They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but is it really worth anything without true emotion?
With OPPO’s latest DNA in its highly-renowned Reno series now sporting one of the most cutting-edge, yet affordable camera setups in the market while also being fully equipped with a handful of exciting features, we couldn’t miss the chance to test out one of these stunning smartphones before it officially comes out this August. Sit with us as we unveil the endless possibilities that the brand-new OPPO Reno6 Z 5G can deliver to your digital lifestyle, while also having a little bit of fun along the way.
More than meets the eye
Just like pretty much anything you can buy, my first impressions upon the arrival of the new gadget were made the moment I set my eyes towards the package for the first time. As someone who’s gone through quite a collection of smartphones in my life, I was quite delighted to see a phone box that for the first time, was not colored with the conventional white or black. Plus points for creativity!
The contents within OPPO’s teal rectangular prism weren’t abundant, but they were practical. A rigid, clear jelly case and a handy pair of white earphones come with the phone, and its standard USB-C charging cord and power brick are considerably heftier add-ons than what most smartphone brands are willing to offer these days within a single purchase.
Dazzlingly durable
With the peripherals out of the way, we’re now able to get a taste of the main course of this review which would be the phone itself. Wrapped under a cozy plastic film, the OPPO Reno6 Z 5G seemed like some sort of ethereal moon rock waiting to be unravelled. Once unwrapped, the Reno6 Z 5G instantly became the center of my living room’s attention as it shimmered with iridescence through its signature Reno Glow finish under the elegant Aurora colorway.
With such a spectre-like finish, one would expect this cool-looking smartphone to feel at least sort of delicate, right? Apparently not, as this 173-gram smartphone felt extremely compact and rigid in my hand despite being a fairly thick handheld device at 7.97 millimeters. Quite a comfortable and ergonomic phone to hold that never gives you any sign of flimsiness, at all! You will also not have to worry about leaving fingerprints or hand sweat behind as both the phone’s steel-like outer case material and 6.4 inch AMOLED display feels completely stick-proof and moist-resistant to the touch.
Capture the soul of your memories
Perhaps the Reno6 Z 5G’s most talked about aspect so far has been its extremely competitive, ultimate AI-powered camera setup, which includes a triple-lens rear camera as well as a 32 megapixel front camera that comes with a litany of cool features for us to try.
Upon opening the phone’s camera app, you are immediately presented with a wide variety of shoot options and neat buttons to try out, apart from just your regular video and photo modes. One cool feature that we immediately gravitated towards is the Dual-View video feature as displayed above, which allows you to simultaneously record videos with your front and back camera. This is quite handy for travel or reaction vloggers who might want to capture their rawest reactions to the eventful scenes that they’re taking a video of, all at the same time.
Right off the bat, we can see that the Reno6 Z 5G’s primary camera obviously packs a powerful punch in terms of resolution and sharpness with its 64 megapixel capabilities in these landscape shots displayed above. One amazing thing to note about the Reno6 Z 5G’s camera is its ability to display depth in a more sophisticated and detailed manner in comparison to other camera phones. Such high quality angling can only be taken with the Reno6 Z 5G due in part to the phone’s built-in ultimate AI imaging algorithm, as well as the Flash Snapshot feature, which allows you to take crisp, clear, and clean photos the moment you turn on the camera.
Another great feature that the entire Reno6 Z 5G camera setup is equipped with is the Bokeh Flare Portrait, which adds the gorgeous “Bokeh Flare” effect to your images. This feature adds a nice touch to photos with crisply-lit backgrounds and can be used with both your rear and front cameras. The setup delivers images that do not look unnatural or forced at all, creating a dramatic mood for photos taken at night or outside.
Finally, what good is a phone camera if you can’t take selfies or videos of yourself looking your absolute best for TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube? Luckily enough, the great innovators at OPPO chose this as their number one priority when they decided to reinvent and recalibrate its Portrait Beautification feature apart from the litany of unique add-ons that the Reno6 Z 5G camera setup has in its arsenal.
As you can see from my sister’s set of selfies taken with the Reno6 Z 5G, the camera’s facial recognition works with pin-point accuracy in its ability to detect up to 193 key facial feature points, allowing the Reno6 Z 5G to truly encapsulate every smile, laugh, and expression at its most natural state; a true reverberation of the phone’s slogan: “every emotion, in portrait.” To top it off, you can even augment the power of the phone’s facial recognition feature using OPPO’s highly-acclaimed beautification effect for a truly picture-perfect selfie. With such immersive technologies all packed in one brilliant camera setup, there’s no doubt that each moment you capture with the Reno6 Z 5G will never lose its essence.
Personality and performance
The moment you turn on the OPPO Reno6 Z 5G, you are instantly treated to an enchanting array of animations, visuals, and displays that only OPPO’s Android-based ColorOS 11 operating system can provide. You get an exciting new OPPO boot-up animation, as well as two quirky, sparkling animations upon plugging the phone for charging, and upon accessing the phone with its fingerprint security feature. Overall, the phone’s user interface feels as modern as it can be given the current state of Android technology, but the phone’s powerful 8-gigabyte RAM plus 128-gigabyte expandable ROM capacity and octa-core MediaTek Dimensity 800U processor makes every sort of motion you see on the screen buttery smooth and easy on the eyes. If there’s one tiny tidbit that I would point out, it’s that the Reno6 Z 5G is furnished with only a single speaker at the bottom portion of the phone.
Such powerful hardware would be a waste without trying out its full potential, so we gave the Reno6 Z 5G a real run for its money with a picture-in-picture video playback from the built-in Youtube app, while leaving a few applications open in the back to truly give the multi-tasking abilities of the phone some mettle to test. After a couple of videos, we found no issues and no lagging errors under all of Youtube’s playback resolutions—including 4k—as everything remained as snappy as it was when we first turned it on.
After passing its first test, we moved on to another touted major aspect of this phone; its top-of-the-line gaming capabilities as powered by the superb Mali-G57 MC3 graphics processor. What better way to do that by trying out a few games of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang? I played on the highest graphic settings while also leaving a couple of apps running in the background and found no issues with the game’s frame rates and graphics. I even picked up a couple of wins to boot. Thanks, OPPO!
The verdict
Most smartphones these days want to be known for being strong in one single suit, and not much else. Once I tried out this smartphone, I immediately noticed that the OPPO Reno6 Z 5G wasn’t built to be a one-trick pony at all. The sleek, on-point interface, reliable specifications, and highly immersive and most especially the highly-adaptable camera setup allowed me to have the most balanced, all-around digital experience in my lifetime so far. Of course, there are always spaces that gadgets can improve upon, but I believe that if you’re in the market for a balanced, solid, no-nonsense Android phone with a camera setup that is easily able to let you to take the most professional-looking content at the press of a button, the OPPO Reno6 Z 5G is the perfect companion for your digital lifestyle.
Our OPPO Reno6 Z 5G unit was provided by OPPO Philippines for a total of two weeks for testing.
Both the OPPOReno6 Z 5G and OPPOReno6 5G in colors Aurora and Stellar Black are now officially available in the Philippines for Php 19,999 and Php 26,999 respectively via OPPO Brand stores, partner dealers, and exclusive e-commerce partners Shopee and Lazada.
