mm equivalent and is stabilized.

The telephoto is a 13MP unit, so it's probably like the Realme X2 Pro, although again the aperture would have you doubt that a little - it's f/2.4 on the Ace, and f/2.5 on the X2 Pro. This minuscule difference aside, it seems identical - a 1/3.4" sensor with 1.0µm pixels and PDAF. The OnePlus 7T's is probably entirely different - it is 12MP after all.

Then there's the ultra wide angle cam. An 8MP 1/3.2" sensor with 1.4µm pixels sits behind an f/2.2 aperture lens that Oppo says covers a 116-degree field of view. Compare that to the Realme X2 Pro's 115 degrees. Hmm.

Which brings us to the one cam the Reno has and these other two don't - the 2MP black and white one. It's a small 1/5" sensor with big individual pixels at 1.75µm, placed behind an f/2.4 aperture lens.

For selfies, the Reno Ace has a 16MP shooter with a 1/3.1" sensor and 1.0µm pixels. The lens has a 26mm equivalent and an f/2.0 aperture.

The camera app on the Oppo Reno Ace should be familiar to anyone who's seen a phone running ColorOS and yes, that includes the Realmes and not just the Oppos. It offers AI scene recognition - you'll see a small icon when a scene is successfully recognized, and the software will tweak all settings accordingly.

The app has three major modes - Photo, Portrait, and Video - and you can swipe between those. The Dazzle Color toggle is on the other end, accompanied by the HDR and flash settings. The ultra-wide-angle camera has its own direct toggle next to the Dazzle Color, but you can also access it via the zoom shortcuts - they are 10x, 6x, 2x, 1x, and ultra-wide.

There is also a hamburger menu with a few more shooting modes - Expert (manual settings), Pano, Time-lapse, Slow-mo, and Night Mode. The latter is a handheld long-exposure mode for low-light photos. You may have noticed there's no access to the 2MP cam anywhere - from what we gather, it's only used for depth detection in portrait mode and not really for taking photos.

In the Expert mode you get to tweak exposure (ISO in the 100-6400 range and shutter speed in the 1/8000s-16s range), white balance (by light temperature, but no presets), manual focus (in arbitrary 0 to 1 units with 0 being close focus and 1 being infinity) and exposure compensation (-2EV to +2EV in 1/6EV increments).

Camera app

Daylight image quality

The Reno Ace's daylight images turn out quite alright. At the default 12MP ,setting there's a ton of detail, which is nice, but we're also seeing more noise than we'd like, which isn't ideal. Dynamic range is good, but not spectacular and you'd be loosing some data in the tonal extremes. We have no complaints about color rendition with the Ace's photos having just the right amount of punch without straying from reality.

Daylight samples, main camera

48MP images have a soft-ish, upscaled look to them, and the Ace is one of those phones that don't really benefit from shooting full-res, good light or otherwise. No wonder then that the setting is buried in the menu as opposed to being readily accessible in the viewfinder or as a mode.

Daylight samples, main camera, 48MP mode

The telephoto camera on the Ace is pretty good producing nicely detailed, if ever so slightly soft images. We'd also argue that the telephoto has superior noise performance to the main camera. It does have a slightly different color reproduction and its photos have a bit of a green tint when compared to the primary cam, but it's not so much as to be an issue.

Daylight samples, telephoto camera

The Ace's ultra wide angle cam gets the job done even if it doesn't really excel. We're liking the distortion correction which makes for straight lines all the way to the corners without much of the softness typically associated with the process.

This camera does tend to overexpose, and is not a particular fan of colors making for somewhat lifeless reproduction. Detail is decent, nothing more. A most welcome feature that sets this one apart from most is autofocus - with the Ace's ultra wide cam you can actually focus on a nearby subject drawing the viewer to it, much what utlra wides are meant to do.

Daylight samples, ultra wide angle camera

Low-light image quality

The Reno Ace does a competent job in low light too, taking really nice shots in the regular Photo mode. Dynamic range is good, there isn't a loss in saturation and, while noisy, photos do have a lot of detail.

Low-light samples, main camera, Photo mode

Night mode makes for livelier images, with noticeably brighter shadows, and better preserved highlights around light sources. On a per-pixel level, you'd be looking at a softer and more plasticky rendition of detail, but we're mostly okay with the trade-offs.

Low-light samples, main camera, Night mode

The ultra wide angle cam does okay in the dark, as long as you compare it to the other ultra wides only. The images are noisy and there's a prevalent softness in the shadow areas, but where there is light, there's also a decent amount of detail being recorded. It struggled with dynamic range in bright light, so that doesn't magically improve in the dark either. It does expose reasonably well - all too often we've seen ultra wides fail at getting enough light.

