Oppo Reno8 Lite

Nice simple phone with 2 important features that a lot of high end modern phones left behind – I needed a simple phone without too many bells and whistles. I don't wring all the bells or blow all the extra whistles so I dont buy into the hype of a lot of the flagship phones. Moreover, I am finding that the more expensive flagship phones from the likes of Apple, Samsung, and Google have actually removed some really useful features. As the saying goes, they really don't make them like they used to. And this is a large part of the reason why I bought the Oppo Reno 8 Lite 5g - in particular, there are two main features that seem to have disappeared from higher end phones that are big ticket items for me.

What are the two features? 1.) 3.5 mm headphone jack. This is one of the few modern phones with a headphone jack. I'm an audiophile, sometimes music producer. Needless to say, I like music. Strike that. I love music. I love music in in all its glory and I have invested in high-end audiophile grade headphones so I can listen to that music in all its glory. It baffles me as to why manufacturers of high end phones have done away with 3.5 mm headphone jacks (actually, it doesnt baffle me that much, I know Apple want you to buy their airpods, and similarly, Samsung/Google wants you to buy their headphones). Yes, you can use an adapter, but then you lose the ability to simultaneously charge your phone while listening to music through a pair of quality headphones, as the adaptors need to use the same port that charges the phone. And yes, you can still use bluetooth headphones if you want to (I do this for gym sessions and sound is still pretty decent).

2.) Expandable memory There is a reason why a lot of the high-end modern phones do not have expandable memory. The Samsungs, the Apples, and Googles ultimately want you to buy their cloud storage solutions when you run out of space on your phone. Naturally, they're going to want to limit how much stuff you can store on their phones so you actually do end up spending money on their cloud storage solutions - either that or you spend on one of their new phones once you run out of space - either way, its a win for them from a revenue perspective. To me, this is also evidence of a form of planned obsolescence for their phones, so you are forced to by a new phone once you have consumed all the space. I have a lot of music, and some of this is not even released to a label. I dont want to have to pay a subscription fee to store and access this content on the cloud. I'd much prefer to store it locally on hardware from I which I have complete control over the content stored. The Oppo Reno 8 Lite 5G accomodates up to 1 TB of additional storage - this is on top of the 128 GB you get on the phone. Yes, you have to pay a one off cost for a mini SD card, but for me, this is better than paying an ongoing subscription for cloud storage and access to that storage of your own files (I still wonder - what if you want to cancel your subscription? how are you going to access your data/files? and you'd probably need to download that content to your own hard drive if you chose to do that anyway - so why not do it directly on an SD card from the beginning?).

The only reason why this phone didn't get a 5 star review is that it does not have wireless charging. Other than that, it pretty much does everyting I need it to do and nothing I don't. The camera is decent. The Snapdragon processer is pretty good and I really like the fact that the phone does not have a whole lot of useless manufacterer bloatware that you will likely never use in your entire life. Setting up and migrating apps from my old phone was a breeze. It also comes with a protective case and the phone comes packaged with a pre-fitted screed protector. All in all, good phone that I would recommend. I don't think you can really beat this phone at the pricepoint. Pretty good bang for your buck really.

I feel conned – I bought this to replace a washed Oppo Reno Z. It does not do much of a job and definitely costs too much for a disappointment. I think I was spoiled by the quality which Oppo CAN offer for a much lower price than my favoured Samsung. This is not that phone. I mean, it's even called LITE but I didn't listen! If you enjoy something good about a phone you are never going to find that in a cut down, lite, A series, or junior version.

This phone appears to be one of those copies of a great camera phone which does not offer a decent portion of the original camera phone's features or brilliance.

I asked for a less expensive phone than big brands, which would do what my last Oppo did. Sounds like the sales person wasn't listening because this was a waste of money.

Look again if you are looking for camera features. I'm not convinced this has any and I'm finding the basics hard to locate, months later.