It’s becoming more difficult by the day to stand out in a world so enamoured by the likes of Samsung and Apple, but South Africans are gradually cottoning on. Brands like Oppo have slowly permeated the local market, this year bringing in the Oppo Reno 13 5G and foregoing the Pro moniker entirely. That might seem counterintuitive, but once you get a peek at the sort of prices Oppo is working with this year, it starts to make more sense.

Picking up the Oppo Reno 13 (the ‘5G’ is implied) will set you back R18,000. If you’re struggling to do the maths, that is only R2,000 less than the base Samsung Galaxy S25, released in January this year. With that price, you’d expect the Reno 13 to at least come close to the experience offered by the king of Android, and in some ways, Oppo manages the feat. But not in the bits that matter the most.

We were never fans of the Reno 12 Series‘ stock Android look, with its too-thin edges and curved display. That’s not to say the Reno 13 is what we’d call ‘revolutionary’ in terms of design, but it delivers a fresh face that’s almost imperative to Oppo’s success. Rather than borrowing Samsung’s whole look, Oppo has dipped into Tim Cook’s playbook for something that feels fresh. Fresh for Oppo, anyway.

Rounded corners and edges of aluminium now adorn the Reno 13’s sturdy frame, adding some heft in exchange for the iPhone look. The rear comprises a coating of polished glass, giving it an almost matte-like texture that feels great in hand, until you slap on the free cover, deeming Oppo’s efforts moot. It’s probably for the best, anyway. That rear attracts fingerprints like Reddit attracts neckbeards.

Despite the redesign, Oppo’s kept the weight to a minimum, coming in at 181g. It’s 7.2mm thick, with the only drawback coming from the slightly too protruberant camera bump on the rear. It’s got nothing on the monstrosity affixed to the Vivo X200 Pro, but it’s there. It’s noticeable. Our review model turned up in the Lumnious Blue colourway, with a trippy sheen surrounding the camera array that we grew fond of.

Sat on the other end lies the 6.59in AMOLED display, boasting 120Hz capabilities and HDR10+ support – something that’ll finally make those visits to Netflix a little more satisfactory than usual. It’ll hit 1,200 nits inside of Netflix, but can’t quite replicate the feat elsewhere. No matter. We had no trouble viewing the device even when faced with a gamer’s kryptonite: sunlight. Or are we thinking of vampires?

Easily the biggest sin under the Oppo Reno 13’s belt is the 4nm MediaTek Dimensity 8350 chip under the hood. Sure, on its own, it’s easy to forgive Oppo’s faults. At the very least, we experienced no stuttering of any sort and jumped from game to game, streaming service to streaming app to streaming app without a hitch. But it still can’t quite hold a candle to Samsung’s operator-in-chief, the 3nm Qualcomm SM8750-AB Snapdragon 8 Elite.

But it begs the question: is a slightly worse processor worth the R2,000 in savings? In some cases, yes. But in this one… no. If you’re after a solid Android, the Oppo Reno 13 has exactly what you’re looking for, but you’ll forever spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, knowing you could have had a stronger chipset and arguably better AI capabilities for only a couple thousand more.

R2,000 certainly isn’t chump change, especially to the average South African, but it’s a small price to pay when it comes to ensuring the quality of a gadget that’s ideally going to live by your side for years to come. Had the Oppo Reno 13 stuck to its guns and accepted its shortcomings with a middling processor and a price tag to match, Oppo might have had a real sleeper on its hands here. It didn’t, so it doesn’t.

That’s not to say you’ll be disappointed by what the Reno 13 has to offer if you decide to go that route (2 grand is 2 grand, after all). What we got from the Dimensity chip and 12GB of RAM was nothing to scoff at. GeekBench 6 gave the device a single-core score of 1,330 and a multi-core score of 3,949, firmly putting it behind the Galaxy S23, but only just. That’s not bad, even two years on, but not when its price competes with the Galaxy S25.

The single best redeeming factor of the Reno 13 is its 5,600mAh battery, and it may prove to be the cherry on top that savvy South Africans have been looking for, despite the intricate dance Oppo is playing where the price is concerned. It lived up to its claims, providing more than enough juice to get through a full day and then some. Throw in the 80W charging and you’ll hardly ever be left without power unless you set out to do so.

We were moderately surprised by the Reno 13’s superb 50MP main sensor, emboldened by the 8MP and 2MP shooters’ ultrawide and “monochrome” shots, respectively. It’s not quite up to Apple’s standards, but at the same time, it’s also not quite up to Apple’s prices. Still, with minimal fiddling and an eagerness to keep you around, Oppo’s mainline sensor delivered some fantastic shots throughout our review period.

The front is home to an equally impressive 50MP selfie camera that consistently delivers excellent shots, brimming with detail, natural colours, and sharpness regardless of the time of day. Autofocus proved to be essential here. Where other devices could struggle to keep the subject in focus, the Reno 13 never failed to locate and keep us in focus, despite the lateness of the hour.

Most of the compliments paid to the selfie camera can be applied to the main 50MP shooter, though we did occasionally stumble across the odd issue here and there. While the shots it delivered were rich with detail and clarity, it left something to be desired in terms of colour reproduction. Certain shots – particularly those captured with the sun directly overhead – felt muted and lacked the saturation you’d expect from shots in this class.

Interestingly, what the main sensor lacked in colour reproduction, the 8MP ultrawide sensor delivers in spades. It’s not quite in the same league when it comes to overall detail, producing fine shots that weren’t worth writing home about, with their only redeeming factor being a proclivity for delivering some decent colour. Too bad it was quickly relegated to the back of our minds, cementing the main shooter as the best of the bunch.

Oppo Reno 13 5G verdict

The Oppo Reno 13 5G is by no stretch of the imagination a bad device, and calling it so would be disingenuous. But when there are technically better smartphones out there available for only R2,000 more (and in most cases, less), we’d question the sanity of anyone picking this up over the competition. Oppo does a decent job convincing customers that the excellent battery, decent display, and overachieving camera are worth the R18,000 price. It isn’t, but if you’re still in the market a year or two from now, Oppo’s efforts might be worth taking a look at.