Review: OPPO Reno13 5G — premium experience with a mid-range price

This year, OPPO is bringing all three of its mid-range smartphones — the Reno13 F, the Reno13 5G, and the Reno13 Pro — to Australian shores.

After experiencing the mid-range Reno11 F last year I was looking forward to checking out the Reno13.  While the F model is the cheaper of the three models, none of them are overly expensive when you consider the features and hardware that are included.

We are going to have a look at all three in the coming couple of weeks but first cab off the rank is the middle of the pack, the Reno13 5G.

The Reno13 5G comes packed with some great specs, including a 120Hz 1256 x 2760 pixel, 6.59-inch AMOLED display.  Add in IP68 water and dust resistance and you have the ability to snap photos and videos underwater – OPPO actually has a setting that allows for distortion-free underwater photography and videography.

Priced at $899 it sits smack bang right in the middle of the ever-expanding mid-range but how does it fare?  I’ve been using it for the past week or two and have some opinions on why this phone offers great bang for your buck.

In the box

These days, it’s not very often that we mention what’s in the box when we do a review, and that is because there normally isn’t much, if anything.  OPPO are different though.

Once again, in a mid-range phone priced at just $899, OPPO has included a super fast charger, an 80W SUPERVOOC charger and the required charging cable.  Aside from OPPO, no manufacturer of even a $2,000 flagship smartphone includes a charger in the box.  

While they have not included a simple TPU case like they used to, it is still a big win for OPPO> Sure, their phones still charge at fast speeds using PD charging, like other smartphones, but using their proprietary SUPERVOOC charging sets them apart from the pack – in a good way.

Design and hardware

Everyone makes a good-looking phone these days.  Even mid-range phones look great and feel great in the hand.  OPPO are still at the pointy end of the pack though, especially with the Reno13 5G.

The Reno13 5G that I was sent is Luminous Blue but you could have fooled me.  Under some lighting conditions and angles it looks a shade of purple and others a blue.  Their colouring is great and just adds to the premium-feel of the phone.

The phone is square and angular around the sides like so many phones these days but the corners are so very slightly curved to allow it to sit comfortably in your hand.

As mentioned above, the display is a 120Hz 1256 x 2760 pixel, 6.59-inch AMOLED display and although the AMOLED display seems to lack the punch that you see on a flagship premium smartphone AMOLED display it still looks amazing with vibrant colours and deep blacks.

Scrolling on it is smooth and consistent.  This is also aided by the Mediatek Dimensity 8350 (4 nm) chipset driving the phone.  Mediatek are no longer the poor man’s processor, with their chips offering speeds and power as good as Qualcomm’s offerings.

The review phone arrived with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage – more than you will ever need.  Now the RAM does allow a lot of apps to stay in storage at a time but you do need to be careful as OPPO do have an aggressive task manager and can often kill apps after they’ve been in the background for a while.

The rear of the phone houses the camera island that is basically the same on all OPPO phones these days, along with the OPPO name and their certification branding – I’m still not sure why they include this on the rear of the phone as no one else does but it could be a European requirement and they don’t want to have to make a separate SKU for the European market?  Either way, it is a very minor blemish and barely noticeable on the rear.

The right side of the phone houses the power button and volume rocker but the fingerprint in an under-display optical sensor which is great to see in a mid-range phone – although most mid-range phones still include this.  The sensor is fast and accurate and not once have I had it fail, assuming I pressed in the correct location – it sits very very low on the display and does take some getting used to, especially if you have several phones on the go at once like I often do.

The Reno13 5G also includes stereo speakers, and they are speakers but don’t expect studio-quality sound from them.  They are plenty loud enough though but they won’t be enough to power your next party.

Communication-wise, the Reno13 5G includes support for Bluetooth 5.4 and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6.  I use Bluetooth a lot and didn’t have any issues at all with connectivity to my headphones, and the same for Wi-Fi 6.

Camera quality

The camera setup on the rear of the Reno13 5G is relatively basic to be honest. A 50 MP, f/1.8, 26mm wide camera, an 8 MP, f/2.2 ultrawide camera and a 2 MP, f/2.4, depth camera.  The cameras included are a bit disappointing considering the quality of cameras we are seeing in the mid-range lately but the results obtained are still good – the only everyday real-world use of AI at the moment?

