- Upgraded selfie camera
- Decent durability
- Bigger battery
- Aging processor
- Glittery back cover
- Minimal upgrades for a higher RRP
OPPO phones tend to come in two flavors. Either you’re looking at something with absolutely stacked specs and cutting-edge design, or you’re looking at something a whole lot leaner. Long before it started striking out with premium fare like the OPPO Find X9 Pro, the brand’s biggest selling points were long battery life, fast-charging and a design that didn’t veer too far from what people like about Apple’s iPhone.
You don’t have to spend too much time with the OPPO Reno 15 F 5G to know which category it falls into. That lack of ambition isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. While there are compromises here, the Reno 15 F doesn’t mess too much with what’s always worked in OPPO’s favor. It's a familiar formula, but still one that mostly gets the job done.
And while it’s hard to talk about the OPPO Reno 15 F without first touching on its resemblances to Apple’s hardware, the real story here is how much it has in common with 2025’s Reno 13 F. If you were worried that the rising cost of components might see brands like OPPO opt for more modest hardware and less innovation, you don’t have to squint too hard here to see those fears realised.
Relative to its predecessor, the OPPO Reno 15 F is built around a smaller 6.57-inch AMOLED screen. It’s got slightly less resolution, a better screen-to-body ratio, an identical refresh rate of 120Hz, plus a higher peak brightness of 1,400 nits and 10-bit color depth.
In practice, this display is genuinely nice to look at (though it can be fairly intense in the darker environments and even on the lowest settings). The overall feel-factor is similarly accomplished. Even if the edges that wrap around the Reno 15 F aren’t as premium as those on the latest iPhone, they capture most of the aesthetic appeal - which is probably what you want if you’re looking at this specific corner of the mid-range.
Despite that, the OPPO Reno 15 F rarely comes across as cheap. To hold and handle, there’s genuine heft as well as a handful of premium perks. On the durability side of things, there’s IP69 water and dust resistance and Corning Gorilla Glass Plus on the screen. There’s a set of stereo speakers, an in-display fingerprint sensor, as well as expandable storage via MicroSD.
If anything, the biggest upgrade here is the selfie camera. The 32MP selfie-shooter seen on the OPPO Reno 13 F has been traded out for a 50MP sensor with a wider aperture and a larger field of view.
In terms of omissions, you’re looking at the usual suspects - the biggest of which is wireless charging. That being said, the OPPO Reno 15 F does come with the same fast-charging found in its premium devices with up to 80W via SuperVOOC 2.0.
Of course, one area where the look of the Reno 15 F departs pretty clearly from the iPhone is the back. Rather than the usual clean tones, the device goes in on glitter effervescence. Visually, it’s the most unique thing going on here. However, to be honest, I didn’t love the way it looks or the texture involved. Fortunately, the alternative color variant is a little more subtle. In any case, it makes for a eye-catching contrast contrast to the slim but conventional camera bump.
This rear-mounted array is seemingly identical to the one found on last year’s OPPO Reno 13. It features a 50MP (f/1.8) wide-angle lens, an 8MP (f/2.4) ultrawide-angle lens, and a 2MP macro (f/2.4) lens.
OPPO Reno 15 F 5G camera samples
Check out these camera samples taken on the OPPO Reno 15 F 5G. Click or tap on any photo to see a larger version.
Under the hood, the OPPO Reno 15 F offers few surprises. It’s powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 1, which is the same chipset found in last year’s Reno 13 F. It’s got 8GB of memory, which is also on par with its predecessor. Finally, there’s 256GB of storage. This is, as you might suspect, the same amount as the previous model.
For all that the exterior of the OPPO Reno 15 F is a sharper refinement, no such evolution can be found on the interior of the device. For what it's worth though, the Reno 15 F does come with a generous five years of OS upgrades and six years of security updates. However, given the significant increase in price between this and the last incarnation of the Reno F, that lack of a tune-up is a bitter pill to swallow.
Worse still, it makes the moments where the everyday performance of this particular mid-ranger falls short a little harder to excuse or live with. To cut to the chase, the performance you’re getting from the parts inside the OPPO Reno 15 F wasn’t quite what I hoped it would be. Apps were often a little slower to load than I expected and the hardware here sometimes struggled to keep up with my desire to multitask. Over time, it’s hard to shake the sense that you’re relying on a chipset that’s maybe more forgivable in a $600 device than one that’s almost $700.
When it came to gaming, fare like Destiny Rising and Diablo Immortal were more-or-less playable, but they definitely weren’t as smooth as I’d expected. What’s more, the heat that would build up in the Reno 15 F during gameplay was just as hard to ignore. I think you could get away with gaming on this thing, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it out as a strength.
By comparison, there is one key area where OPPO has delivered a fairly significant upgrade. The previous model boasted a battery of 5,800mAh. The Reno 15 F packs in an even more generous 6,500mAh. This detail translates exactly how you’d hope it would, with the Reno 15 F able to easily last through two days of regular usage.
Burned down from 100% to zero using video streamed over WiFi, the OPPO Reno 15 F 5G lasted 28 hours and 5 minutes. Given the bump to battery size seen on the spec sheet, that’s a solid result that puts the Reno 15 F ahead of its competition.
OPPO Reno 15 F 5G - Final Thoughts
If you’re not intrigued by the unique take on a largely conservative design, the battery is probably where the next-strongest argument for buying the OPPO Reno 15 F can be found. However, if you’re already willing to spend this much and care about performance, it probably isn’t that difficult to justify detouring towards something like the Nothing Phone 3a instead.
The OPPO Reno 15 F is almost $100 more expensive than its predecessor and it doesn’t have all that much to show for it. Sure, the battery life and selfie camera are superior but they’re paired up with parts that feel much less competitive and compelling at $679 than they did at $599.
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Fergus Halliday
Digital Content Editor
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