Oppo Reno 10x Zoom review: camera class and stylish looks

The Chinese expansion continues, with the likes of Xiaomi, Huawei, OnePlus and of course Oppo pushing their wares outside of Asia. The Oppo Reno 10x Zoom is one of the most capable phones yet to made the journey from the east, and we've been testing it out.

The 10x Zoom, unsurprisingly, refers to the zoom capabilities of the camera. Strictly speaking though, only 5x of that is true optical zoom – the 10x zoom is actually a hybrid of optical and digital, with the phone actually capable of a massive 60x of digital zoom.

• Our picks for the best Android phones that money can buy
• Upgrade your life with the best smart home gadgets

It's an odd name to give the phone really, but that's Oppo's choice. What's also a little odd is the 'shark fin' style selfie camera that pops up out of the top of the phone when you use the front-facing camera. That means the display has very thin bezels, and no notch.

SIM-free, the phone is going to cost you in the region of £700, which is a useful guide for how to think about the Oppo Reno 10x Zoom: not quite up there with the top-end flagships, but a little way above the mid-rangers (the OnePlus 7 Pro is similarly priced).

Oppo Reno 10x Zoom review: design and screen

As we've mentioned, the Oppo Reno 10x Zoom makes use of a pop-up selfie camera, which means no need for the notch. The fingerprint sensor is under the display, so the 6.6-inch screen covers almost all of the front of the device, giving the phone an impressive 87 percent screen-to-body ratio.

Around the back, the aesthetic appeal of the Oppo Reno 10x Zoom continues – the three camera lenses are arranged in a vertical strip, which is then continued with some Oppo branding. We like the colours you can get this phone in too, namely a dark green, a "mist pink", and a more conventional black.

At 9.3 mm the phone is a little thicker than some of the ultra-premium flagships on the market, but not so much that it's going to spoil your enjoyment of it. The resolution is a mid-range-esque 1,080 x 2,340 pixels, but the display looks bright and vivid, with graphics and text both sharp and easy on the eyes.

It's a phone that's comfortable to hold and to use, with a touch more grippiness than a lot of other smartphones on the market right now. It might lack the iconic looks of an Apple iPhone or a Galaxy Note, but by the end of our time with the Oppo Reno 10x Zoom we came away very impressed by the design, finish and feel of the phone.

• Here's our verdict on the Apple iPhone 11 Pro

Oppo Reno 10x Zoom review: specs and features

The Oppo Reno 10x Zoom is certainly no slacker in the specs and performance department, bringing with it a top-of-the-line Snapdragon 855 processor, up to 8GB of RAM, and up to 256GB of internal storage (you can add up to an extra 256GB thanks to the microSD card slot, too).

For your main camera duties you've got a 48MP+13MP+8MP triple-lens rear camera, which came up with some fantastic shots in all but the darkest lighting conditions. We really liked the auto-identification feature that tries to recognise what you're photographing (a dog, a bunch of flowers, or whatever) and then makes adjustments accordingly – quite a few phones try and do this but on the Oppo Reno 10x Zoom it actually works.

Image 1 of 5

Given the name of the phone we should talk about that zoom. It's easy to operate and tweak, and you can get some great results at up to 5x zoom, and some very good results at higher levels of magnification. The 8MP lens is an ultra-wide one, so you can fit a lot more in the frame, if you need to – it's effectively 0.5x zoom.

Elsewhere the 4,065mAh battery will get you through the day and then some, and based on our Netflix watching we reckon you could get at least 10 hours of video viewing from a single charge (remember there's no notch, which improves the viewing experience). The phone isn't rated as waterproof though, and doesn't offer wireless charging.

• Check out the best 5G phones you can buy

Oppo Reno 10x Zoom review: price and verdict

We get a lot of smartphones passing across our desks here at T3, and it's fair to say that at this point in the phone era, almost all of them are perfectly fine – a description that certainly applies to the Oppo Reno 10x Zoom. It has a good camera, good battery life, an appealing design... and a pop-up shark fin selfie camera.

Why would you pick this phone over any other? Well that large, notch-free screen might be one reason. The variety and quality of the zoom modes is another – this phone comes with a camera that does well at adapting to all sorts of different conditions and use case scenarios. Price might be another reason to pick this over a top-end flagship (check the widgets on this page for the latest Oppo Reno 10x Zoom deals).

It's not all good news though – the Oppo version of Android ("ColorOS") doesn't have much going for it, and we found ourselves pining for the stock Android experience of the Pixels (to be fair to Oppo this is a problem on a lot of Chinese handsets). Wireless charging and IP68 waterproofing are missing too.

Overall though we're happy to recommend the Oppo Reno 10x Zoom – it's just that there isn't much that really stands out about it in what's an increasingly crowded market. You could certainly do a lot worse than the Oppo Reno 10x Zoom, but maybe you could do better as well.

• These are the best phones on the market right now