The app is decent, but getting there is not easy.  There is still no easy way to launch the camera.  You cannot double tap the power button, the volume down buttons or anything else to load the camera quickly.  You can have a lockscreen shortcut set to the camera but if you have face unlock on the phone will unlock before you have a chance to open the camera.

You have to do it like all other apps, by tapping on an icon.  The easiest way I have found to open the camera is to have a shortcut in the sidebar and because you can access that from any screen (once the phone is open) and open the sideware and tap on the camera icon.  

Other ways include a quick shortcut on the fingerprint sensor tap and hold, or to swipe a V on the display while it is off to open the camera.  The problem with this second option is that the phone will often go to the lockscreen if you have it set to turn the display on when picked up, and then the gesture won’t work anymore.

  None are as simple as a double tap on the power button.  I challenge OPPO to include it in their next major software update.. Please…

As expected, the daytime images were good, not breathtakingly stunning, but good nonetheless. You can still get great images from this phone, and at under half the price of most flagships, its bang for buck is much better.

Low-light photography is often the first thing that suffers when it comes to mid-range and cheaper phones.  I’m not sure what AI software they have used here but it is really good.  Even with low light, the images are quite good. They aren’t up to flagship quality, but they are closer than I thought they would be.

As you can see in the images, the results are quite good, and when side by side with the OPPO Find X8 Pro flagship they are comparable.  You need to spend a lot more to get the ultrafine detail and colour accuracy of the Find X8 Pro but there really isn’t much wrong with the Reno13 5G low-light images.

Underwater photography

“Reno13 Series phones are the only devices in their class to include a dedicated underwater mode. With IP69 water- and dust-proof ratings, the phones support underwater shooting at a maximum depth of 2 meters for up to 30 minutes.

When underwater, the Underwater Photography Mode makes it easy to capture both photo and video content using the volume button to control the camera. The underwater mode also optimises focus, colour, and contrast to correct colour shifts and distortion underwater, ensuring vibrant and natural-looking images.”

Dan has access to a pool and will be testing out the underwater photography in his Reno13 Pro review – keep an eye out for that one coming soon.

AI

I’m going to quickly mention the AI software in here because at this stage of AI’s development, it is really the only real use for it on a smartphone, fixing and enhancing photography.  OPPO has included a suite of AI photography tools and they actually work quite well.

AI Night Portrait, AI Eraser 2.0, AI Clarity Enahncer, AI Unblur, AI Reflection Remover, AI Motion, AI Portrait and AI Reimage.  Most of these we have seen on all other phone manufacturers but the Clarity and reflection remover were examples of AI improvements by OPPO.  

It is great to see manufacturers continuing to push the envelope when it comes to imaging, as long as the photo still displays what was captured – we don’t want the AI to begin to make things up (like a certain manufacturer did a few years ago with their moon photography).

The AI tools are incredibly useful, and I encourage you to use them to improve photos that have a lot of meaning to you. It would be a waste of time to apply them to all photos, but if you want to share some keepsake imagery, then apply some AI enhancements to them first to make them even better. At what point do normal software enhancements become AI?

Battery and charging

I feel like I could just copy and paste the battery section from any OPPO smartphone and the statement would still be accurate and still hold.  

The battery is a massive 5,600mAh which actually lasts a full work day for me – and that is unheard of.  I have my hotspot on all day, sending images etc to head office, refreshing my worklist, navigating using Google Maps through wireless Android Auto while also streaming media – and this battery was able to handle it.

Even if it couldn’t it would not be an issue with this OPPO phone thanks to its support for 80W SUPERVOOC fast charging.  OPPO include the 80W charging brick in the box which is unheard of these days and you really have to respect.  You don’t have to pay any extra for it, it is just there.

I also have an 80W SUPERVOOC car charger in my car as well (Aliexpress is your friend) so if it gets low on power I can plug it in for just 10-15 minutes and get another 40-50% battery life.

There is no wireless charging on the Reno13 5G – you need to get the Pro for that but I’m not overly fussed by this.  It would be great to have but if something had to give to hit this price point, wireless charging is not essential.

Software

OPPO, to their credit, has included effectively the exact same software that they included in their Find X8 Pro flagship smartphone.  Based on Android 15, ColorOS 15 has matured to a stage where it has everything you could need in an operating system while at the same time maintaining its speed. OPPO has also committed to keeping the Reno13 series updated and all three phones will receive five OS updates and 6 years of quarterly security patches.  Impressive for a mid-range device.

