The OPPO Reno 10x Zoom Review: Bezeless Zoom
by Andrei Frumusanu on September 18, 2019 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- Oppo
- Snapdragon 855
- Oppo Reno 10x Zoom
GPU Performance
Device gaming performance, or better said, SoC GPU performance, is dictated by a trifecta of characteristics: First of all, the actual GPU microarchitecture and how performant and efficient it is, in this case the Adreno 640 of the Snapdragon 855 should fare very well. Secondly, the device vendor needs to employ a good physical design of the phone, able to dissipate heat away from the SoC to the body of the phone, enabling the GPU to operate at higher frequencies without throttling. Lastly, it’s a question of how the vendor actually tunes the software and the throttling levels of the phone, choosing target limit skin or silicon temperatures.
As a prelude to the test results, I’ll outright say that the Oppo Reno 10x behaves near identical to the OnePlus 7 Pro which we tested earlier this summer, meaning it has nearly no thermal throttling at all on the GPU.
Whilst the OnePlus 7 Pro was able to maintain peak performance metrics for long durations, at a cost of quite high device body temperatures, the Oppo’s long-term performance came with the gigantic caveat that it hit device thermal limits and shut down the tests.
I’ve become increasingly wary of this behaviour as I’ve encountered it in the past with several devices, Huawei in the past ended up in this situation by disabling their thermal throttling mechanisms when detecting benchmark applications, essentially cheating the behaviour and score. I’ve also encountered it early on last year on the Galaxy S9+, although Samsung claimed this was a bug and the behaviour disappeared with subsequent firmware updates.
The problem for me is that I can’t accurately determine if this is just a lack of oversight and software optimisations on the part of Oppo, or rather something that’s more malicious. I’m using benchmark suites with altered application IDs in order to avoid the more common benchmark detection by vendors, but that’s not to say they haven’t found more sophisticated ways to detect the tests.
Whatever the reason might be, the scores for the Reno 10x come with a big asterisk – being that they might not accurately depict the real performance of the device, and if they indeed are valid, then the device might simply shut down the app on you at some point if you overstress it too much or are in a very hot environment.
The one test where we don’t see any issues is in the 3DMark Physics test, here the phone and CPU do actually throttle correctly. The Reno 10x’s result isn’t too fantastic here in terms of performance compared to other devices, but we have to keep in mind that the device allowed itself to reach much higher temperatures than other phones, and that might be the reason as to why the CPU is throttling more.
In the GPU-centric workloads, we see that things are quite straightforward for the Reno 10x. It just doesn’t throttle, and the phone is able to maintain the best peak and sustained performances of any other Snapdragon 855 device. Again, this come at a cost of very high device temperatures and the risk that it’ll simply overheat and close your app if you do end up overstressing it in a real scenario.
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dullard - Wednesday, September 18, 2019 - link
I don't think I've ever thought about or ever noticed phone weights. Size and bulk? Yes. Weight? Never.MarcusMo - Wednesday, September 18, 2019 - link
It’s one of these things that you don’t notice until you pick up a phone that passes the point of being too heavy.I agree with the op, I hate the feeling of having a brick in my jacket pocket.
wr3zzz - Wednesday, September 18, 2019 - link
That's a good point. If I still had to wear a suit everyday then the weight would be problematic.For those that don't have to wear suits, I actually like the slightly heavier phones, though anything more than 200g is still too much even for jean pockets.
Calista - Wednesday, September 18, 2019 - link
Fuly agree, I find my Note 8 at 195 gram too heavy. I never felt the same in regard to my S7 Edge at 157 gram. And I find the Nokia 3310 at 85 gram a bit too flimsy instead. Depending on the individual of course, but to me a weight of 120-140 seem perfect. The S4 for example is 130 gram. Not feeling flimsy, still very thin and light.eek2121 - Wednesday, September 18, 2019 - link
The entire design trend of phones needs a rethink. At least one major OEM should put things in reverse and do things like a *plastic* or *metal* back, bezels on the top and bottom (with stereo speakers for the occasional time when you have to use your phones sound), and a SLIGHTLY smaller screen. As far as a headphone jack, I'd rather just see a dongle in the box TBH. The whole headphone jack thing is overblown. Pumping audio through the USB-Type C port means you get a clean digital signal, making it possible to do things like optical out, etc. Combine that with a built in amp on the phone (along with the 'quad DAC' that some LG phones have) and you get a nice clean signal that can either be converted to a headphone jack or hooked up to a soundbar or surround sound system.I'd also like to see micro SD cards return and have a storage manager built into the system that combines internal and external storage. Encrypt it if you want, but as quickly as prices have fallen (I just bought 4 128 GB microSD cards for $15...and they are REAL. Ran a tester on them.), External storage will be the way to go when you run out of space. I'd also like to see an AOSP style release without vendor junkware.
The problem is I wouldn't pay a premium for those features. Such a phone would be worth about $499 if it had 4 GB of RAM and a Snapdragon 855 combined with a 2560x1440 AMOLED screen.
Tams80 - Wednesday, September 18, 2019 - link
I agree with a lot of that, but definitely not the headphone jack port. It should stay, as as a connector it is more durable when in use because it can rotate. We're finding out that many USB C ports are not that much better than microUSB ports in terms of durability.Besides, all headphones end up analogue.
It's not like the USB C port would suddenly lose audio transmission capability.
danielfranklin - Wednesday, September 18, 2019 - link
" I want all my groceries on one bag, but i dont want that bag to be heavy! "Tams80 - Wednesday, September 18, 2019 - link
They could easily dispense of some weight by using plastic.drexnx - Wednesday, September 18, 2019 - link
all that heftiness and chunk and they still couldn't find room for a 3.5mm jack?ToTTenTranz - Wednesday, September 18, 2019 - link
"Low-light Conclusion - Terrible(...)
Overall, the Reno 10x does adequately in low-light, which is something great to see as it means that future devices from the vendor will only continue to iterate and improve upon the current results."
So.. um.. which is it?