Oppo Reno 16 Pro Review – Compact Flagship with 200MP Main Camera Tested

Scarcely six months after the launch of the Reno 15 Pro, Oppo is now rolling out its immediate successor, the Oppo Reno 16 Pro for the Malaysia market alongside its lesser sibling the Oppo Reno 16. 

Ahead of its official Malaysia launch, we managed to get our hands on a sample for field testing. After delving into its capabilities, here’s our Oppo Reno 16 Pro review where we share if it’s worth what you pay for.

Oppo Reno 16 Pro Review – Build and Design

Angled as a premium midrange design, the phone packs quite a few flagship-grade features including a 200MP main camera as well as a relatively large battery in a slim, durable chassis though it comes at a substantial RM300 mark-up compared to the earlier Reno 15 Pro, bumping the price tag to RM3,299 which is getting close to what their flagship Find series phones go for in the market.

Aesthetically speaking, our Oppo Reno 16 Pro review sample in Starlight Black is actually slightly thicker by 0.07mm and slightly lighter by 3g compared to the older model. On the other hand, the Pop White colourway of the Reno 16 Pro is actually thicker, measuring at 8.36mm and heavier at 188g on account of its paint job than the Reno 15 Pro.

Bar the minor differences in weight and thinness, the Oppo Reno 16 Pro retains a similarly sized flat 6.32-inch AMOLED display up front with FHD+ resolution, 3,600 nits peak brightness and 10-bit colour depth though this time around the panel has a slightly higher 144Hz refresh rate on paper while also featuring Gorilla Glass 7i glass on the front to prevent scratches and nicks. 

Up top, the display has a single punch hole for a 50MP selfie camera with the bottom quadrant featuring a fingerprint reader.

The sides of our Oppo Reno 16 Pro review sample as well as the backplate are all finished in aluminium, which makes it more durable while lending it a more premium feel. The layout is fairly standard with a power button and volume rocker on the right.

The base of the phone features a USB-C port flanked by a SIM card tray and a speaker grille along with an otherwise unremarkable top. Where it differs from the older model is the addition of a Snap shortcut key on the left, strategically located where the thumb would be that can be assigned as a camera shortcut, to summon an AI assistant or for other functions from a predefined pool of options.

The backplate is otherwise a swath of matte black that resists fingerprints and smudges. Emplaced on the upper left corner of the backplate is the triple camera array in a squircle shaped camera housing.

Bar the new Pop White and matte black colourways, it’s hard to visually tell apart the Reno 16 Pro and the older Reno 15 Pro from afar. However, there are subtle differences. Closer inspection reveals that the newer model has an LED flash that’s placed slightly apart from the rest of the camera array with the older model having a more closely spaced setup.

Aesthetics aside, build quality is top-shelf with a premium heft and feel along with an improved, more robust IP68 and IP69K dust and water resistance rating. This means that the phone can resist immersion in up to 2 metres of fresh water for up to 30 minutes as well as jets of water to some degree.

Even in these challenging times, Oppo also generously throws in a casing, a USB-C cable as well as a charger on top of the usual SIM eject pin and quick start literature.

Oppo Reno 16 Pro Review – Performance and Benchmarks

In terms of hardware, our Oppo Reno 16 Pro review sample enjoys a modest chipset upgrade over the older Reno 15 Pro launched earlier this year. Powering the Reno 16 Pro is a MediaTek Dimensity 8550 Super octacore processor.

Compared to the older Dimensity 8450 used in the Oppo Reno 15 Pro, the Dimensity 8550 Super SoC in the Oppo Reno 16 Pro is clocked slightly faster, has a slightly nippier Mali G720 MP8 GPU and has the aforementioned LLM Booster to better handle AI-related tasks like cleaning up images and the like but otherwise has similar architecture. with the Dimensity 8550 Super featuring a single high performance core, 3 performance cores and a quartet of efficiency cores, all of which use the Cortex-A725 core clocked at different speeds.

Paired with the Dimensity 8550 Super is 12GB LPDDR5X RAM augmented by up to 12GB of virtual RAM assigned off the onboard 256GB UFS 3.1 storage. At the time of writing, this is the only RAM/storage configuration available for the Reno 16 Pro for Malaysia.

Like Oppo’s recent offerings, the Reno 16 Pro runs Android 16 and Oppo’s ColorOS 16 overlaying it with a number of new AI-centric features like their AI Remix Collage that lets you tweak shots with animated stickers and bits from other shots to create whimsical collage shots.

