OPPO’s new Reno series smartphone, Reno12 Pro 5G, offers quite a handful of AI features that are quite empowering and, in some cases, rather useful. You have to put aside the fact that the phone uses the MediaTek Dimensity 7300-Energy processor and that it retails at S$949 in Singapore.
For a smartphone of a “Pro” suffix, using Dimensity 7300 seems like a misfit. The Geekbench 6 benchmark test reveals scores that are modestly low, though the actual usage experience feels better than what the numbers show. The overall design does appear somewhat dated with the triple camera lens lined up in a row. The back panel features a wavy silk-like pattern that shifts subtly under lighting changes.
One design element that frustrates me is the location of the SIM ejection hole. I had to make a potentially life-changing decision: which hole do I insert my pin into? If I insert wrongly, there goes the microphone. The correct answer is the one next to the tray. That is, the larger hole. The left one. The one that is closest to the corner of the phone.
Now that I have covered all the bad points – yes that’s all I have about the annoying bad points – the rest of the review is mostly positive. The OPPO Reno 12 Pro, though not running the most nimble among the midrange flagships, provide quite a unique user experience that would otherwise be mundanely Android.
Granted, there are a lot of “bloatware” included out of the box, but fortunately you can delete them. I would say that the inclusion of these apps is refreshing, given the phone comes with 512GB, these extra apps aren’t going to cause storage issues. Besides gaming apps, there are also wellness apps like O Relax, Zen Space. The media-related apps include AI Studio, Music Party. Phone management apps like Phone Manager help to clean up storage junk, boost system, scan virus. The OPPO Photos app syncs with Google Photos so you can conveniently see all your cloud images from the same app. With that, I can select any image and use the Photos app to perform image editing, AI erasing, remove background, etc.
The Reno 12 Pro also comes with my favourite underrated feature: IR Remote. Just like the Honor phones I reviewed recently, I can blast infrared signals to control my appliances.
A.I. A.I. Ooh!
The OPPO Reno 12 Pro offers a myraid of AI functions, some of which are not so obvious, for instance the AI camera features. But some post-image processing capabilities are actually very useful. In fact, I purposely uploaded content to the phone just to make use of the unique features.
First, from the OPPO Photos app, you can easily cut out the subject of a photo, separate it from the background, and save as a new image with a transparent background layer. That literally saves me time to clean up the background. Yes, there may be free apps out there but all of them are ad-supported.
The AI Eraser has become a standard feature on many smartphones, but I find that the Reno 12 Pro process the AI erase very fast. The result is also highly usable when viewed from a distance.
The AI Studio is an OPPO-only app that lets users generate AI photos. Upon signing up with your OPPO account, users get 5000 stars as credits. Each AI image deducts 10 stars, each day you can check-in to earn stars. The more consecutive days you check-in, the more stars you get at milestones. Pretty much like Taobao.
This is how I look like when I use the app to generate an AI likeness:
There are limited templates, and hopefully more will be available over the months.
Another pretty awesome feature is the AI Recording Summary. Unlike audio recorders that transcribe word-for-word (like Pixel phones), the OPPO Reno 12 Pro summarises the recording. That is a definite time saver. Below, I recorded a speech about this phone features and this is what it summarised.
Similarly, the Reno 12 Pro can also summarise a webpage. The Smart Sidebar displays recommended AI actions when you are using a browser. And just like that, I can read a web article in less than a minute.
Camera System
The OPPO Reno 12 Pro camera system is made up of 50MP f/1.8 Main Camera, 50MP f/2.0 Telephoto Camera, 8MP f/2.2 Ultra-Wide Angle, and 50MP f/2.0 Selfie Camera. On the whole, the camera captures pretty balanced colour tones, slight emphasis on colour but not too strong to look unnatural.
The telephoto camera can zoom up to 20 times and while the details are rather blotty, it looks usable for small display size.
For selfie, the Reno 12 Pro’s 50MP appears to have an upper hand. The facial exposure and colour tone is more accurate and pleasant.
Exposures are generally accurate, adjusted with more contrast
Verdict
Overall, the OPPO Reno 12 Pro is a pretty fun smartphone through its generous preloaded games and wellness apps (which you can remove), and some essential features that enhance the AI and image editing capabilities. The only major drawback is the lacklustre processor performance which drags the experience down, making the whole interaction a tad sluggish. At a retail price of S$949 in Singapore, you would have to sacrifice speed for features which you might not use that often compared to the day-to-day operations. My recommendation would be to wait for the OPPO Find-series flagship models where I believe most of these features will make its way there.
Favourite features:
- AI Summary
- AI Eraser
- Subject-Background Removal
Disappointing features:
- Slow processor
Official product website: OPPO Reno12 Pro | OPPO Singapore
