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Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G Audio test

OTHER AVAILABLE TESTS FOR THIS DEVICE

We put the Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G through our rigorous DXOMARK Audio test suite to measure its performance both at recording sound using its built-in microphones, and at playing audio back through its speakers.
In this review, we will break down how it fared in a variety of tests and several common use cases.

Overview


Key audio specifications include:

  • Two top speakers, one front-firing and one side-firing, one bottom speaker, side-firing.
  • No jack audio output
  • Noise reduction
  • Dirac sound enhancement technology

Scoring

Sub-scores and attributes included in the calculations of the global score.


Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G
123
audio
120
Playback
111

158

121

149

138

162

117

162

114

157

131
Recording
126

147

120

146

130

159

117

170

145

Best

131

166

Playback

Pros

Cons

  • Tonal balance is a bit too focused on high-midrange.
  • Low-end doesn’t reach deep enough.
  • Easy to accidentally block right speaker with your fingers
  • Too quiet at minimum volume.

Recording

Pros

  • Good performance when using the memo app.
  • Decent management of wind noise.
  • Good Dynamics performance.

Cons

  • Tonal Balance is overall muffled and lacks clarity.
  • Spatial performance in unsatisfactory in main camera video and selfie video.

 

The Oppo Reno 8 Pro 5G delivers an overall decent performance for its class. In Playback it is equally suited to listening to music, watching movies and gaming, thanks to decent dynamic with good bass precision at nominal volume and louder, nice midrange, and good upper bass presence. The speakers also render a fairly wide sound scene and allow for pinpointing specific sound sources in that scene. On the downside, the tonal balance focuses a touch too much on the high-midrange, slightly neglecting the low-end. Our testers also found the right speaker to be very easily blocked, so be careful where you place your finger when holding the phone.

In the Recording department the Oppo performs on a similar but slightly higher level. It’s best for recording meetings and voice memos but can also be a useful tool when capturing concerts or family events, thanks to good wind noise management and dynamics. Tonal balance sounds a little muffled, though and in both selfie and main camera video recordings wideness and localizability of sound sources in the stereo scene could be better.

Test summary

About DXOMARK Audio tests: For scoring and analysis in our smartphone audio reviews, DXOMARK engineers perform a variety of objective tests and undertake more than 20 hours of perceptual evaluation under controlled lab conditions.
(For more details about our Playback protocol, click here; for more details about our Recording protocol, click here.)

The following section gathers key elements of our exhaustive tests and analyses performed in DXOMARK laboratories. Detailed performance evaluations under the form of reports are available upon request. Do not hesitate to contact us.


Playback

120

Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G

163

Black Shark 5 Pro
How Audio Playback score is composed

DXOMARK engineers test playback through the smartphone speakers, whose performance is evaluated in our labs and in real-life conditions, using default apps and settings.

The Reno 8 Pro 5G is overall a decent device for playing back music and other sound. It offers and overall nice timbre, even though the tonal balance is a touch too much focused on the high-midrange and lacks a little high-end extension as well as low-midrange. The latter is particularly noticeable when playing games. The loss of bass and treble becomes more obvious at lower volumes but at the other end of the volume spectrum tonal balance remains decent up to the max setting.

The Reno does well for Dynamics, too, thanks to overall decent attack, bass precision and punch. This said, both attack and bass precision suffer at maximum volume. The Oppo’s wideness allows for the rendition of an average stereo scene considering device dimensions and elements can be located quite precisely.

Our testers found volume performance to be pretty average, with satisfactory volume step consistency. At its maximum volume the Reno 8 Pro is not a particularly loud device and its minimum volume step is too quiet. Like most other attributes, artifacts performance is average. Our testers notices some slight global distortion maximum volume and it is quite easy to completely occlude the right speaker with your fingers when holding the phone.

Listen to the tested smartphone’s playback performance in this comparison with some of its competitors:

Oppo Reno 8 Pro 5G
Xiaomi 12 Pro
Nubia Redmagic 7 Pro
Recordings of the smartphones playing some of our music tracks at 60 LAeq in an anechoic environment by 2 microphones in A-B configuration, at 30 cm

Here is how the Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G performs in playback use cases compared to its competitors:

Playback use-cases scores

Timbre

111

Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G

158

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Timbre score represents how well a phone reproduces sound across the audible tonal range and takes into account bass, midrange, treble, tonal balance, and volume dependency. It is the most important attribute for playback.

Music playback frequency response
A 1/12 octave frequency response graph, which measures the volume of each frequency emitted by the smartphone when playing a pure-sine wave in an anechoic environment.

Dynamics

121

Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G

149

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Dynamics score measures the accuracy of changes in the energy level of sound sources, for example how precisely a bass note is reproduced or the impact sound from drums.


Spatial

138

Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G

162

Black Shark 5 Pro

The sub-attributes for spatial tests include pinpointing a specific sound's location, its positional balance, distance, and wideness.


Volume

117

Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G

162

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Volume score represents the overall loudness of a smartphone and how smoothly volume increases and decreases based on user input.