Like its predecessor, our Oppo Reno 16 Pro review sample is chock full of bloatware including a slew of apps of dubious utility including a preinstalled Netflix, Shopee, LInkedIn and more, just to name a few. Fortunately, all of these apps can be deleted without issue. Here’s how the specifications for units sold in Malaysia look like:

Price	RM3,299
Display	6.32-inch AMOLED, 1,216 x 2,640 pixels, 144Hz refresh rate, 3,840Hz PWM, 3,600 nits peak brightness, HDR10+
Processor	MediaTek Dimensity 8550 Super
OS	Android 16 w/ ColorOS 16.0.8
Memory	12GB LPDDR5X RAM / 256GB UFS3.1 storage
Cameras	200MP f/1.8 w/ OIS + 50MP f/2.8 w/ 3.5X optical zoom & OIS + 50MP f/2.0 ultrawide w/ autofocus [rear] / 50MP f/2.0 autofocus [front]
Battery	6,700mAh w/ 80W wired
Size/Weight	151.2 x 72.4 x 8.2mm / 185g

WIth the default 12GB of virtual RAM, our Oppo Reno 16 Pro review unit scored the following benchmarks:

3D Mark Steel Nomad Light	1,526
3D Mark Steel Nomad Light Unlimited	1,503
3D Mark Solar Bay	6,733
3D Mark Solar Bay Unlimited	6,914
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme	3,934
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme Unlimited	3,834
Geekbench 6 Single Core	1,560
Geekbench 6 Multi Core	5,729
Geekbench 6 OpenCL	13,382
Geekbench 6 Vulkan	14,582
Geekbench 6 AI (CPU)	2,244
Geekbench 6 AI (GPU)	1,091
PCMark Work 3.0	18,315
PCMark Battery Life	8 hours 39 mins

While it is faster than its predecessor on paper and in benchmarks, it isn’t a radical leap in performance. Our Oppo Reno 16 Pro review sample enjoyed roughly similar benchmarks compared to the Oppo Reno 15 Pro.

The hardware is able to tackle day to day tasks in a respectably smooth fashion and is able to handle gaming including recent titles like Wuthering Waves and video editing on CapCut without too much trouble. 

Like its predecessor, the phone also features bypass charging support that allows you to charge the phone while bypassing the battery to reduce heat and help improve long-term battery longevity.

Like the majority of slab-style phones in the market, the Reno 16 Pro only has one USB-C port mounted at the bottom of the phone and if you play games in landscape mode and charge the phone, you will inevitably end up with the charging cable getting in the way.

That quibble aside, the Oppo Reno 16 Pro has a smattering of new AI features with the notable inclusion of a refreshed version of their AI Remix Collage mode that lets you jazz up a given photo by stitching in animated gifs, stickers and whatnot with up to a maximum of five stickers to create an animated collage.

You also get a tweaked Popout 2.0 where you can create images where the subject pops out of the frame of the shot to lend it a unique look. These are fun features to have but are intended primarily for younger users.

New features aside, the phone has the usual Gemini AI assistant and Circle to Search features that are available on most phones of recent vintage as well as Oppo’s own Mind Pilot that lets you aggregate stored snippets of notes, reminders and whatnot, mixing them with your choice of either ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini to tackle and interact with personal queries as needed. The fun part here is that you’re able to query all three AI models simultaneously and compare answers between different AIs.

The display on our Oppo Reno 16 Pro review sample served up good detail with crisp text and detail onscreen along with excellent colour rendition on account of its 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut that comes in handy for content creators. 

On paper, the panel is rated to offer a 144Hz refresh rate but during testing the highest it can go is 120Hz when navigating the menus with YouTube capped at 60Hz and Chrome at 90Hz. Flanking the display is a single speaker in a slit in the upper portion of the panel and a downward firing speaker to form a stereo pair. 

Both offer good detail and volume for casual movie watching duties and doomscrolling and now have the ability to crank up the volume to 300%. To Oppo’s credit, there’s no distortion when dialled to 300% volume and the speakers are loud enough to be heard a good half dozen paces away in a crowded mall. 

In terms of battery life, our Oppo Reno 16 Pro review unit has a slightly larger 6,700mAh battery versus the smaller 6,200mAh cell in its predecessor which infers slightly better endurance. 

However, the PCMark battery life benchmark showed baffling results, with only 8 hours and 39 minutes of battery life. Fortunately, the phone offered a good full day of use and a bit extra, needing a top-up the following day with normal use.

Oppo Reno 16 Pro Review – Cameras

The Oppo Reno 16 Pro hosts a triple camera array on the rear built around a primary 200MP main camera that uses a Samsung S5KHP5 sensor with an f/1.8 aperture and optical image stabilisation.

This is paired with a 50MP f/2.0 ultrawide angle camera that uses a GC50F6 sensor as well as a 50MP telephoto camera with an f/2.8 aperture and 3.5X optical zoom. Combined, this setup allows for stills at up to 120x digital zoom and up to 4K@60fps video capture at up 18x digital zoom. 

