Oppo Reno8 Lite 5G Review - Not enough for an upper mid-range smartphone

The Reno8 Lite 5G primarily wants to stand out from the mid-range competition with its striking design. Oppo's smartphone has a rectangular camera module with an LED ring around each of the two lenses. These "Orbit Lights" light up as soon as a new notification or calls are received in the colors electric blue, light blue, cyan blue, or baby blue. Besides our black version, Oppo also offers a variant with a color gradient called "Rainbow Spectrum", which is supposed to provide a particularly shiny effect depending on the incidence of light.

Besides these striking design elements, the Reno8 Lite has an IPX4 certification, so a walk in the rain should not be a problem with the sweat- and splash-proof casing. The build quality meets the requirements of an upper mid-range phone, but we cannot say the same for the haptics: the hand-feel of the plastic back and the plastic frame rather correspond to a 200-euro smartphone, and we also find the ergonomics a bit bulky due to the flat design of the back cover.

In order to be able to assess the tracking accuracy of the Reno8 Lite in practice, we record a route in parallel with the Garmin Venu 2 for comparison purposes. The deviations total only 50 meters at the end of the 10 km route. However, the detailed course reveals one or two inaccuracies of the Oppo phone, especially when changing directions. The GPS (L1), GLONASS, QZSS, Galileo (E1), and Beidou (B1) satellite networks are used for localization in the test.

The 16 MP camera on the front can capture nice but a bit too soft selfies in a lot of light. The triple camera module on the back consists of a 64 MP main camera plus a macro and telephoto lens for depth of field information. An ultra-wide-angle camera has not been installed in the Reno8 Lite. Videos can also only be recorded with a maximum of 1080p and at up to 30 fps.

Oppo does not reveal anything about the exact choice of the image sensor, but the mid-range phone can take high-quality pictures with a good color reproduction in daylight. However, the richness of detail in the photos is somewhat lost due to the often somewhat low image sharpness, especially in the peripheral areas. When it gets darker, the pictures suffer from image noise and blurriness. The illumination is also average for this price range.

The OLED panel of the Oppo phone, with a refresh rate of 60 Hz, achieves a pixel density of about 400 PPI at a resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels and a diagonal of 6.43 inches.

The Reno8 Lite uses PWM with a frequency of 116 to 252 Hz to regulate the luminance, at a brightness of below 48 percent - above that, we measure a constant 60 Hz. The maximum luminance of about 600 cd/m² in the peak that we measured is good, but nothing special in this price range. The same applies to the realistic APL18 test, which results in a maximum brightness of 802 cd/m².

We cannot give the Oppo Reno8 Lite 5G a recommendation in view of the many shortcomings compared with the competition. Apart from the nice-looking design including dual ring lights, Oppo's smartphone lacks many features that would justify an MSRP of almost 400 Euros. Buyers in these price ranges can expect stereo speakers, an ultra-wide-angle lens, a panel with a frequency beyond 60 Hz, a better feel, or a more powerful chipset, among other things. Oppo does not exactly cover itself with glory in terms of software with the outdated Android 11. However, the Reno8 Lite could still positively appeal to one or the other user due to its quite compact and light build.

In order for the Reno8 Lite to be competitive, it has to be priced in line with the comparable low-cost mid-range, such as the Moto G52 or Redmi Note 11.

In the price segment around 300 Euros, we recommend our review of the Samsung Galaxy A33 or also Poco F3. If you can do without the 5G standard, you will find a good alternative with the Redmi Note 11 is a comparable total package for just half the price of a Reno8 Lite 5G.