Here are a few sound pressure levels (SPL) measured when playing our sample recordings of hip-hop and classical music at maximum volume:
Hip-Hop Classical
Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G 72.5 dBA 72.1 dBA
Xiaomi 12 Pro 69.1 dBA 65.9 dBA
Nubia RedMagic 7 Pro 76.4 dBA 73.4 dBA
The following graph shows the gradual changes in volume going from minimum to maximum. We expect these changes to be consistent across the range, so that all volume steps correspond to users’ expectations:
Music volume consistency
This line graph shows the relative loudness of playback relative to the user selected volume step, measured at different volume steps with a correlated pink noise in an anechoic box recorded in axis at 0.20 meter.

Artifacts

114

Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G

157

Asus ROG Phone 5

The Artifacts score measures the extent to which the sound is affected by various types of distortion. The higher the score, the less the disturbances in the sound are noticeable. Distortion can occur because of sound processing in the device and because of the quality of the speakers.

Playback Total Harmonic Distortion (Maximum Volume)
This graph shows the Total Harmonic Distortion and Noise over the hearable frequency range.
It represents the distortion and noise of the device playing our test signal (0 dB Fs, Sweep Sine in an anechoic box at 40 cm) at the device's maximum volume.


Recording

131

Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G

160

Honor Magic6 Pro
How Audio Recording score is composed

DXOMARK engineers test recording by evaluating the recorded files on reference audio equipment. Those recordings are done in our labs and in real-life conditions, using default apps and settings.

The Reno 8 Pro 5G does slightly better as a recording device than for Playback. It particularly shines when using the memo app, thanks to a balanced timbre with decent high-mid and high-end extension offering clarity and brightness. Unfortunately tonal balance tends to be more muffled and lacking clarity  when recording main camera or selfie videos.

Recording Dynamics are good overall, despite some background noise in selfie video and memo use. The envelope is precise, allowing for good intelligibility but attack could be sharper. The device offers an overall good Spatial performance, recording a fairly wide sound scene with main camera video. It´s more limited with selfie video, though, and it´s a little difficult to precisely locate voices in the stereo field. Voices also appear more distant than they actually are. Things improve when using the memo app, with better localizability of sound elements and actually quite impressive wideness, making the Oppo a good option for recording meetings, memos or similar.

Recording loudness is correct in all apps used and the Reno 8 Pro 5G is almost free from artifacts in its recordings, even at high sound pressure levels. The phone is also quite good at dealing with unwanted wind noise. Wind noise can be quite loud in the recording but voices are still fairly easy to understand. However, you should keep in mind that using audio zoom is likely going to introduce some unwanted effects, such as volume drops or pumping.

It’s also worth noting that using the audio zoom feature impairs tonal balance, resulting in a more inconsistent midrange. Audio zoom also impairs the background which can sound slightly unnatural before being reduced correctly. On the plus side, the audio zoom feature does overall a decent job at blocking background noise, allowing you to focus on one particular sound source.

Here is how the Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G performs in recording use cases compared to its competitors:

Recording use-cases scores


Timbre

126

Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G

147

Honor Magic3 Pro+

The Timbre score represents how well a phone captures sounds across the audible tonal range and takes into account bass, midrange, treble, and tonal balance. It is the most important attribute for recording.

Life video frequency response
A 1/12 octave frequency response graph, which measures the volume of each frequency captured by the smartphone when recording a pure-sine wave in an anechoic environment.


Dynamics

120

Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G

146

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Dynamics score measures the accuracy of changes in the energy level of sound sources, for example how precisely a voice's plosives (the p's, t's and k's, for example) are reproduced. The score also considers the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), for example how loud the main voice is compared to the background noise.


Spatial

130

Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G

159

Vivo X Fold

The sub-attributes for spatial tests include pinpointing a specific sound's location, its positional balance, distance, and wideness on the recorded audio files.

Recording directivity
Directivity graph of the smartphone when recording test signals using the camera app, with the main camera. It represents the acoustic energy (in dB) over the angle of incidence of the sound source. (Normalized to the angle 0°, in front of the device.)


Volume

117

Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G

170

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Volume score represents how loud audio is normalized on the recorded files and the how the device handles loud environments, such as electronic concerts, when recording.

Here are the sound levels recorded in the audio and video files, measured in LUFS (Loudness Unit Full Scale); as a reference, we expect loudness levels to be above -24 LUFS for recorded content:
Meeting Life Video Selfie Video Memo
Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G -23.2 LUFS -21.8 LUFS -18.9 LUFS -17.8 LUFS
Xiaomi 12 Pro -25.8 LUFS -23.1 LUFS -20.4 LUFS -20.2 LUFS
Nubia RedMagic 7 Pro -33.6 LUFS -25 LUFS -20.5 LUFS -28.1 LUFS


Artifacts

145

Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G

Best

The Artifacts score measures the extent to which the recorded sounds are affected by various types of distortions. The higher the score, the less the disturbances in the sound are noticeable. Distortions can occur because of sound processing in the device and the quality of the microphones, as well as user handling, such as how the phone is held.

In this audio comparison, you can listen to the way this smartphone handles wind noise relative to its competitors:

Recordings of a voice sample with light background noise, facing a turbulent wind of 5 m/s


Background

131

Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G

166

Black Shark 5 Pro

Background evaluates how natural the various sounds around a voice blend into the video recording file. For example, when recording a speech at an event, the background should not interfere with the main voice, yet it should provide some context of the surroundings.

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