Up front, our Oppo Reno 16 Pro review unit has a single 50MP f/2.0 camera with autofocus as well as the option to take shots from a wide angle at 0.6x zoom for group shots and 1x zoom for the usual mugshots. The camera is also able to capture 4K@60fps video with up to 2X zoom and the same 0.6x ultrawide option as when you’re snapping stills to capture more of the surrounding area.

A notable addition this time around is a Pop Cam filter mode for both the front and rear cameras that adds a number of visual effects that mimic traditional film shots. Bar some minor additions like the Pop Cam filter mode and a slightly wider front camera, you’re getting a mostly similar setup as the prior Reno 15 Pro.

 

The rear cameras offer good detail and dynamic range and otherwise excellent colour saturation in daylight conditions out to 3.5x zoom and usable shots out to 7x zoom with gradually softer, less detailed results out to 120x zoom. Even at this distance, architectural shots remain highly usable though more detailed, more random objects like foliage or people unfortunately remain as blur silhouettes.

The rear cameras are also adept at tackling low light shots too, salvaging decent amounts of detail from dimly lit scenarios and offering good dynamic range with usable shots out to 3.5x zoom. 

Up front, the 50MP camera offers about a 100-degree field of view similar to its predecessor with relatively similar imaging performance and autofocus – offering good skin tones and detail with 2x zoom for a closer framed shot and a 0.6x ultrawide to take in more of the scenery. 

When it comes to video capture, Oppo has notably added an improved Ultra Steady Mode for 4K video that is able to compensate for up to 5 degrees of tilt when filming. What this means is that you’re able to get silky smooth footage when walking, with Ultra Steady Mode compensating for the typical bobbing gait you get when filming on the move. 

However, you still need to keep your gait fairly slow and it still doesn’t compensate for an actual gimbal but does contribute to smoother footage. Low light video is somewhat underwhelming but in well lit conditions and daylight, the Oppo Reno 16 Pro offers footage with sharp detail and relatively well saturated colours onscreen.

Overall, the phone offers a well rounded, capable set of cameras for most scenarios with an emphasis on casual vloggers and content creators who need a competent point-and-shoot.

Oppo Bubble Review: Does the Reno 16 Pro’s latest companion accessory work?

To cater to content creators, Oppo has also released an interesting companion device that is part whimsical keychain dangle and part digital viewfinder. Enter the Oppo Bubble. 

Weighing just 27.5g and 7mm thin, the Oppo Bubble has a 1.73-inch rounded touch AMOLED display with 466 x 466 pixels resolution and 600 nits peak brightness. It charges via a USB-C port on the side and has a power up button. While it isn’t able to go for full water immersion, the Oppo Bubble does have IP54 dust and rain resistance, allowing for safe use outdoors.

Getting about is via the touchscreen and once paired with an Oppo phone like our Oppo Reno 16 Pro review unit, you can use the Bubble as a shutter release as well as a viewfinder for the phone’s rear camera for both videos and stills alike.

The Oppo Bubble also allows you to download a series of virtual animal companions that act as screen savers, running through a series of predefined animations onscreen in a whimsical fashion. 

At present, the Oppo Bubble can only interact with Oppo phones. According to Oppo, the Bubble will get compatibility with iPhones in a future update though there is no official word on whether it will have broader compatibility with other Android phones down the line for now. 

While it is intended primarily for ornamental use dangled on a handbag or purse, and when employed as a viewfinder, held in hand, the Oppo Bubble works best when attached to the back of the Reno 16 Pro. However, the phone itself lacks magnets for the Bubble to latch on.

Fortunately, Oppo does issue a magnetic sticker with the Bubble that you can tack on to the back of the phone. During testing, I ended up holding it like a pocketwatch for the most part, taking it out when I needed to use the rear cameras for a selfie.

The Oppo Bubble is useful to have around if you do a lot of live streams or make heavy use of the rear camera like an influencer though it is rather pricey for such a specialised device.

Should you buy the Oppo Reno 16 Pro?

On its own merits, the Oppo Reno 16 Pro is a slim, competently made premium midrange phone with good performance, solid front and rear cameras and decent battery life. 

However, it doesn’t offer radical improvements over the prior Oppo Reno 15 Pro which makes it less compelling for those who already own the older model and costs more too. Those who have yet to hop onto the Oppo bandwagon will find there’s plenty to like, offering a decent blend of price and performance.

Oppo Reno 16 Pro review sample courtesy of Oppo Malaysia. For more details please visit https://www.oppo.com/my/events/reno16-series-5g-launch/