Besides being smartphone brands, what does Cherry Mobile, Samsung, Motorola, Lenovo, Vivo and Oppo all have in common?
Nadine Lustre.
In the political landscape, people would have branded her balimbing but in the world of marketing, “effective” would probably be the more appropriate term.
While checking out the news about the upcoming Oppo Reno 6 series, I saw a photo of Nadine Lustre and James Reid on the site. Nadine had already been an Oppo endorser since the Reno 4, while Reid had previously been with Huawei for the last few years, so I guess that partnership is over—and JaDine’s back together…well, at least for another endorsement.
Celebrities have always proven to be a golden ticket that increases brand awareness and resonates with consumers, and Nadine is one of the most sought-after endorsers.
Smartphone companies aren’t the only ones lining up to get her. Recently, Nadine was also introduced as the new face of JBL Philippines (www.jbl.com.ph). Described as bold and fearless, JBL says Nadine’s unique style, professionalism and unquestionable confidence embodies the brand’s values. Nadine, after all, is also a musician and part of the independent record label Careless Music founded by Reid.
Like Nadine, the new JBL lineup stands out and provide the best experience through high-quality products that suit different sound preferences.
As most of us are still on a work-from-home arrangement, professionals meetings, classes, events, and a lot of social gatherings have already migrated to the virtual space. The true wireless JBL Live Pro+ TWS earbuds is a great choice to upgrade your WFH setup. With 28 hours playtime, it features intuitive touch and voice assistant control. For fitness enthusiasts and athletes—whether they’re into yoga, running, or barre—there’s the JBL Reflect Mini NC TWS in-ear sport headphones with 21 hours of playtime, an IPX7 waterproof rating, and Active Noise Cancelling feature.
For newbies, the JBL Tune 225 TWS earbuds and the JBL Tune 115 TWS in-ear headphones are the perfect introductory pieces to integrate with your daily routine. Both offer freedom from wires, therefore allowing you to move, dance, cook, clean and do a lot of activities around your home without limitation.
Oppo Reno 5 4G: Can Nadine convince you to switch? As Oppo’s ambassador, Nadine came up with a music video to launch the Reno 5 series, called “Badabing,” which highlighted the phone’s various features. I‘m not sure if the dance moves trended though, because the one I kept on seeing was the ad with Sonya and Anna every single time I opened YouTube. Now, this was way effective as I actually got curious about the phone. It was a good thing that our friends from TeamAsia sent us an Oppo Reno 5 4G review unit.
Now you’ve probably read a lot of reviews about the Oppo Reno 5 4G and most of them will tell you, some even overzealously, that it’s a good phone and I agree. But is it the Oppo phone that will make you switch brands?
As far as design and build, the Oppo Reno 5 4G is one of the slimmest (7.7mm) and lightest (171g) you’ll find. You can choose from the color-refracting pearlescent Fantasy Silver or shiny Starry Black colorway. Now, unless you absolutely hate any other color besides black, you should definitely go for the Fantasy Silver option because no amount of shimmer can make the Black variant exciting. I even went to an Oppo store just to check out the Fantasy Silver variant in real life, and I saw that it not only produced gradients of varying colors but also had a textured back finish that looks like frosted glass. On the other hand, the black one looks very ordinary—or maybe I’ve just had it with shiny black phones.
The Oppo Reno 5 4G has a 6.4” FHD+AMOLED screen with 2400×1080 resolution; a 20:9 ratio and a 90H refresh rate. As expected, animations and transitions are smooth and you’ll appreciate it more when playing games. You also get vibrant colors and good viewing angles, so if you do binge-watch this phone is like having a mini-cinema.
There is an in-display fingerprint scanner that is fast and responsive provided you properly registered your fingerprints. As for audio, it only has a single down-firing speaker that is loud and crisp but weak when it comes to bass. It’s good enough for watching videos, listening to music, and gaming, and you could always switch to a pair of earphones for better audio. Powering the Reno 5 4G is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G octa-core CPU, Adreno 618 GPU, and 8GB of RAM +128GB storage. It’s a good configuration for a mid-range device and performance was snappy. I never encountered any lag or slowdown when opening or switching between apps and multitasking. Battery-wise, it has a 4,310mAh capacity with support for 50W fast charging. You get a 50W SuperVOOC charger in the package that can fully charge the phone in less than an hour.
If there’s one reason to buy this smartphone, it’s the cameras—more specifically the camera modes. You get a quad-rear camera setup consisting of a 64MP F1.7 main, 8MP F2.2 ultra-wide, 2MP F2.4 macro, and 2MP F2.4 portrait. It performs great in bright conditions and you’ll see accurate colors, great contrast, and it will spoil you with details.
Oppo is targeting content creators for this device and I must agree that you could create a lot of unique content with this phone. You’ll spend hours just trying different ways to shoot photos and videos, and the SoLoop app has quickly become my favorite editor.
For photos, the Image-Clear Engine (ICE) embedded in the operating system optimizes its ability to obtain a quick snapshot, allowing users to take clearer portrait photos even when the subject is moving. It’s a great feature for capturing sports or taking pictures of kids playing. Leveraging AI Scene Enhancement, it automatically adjusts color/saturation/brightness and can recognize and optimize 22 different scenes.
There are also a lot of video modes you can experiment with, and I had fun using Dual-View Video. This enables you to record videos from the front and rear camera simultaneously. It supports three different split-screen layouts: Split, Round and Rectangle and its great to use for vlogging, singing a duet with your friend, or recording a review with your face and the subject in the same image at the same time.
If you are an Oppo user looking to get an upgrade and don’t mind the lack of 5G, the Oppo Reno 5 4G is a good option especially with the recent price drop that brings it down to P16,999. If you are not in a rush, however, you might want to wait a few more weeks for the release of the Reno 6 next month, which might further bring the price even lower. However, I don’t think its the phone that will make you switch brands, notwithstanding Nadine’s charm’s, because there are just a lot other options with better-looking designs, specs and price points.