In sports like athletics, tennis, Cycling or even football , there are some great competitors that fail to get the recognition that they deserve simply because there is a superstar in the same generation.  Take for example Andre De Grasse, the Canadian sprinter,  who competed with Usain Bolt for both the 100m and 200m titles. The extraordinary performance of Bolt meant that nobody realized how good DeGrasse is until after Bolt retired. Another example is the cyclist Nairo Quintana, who competed with Chris Froome for the Tour De France titles on many occasions. At the peak of their powers Nairo was a phenomenal climber but Froom was all rounder, able to  do great time trials, climb and even sprint. Froome won 5 Tour De France  titles with Quintana being a runner up in most of them. Here at home some may remember the epic duels between  Paul Tergat and Haile Gebrselassie in late 90s and early 2000s. Haile Gebrselassie was and still considered the Greatest of all time in long distance track races,  5000m and 10,000m but he had to really sweat to win those races against Paul Tergat.

In Technology field we had the same situations, especially the competition between companies. In Kenya for example the excellent performance of Safaricom mobile network has overshadowed the other mobile network operators over the years. There were times when some thought that Airtel for example had superior products or cheaper rates but that did not move a needle. The Government under pressure from Airtel and Telkom Kenya ( Orange at the time) went to the extent of introducing the number portability but again that did not change anything.  It is not far off to think that it reaches a point where a person or a business just accepts that there is a better competitor. 

And today I want to talk about a phone which is not receiving the same level of publicity as its superior sibling. Recently OPPO launched two models of Reno8 T, the 5G model and 4G model.  The 5G model has attracted a lot of attention due to its awesome specs while the 4G version has just been chilling in its shadows despite the fact that it is outstanding on its own rights. First, let me look at the comparison between OPPO reno8 T 4G model vs OPPO reno8 T 5G

OPPO Reno8 T 4G Model

Operating System – Android 13

Display Size – 6.43 inches

Processor – Helio G99, Octa-Core

RAM  – 8GB + 4 GB virtual

Front Camera – 32 MP

Rear Camera -100MP + 2MP + 2MP

Storage -256 GB

Battery -5000 mAh

Price -Ksh.37,999

OPPO Reno8 T 5G Model

Operating System – Android 13

Display Size – 6.7 inches

Processor – Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 5G (6nm)

RAM  – 8GB + 8GB Virtual

Front Camera – 32 MP

Rear Camera -108MP + 2MP + 2MP

Storage -256 GB

Battery -4800 mAh

Price -Ksh.49,999

 A few days ago, I received the OPPO Reno8 T 4G model from the great people of OPPO Kenya. Since I am already using OPPO Reno8 5G ( Do not confuse it with OPPO Reno8 T 5G), I was happy with the Reno8 T 4G model.  But then I started reading the press releases, the blogs and the media in general and all the talks were about the 5G model.  And just like sports or even business you have to accept that some competitors will be much better or products meant for some segment of the market will receive more attention. From the summary of the specs above, you can tell that Reno8 T 4G  is a great  phone  but wait until you see or touch the phone itself, it is premium to the core. 

Unboxing

We did the unboxing and you can watch the video here

Design

Many times, I have talked about myself not caring much about the design of a phone, mostly because these days’ majority of them looks the same. Also functionality to me matters more than anything else but still, I have found myself doing a slow clap for OPPO for the great job they did with the phone and to be honest, with all the Reno8 series

Reno8 T comes with the narrowest bezels I have seen within that range, with an 84.1% screen-to-body ratio. The larger screen by extension ensures that users have better experience while using the phone.

Apart from the elegance, OPPO Reno 8T 4G is very light, weighing 180g with a thickness of 7.8mm. That is something considering the size which is 160.8 X 73.8 X 7.8mm. To complete the beauty talks, Reno 8T 4G is available in two unique choice colors: Black Starlight, and Orange Sunset.

Camera

Because there are better rear cameras on the back of OPPO Reno8 T 5G, I am hesitant to call this phone a camera phone but it is. Consider this for the rear camera setup

100 MP, f/1.7, 26mm (wide), AF primary camera

2 MP, f/3.3, 34mm (microscope) lens

2 MP, f/2.4, (depth) sensor.

Majority of flagships phones from different phone manufacturers now pack 108 MP cameras including Reno8 T 5G but below that, you would not find many phones that can match Reno 8 T 4G camera.

The combination of LED flash, HDR, and panorama give the users choices and options to pick from regardless of the background and the lighting. Most of the time, users find themselves in poorly lit environment or in need to take a large background, Reno8 T 4G have you covered. The HDR features help improve the overall picture quality by introducing better peak brightness, colour gamut, and color depth.

For the vloggers and mobile journalists, the main camera records high quality 1080p@30fps videos. Meanwhile, the Oppo Reno 8T has a 32-megapixel selfie camera sensor at the front, with an f/2.4 lens.

CPU

Whenever I get a phone to review, the first thing I do is to load it with so many tasks to see how the processor handle the workload. I did the same for Reno8 T including playing a number of games and the performance was impressive. The phone is powered by MediaTek MT8781 Helio G99 (6nm) chipset.  With an Octa-core (2×2.2 GHz Cortex-A76 & 6×2.0 GHz Cortex-A55) CPU and Mali-G57 MC2 GPU, the phone able to efficiently handle numerous tasks at once. 

Storage

One of the thing that keep me awake at night is what people are looking for when they want to buy a phone. With time, especially in Kenya, three things stand out, the price, the camera and the storage. Storage is very important to people because smartphones have become one stop shop for many. When they take good photos they want to store them on the phone, when they feel like watching movies, they get the videos from the movie guys and store them on the phone and they do not want to keep deleting WhatsApp videos and other memes. At the end, for the users, the phone is everything and for storing everything.

Battery

First, I was surprised to see that Reno8 T 4G has bigger battery 5000mAh than the one for Reno8 T 5G, which is 4800mAh. It supports fast charging, with a 33W Supervooc wired charger capable of charging 1-54% of the battery in 30 min. It also supports reverse, wired charging.

Price and Conclusion

I think OPPO Reno8 T 4G is an ultimate mid-range phone to have in 2023. At a retail price of Ksh. 37,999, the phone is basically up there with most flagship high end phones. When you look at the Camera, Storage, Memory Size, operating system and even processor, the phone is among the best at that price range. If you are looking for a phone today, I would recommend you buy OPPO Reno8 T 4G without blinking. Before I go somebody might be asking about the 4G and not 5G, the truth is in Kenya, you will rarely connect to 5G at the moment. Safaricom launched 5G but the areas that have coverage are still very limited and will take a while before 5G really become a thing for most people