Most of Oppo’s Reno13 range coming to Australia sits at a mid-range price – but Oppo is insistent that it’s anything but mid.
While last week’s tech hype was all about the Oppo Find N5 (which apparently we’re unlikely to see officially in Australia), this week the Chinese phone maker has chosen to announce the imminent availability of its Reno13 range in Australia.
It’s also insistent, as per Oppo Australia’s MD Michael Tran, that these phones are anything but mid.
Specifically, we’re talking about the Oppo Reno13 Pro, the Oppo Reno13 5G and the Oppo Reno 13 F 5G.
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How much do the new Oppo Reno13 phones cost in Australia?
As you might expect, the pro model Oppo Reno13 Pro is the most expensive model in the bunch. It’ll set you back $1,299.
The Oppo Reno13 5G is rather markedly cheaper at $899, while the Oppo Reno13 F 5G will run you $599.
That does place all three phones below the asking price of the more premium Oppo Find X8 Pro I recently reviewed.
When will the new Oppo Reno13 phones be available in Australia?
All three phones will be available to buy from the 27th of March 2025 in Australia.
What’s new or interesting about the Oppo Reno13 phones?
While Oppo’s contention is that these aren’t “mid-range” phones – and I’m honestly not sure that I could call a $1,299 phone a mid-range priced phone right now, that’s comfortably in the premium price bracket – that price range does bring with it some interesting inclusions and exclusions.
All three phones have a tested level of water resistance, with all three phones meeting the IP69 standard.
The Reno 13 F is the most interesting to me there, because you don’t commonly see decent levels of water resistance in phones at that price point.
On the processor front, both the Reno13 Pro and Reno13 5G rely on a MediaTek Dimensity 8350 processor and 12GB of RAM, while the lower cost Reno13 F 5G runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 processor with 6GB of RAM. The fancy Reno13 Pro gets 512GB of storage, while the Reno13 5G and Reno13 F 5G have 256GB of storage.
In terms of screen sizes, the Reno13 Pro packs in a 6.83 inch 120Hz capable AMOLED, the Reno13 5G has a 6.59 inch 120Hz capable AMOLED and the Reno13 F 5G runs with a 6.67 inch 120Hz display, though its type is not specified – which almost certainly means it’s likely to be an LCD rather than an AMOLED panel.
In camera terms, as you might expect, the Reno13 Pro is the star of the show with a 50MP wide lens, 50MP telephoto lens, 8MP ultra-wide lens and 50MP selfie lens at the front.
Switching down to the Reno13 5G drops the telephoto (boo!) in favour of a 50MP primary lens, 8MP ultra-wide lens and 2MP monochrome lens, with a 50MP selfie lens around the front.
Finally the Reno13 F 5G gets a 50MP wide lens, 8MP ultra-wide lens, 2MP macro lens and 32MP selfie lens to play with.
On the battery front, it looks like we’re finally breaking through the 5,000mAh expected Android battery life barrier, with the Reno13 Pro packing in a 5,800mAh battery, as does the Reno13 F 5G. The Reno13 5G is the odd duck in this arrangement, as it only gets a 5,600mAh rated battery.
As always with battery tests, the reality of usage is what matters, however, and it will be interesting to see the different battery draw between the MediaTek and Qualcomm processors on these new handsets.
All three phones run Android 15 with Oppo’s ColorOS launcher on top; it’s not clear from Oppo’s release what the update pathway is for these phones, but I’ve put a query into Oppo Australia to find out.
Update: Oppo Australia representatives tell me that the Reno13 phones will receive five years of major operating system updates and six years of security updates.
Oppo Reno13: Alex’s Early Take
Firstly, and this is just a pet peeve kind of thing, can somebody buy both Oppo and Samsung a keyboard with a working space bar? Writing out “Reno13” rather than “Reno 13” makes my brain twitch… but I digress.
Oppo’s real strength in terms of the phones it has released in Australia has long been its mid-range phones, and while I can – and will – bemoan the idea that a phone that costs north of $1,000 could be called “mid-range”, I guess that’s inflation for you.
There are some interesting features to be had in these phones; it’s great to see Oppo committing to more phones with proper water and dust resistance, because it really wasn’t that long ago that their phones tended to omit that feature, even in their pricier models.
It’s especially interesting as Oppo is pushing these as suitable “underwater” phones for photographic purposes, which could get very interesting in terms of warranties and Australian consumer law when and if — and we’re talking water resistance, it’s basically a question of when — these phones fail.
The expanded batteries are also an interesting step, but again a “bigger” battery won’t do you much good if the phone itself is a power-hungry beast, so I’ll have to wait and see on that score.
If we’re defining “mid-range” these days as between $500-$1,300, then we’re heating up for some interesting battles with plenty of contenders coming to the fore, including Apple’s announcement last week of the iPhone 16e.
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