Low-light samples, ultra wide angle camera, Photo mode

Night mode fixes up the tonal extremes, leaving you with a bit more detail in the highlights and shadows. Noise is replaced by some of that characteristic night mode watercolor effect, but it's within reason. The warmer light sources are rendered noticeably cooler, which is probably a good thing - they did look a bit too yellow otherwise.

Low-light samples, ultra wide angle camera, Night mode

As with most smartphone telephotos, the one on the Reno Ace isn't always working at night when you hit the 2x button - the phone will switch to the main camera below a certain light threshold which you have no control over. Also, that choice will vary between Photo and Night mode, but not always -for example the first scene below was captured with the telephoto cam in Photo mode, but the main one in Night mode, while in the third scene the telephoto module was used in both modes.

In any case, the output isn't bad, it's mostly on par with what you can expect from other phones' telephotos. The Night mode shots look really nice at fit to screen magnifications, and depending on just how dark it was, you may even like the rendition on a per-pixel level.

Low-light samples, telephoto camera, Photo mode

Low-light samples, telephoto camera, Night mode

Once you're done with the real world samples, head over to our Photo compare tool to see how the Oppo Reno Ace stacks up against the competition.

Oppo Reno Ace against the Realme X2 Pro and the OnePlus 7T in our Photo compare tool

Portraits

The Reno Ace's portraits are among the best ones we've seen. Subject isolation is excellent, and aside from particularly messy hair against a contrasting background, you'd get very convincing separation. The default level of blur (60/100) is a bit conservative, further helping the natural look.

Portrait samples, people

Portrait mode works on non-human subjects as well, where it delivers similarly excellent results. Even the baby spruce shot can fool you if you're not looking at 1:1 magnification.

Portrait samples, stuff

Selfies

The Reno Ace takes good-looking selfies too. It captures a lot of detail, though depending on the light and ISO, the HDR processing might rob you of some of it and result in somewhat softer images. In any case, you can count on accurate skin tones, and generally nice colors. Dynamic range is more than decent too, particularly for a selfie camera.

Selfie samples

Portraits are once again really convincing, even though you only have a single camera on the front - apparently Oppo's cracked some AI magic for subject detection and separation. Mind you, these will come out at 8MP, as opposed to the native 16MP.

Selfie portraits

Video recording

The Oppo Reno Ace records video all the way up to 4K resolution at 60fps with its main cam - like a true flagship. And in the same no-compromise fashion, it also offers electronic stabilization in 4K60 as well. We must admit, it's pretty capable indeed.

Footage out of the Reno Ace's main camera is very competently stabilized, from 1080p/30fps to 4K/60fps. The processing irons out shake like there isn't any and handles pans nicely too. If for whatever reason you find that insufficient, there's the Ultra Steady mode, which defaults to 1080p/60fps and smooths things out further, at the cost of an additional crop.

The ultra wide angle cam's videos do benefit from the stabilization, but we witnessed some unpleasant artifacts and jello effect in the middle of the frame, though it could be our specific scene that triggers it.

Meanwhile, the telephoto cam offers similarly good stabilization as the main one, with the only minor caveat that it tends to drift slightly when you're done panning. Better shooting technique will alleviate that, we should probably take some filming courses already.

You may have picked up on it above already - the Reno Ace's 1080p and 4K videos differ dramatically in their color reproduction. While 1080p is warm and oversaturated, 4K is more restrained and true to life. That holds true for both the main and the telephoto camera and for 30fps and 60fps alike.

4K footage does pack a lot of detail, with no discernible difference between 30fps and 60fps. Both are equally noisy too, which isn't particularly great. Videos are nice and contrasty, and dynamic range is pretty good.

That last comment doesn't really apply to 1080p/30fps capture which gets an entirely different tone curve alongside the color boost and is way too contrasty with shadow and highlight subtleties suffering. 1080/60 isn't quite as dramatic, though it too has some more pop on top of the 4K rendition.

4K footage out of the telephoto cam really isn't 4K - it's straight up upscaled. Zoomed in 1080p/30fps videos are particularly nice with really natural processing and detail rendition, and nicely broad dynamic range. 1080p/60fps is more processed and contrasty here, in... contrast... to the main cam's 30fps vs. 60fps peculiarities.

The ultra wide angle cam tops out at 1080p/30fps. It's passable - dynamic range isn't stellar and there's noise, but we don't really hold ultra wides to an ultra high standard.

Here's a glimpse of how the Oppo Reno Ace compares to rivals in our Video compare tool. Head over there for the complete picture.

Oppo Reno Ace against the Realme X2 Pro and the OnePlus 7T in our Video compare tool