Now, the experience wasn’t seamless but it wasn’t far from it.  I very occasionally noticed a bit of a slowdown in some apps but that only lasted a second or two before it caught back up and went back to its fast and fluid usual programming.  This is expected given the slightly lower powered chipset in it compared to the flagship model.

The software options are extensive, really extensive, and nearly everyone is useful to some degree. It’s going to be too difficult to cover them all, but let me discuss a few that I find most useful.

There are new, incredibly smooth animations, new icons, and new themes and theming options, but those are neither here nor there for me. However, they do mean that if you like to customise your device to exactly how you want it to look, you can.

The fantastic software additions from OPPO include quite a few new ones as well as a few old ones I want to touch on as well.

• Aqua Dynamics – this is OPPO’s version of Apple’s Dynamic Island, which I actually prefer.  Not only does it drop the “Now Playing” up into a black island at the top of the display, but when you tap on the icon in that black island, it opens a Now Playing widget in which you can control the music, select new music etc, all in a floating widget without having to get out of the app you are currently in (Apple drops you back into the app).  This works for all media players but also the torch, which is awesome.  Love it.

• Torch interface – see above re Aqua Dynamics.  Also, there is a nice lock screen widget to turn the torch off as well.

• Quick settings are awesome. OPPO has customised the Quick Settings themselves, and I love the large now-playing widget that disappears when no media apps are open. The large volume and large volume sliders are also nice additions. You can customise two of your quick settings to be larger than the others. I opted for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but you can choose whatever you want.

• Floating window is great – When you are swiping up to get out of an app there is a widget to make it a floating window instead which just sits on top of another app (or you can make it super small into a corner somewhere.  This floating window can also be customised to open when you click on a message notification.  From this floating window you can close or open the app or minimise it, which moves a handle for that app to the side of the display so you can quickly access it for messages etc.

• Now playing widget: As mentioned above, this is the widget in the Quick Settings drawer. It’s a nice addition that makes it easy to access your media controls.  

• Smart Sidebar—This has been included in OPPO’s ColorOS for quite a while now, and I find it particularly handy. It allows you quick access to your most used apps without having to go to the home page, open the launcher, and then find the app. Simply swipe open this sidebar, and there you have it—not just apps but shortcuts and smart suggestions as well.

• Fingerprint animation – OPPO has always had animations for the in-display fingerprint sensor but now there are more.  The new ones are nicer again but in all honesty, the face unlock and the fingerprint unlock are so fast there won’t be much time to view said animation, but it does add a small transition which is nice.

Bloatware

I wrote in the OPPO Find X8 Pro review:

I thought these days were behind us but OPPO does include some pre-installed apps such as Booking.com, Temu and TikTok which, although annoying and really should be installed by a manufacturer, can uninstalled.  OPPO, you are bigger and better, than this, stop doing it, please.

There is also a multitude of useless games pre-installed.  OPPO, do not fill our phones with all this bloatware.  In the past, we have seen manufacturers get caught up in security nightmares after apps such as these pre-installed have not been as secure as they should be.  

It makes me wonder how closely OPPO scrutinises these apps before giving them the green light for installation — and from where they have been installed. This is concerning. The Google Play Store (very secure) or OPPO’s App Market included on the phone (security unknown)?  

Users can uninstall them, but most will not bother. I recommend uninstalling them and only installing the games and apps you want and will use. Why leave it to chance?

OPPO, do better.

Final thoughts

In my opinion, OPPO are the king of the mid-range. Their phones are incredibly well-built, well-designed and offer great smartphone experiences with a focus on providing bang for your buck. The OPPO Reno13 5G is all of that, to a T.

The design and build quality follow those of many premium smartphones on the market. It has a squarish design but slightly rounded edges, so it fits comfortably in your hand. The software offers a great experience with OPPO, including all the usual features found in their premium smartphones. These features are supported by MediaTek processors that offer a powerful yet smooth experience.

The camera quality is once again fantastic, and although not quite at the standard of an ultra-premium flagship device, the results are still stunning. Low-light photography was surprisingly good, and daytime colour reproduction was accurate.

It is safe to say that anyone purchasing the Reno13 5G will not be disappointed with the quality of the phone, the experience, or the camera. It gets a big two thumbs up from me.

The Reno13 5G is available now for RRP $899 in Plume White and Luminous Blue at OPPO Online Store, JB Hi-Fi, Officeworks, Harvey Norman and Big W.