Any links to online stores should be assumed to be affiliates. The company or PR agency provides all or most review samples. They have no control over my content, and I provide my honest opinion.
With the OPPO Reno Z launching with the MediaTek Helio P90 it is worth looking to see how it stacks up against Qualcomm’s offerings and how it compares to the more expensive OPPO Reno.
Based on the pricing of the Reno Z and the specification of the chip, the most likely contender is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 710.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 was launched in May 2018 and was aimed toward the Asian market offering premium features and performance but at a lower price point than the flagship chipset, which was the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 at the time.
It has become quite a popular chipset and you will find OPPO using it in both the normal Reno and the R17 Pro. You will also find it in the Xiaomi Mi 8 SE, Vivo Nex A, Nokia 8.1, Realme 3 Pro and the Realme X. So lots of great phones using it.
The MediaTek Helio P90 (MT6779) was launched in December of 2018 and represents the flagship product from MediaTek. They do have the X range but the X30 (MT6799) was launched in 2017. The Helio P90 hasn’t gained quite as much traction compared to the Qualcomm, from what I can find you have two choices, the OPPO Reno Z or the Ulefone T3.
[content-egg module=Amazon template=list]
CPU
Fabricated on TSMC’s 12 nm process, the chip incorporates eight cores – four Cortex-A55 little cores operating at up to 2 GHz and four Cortex-A75 cores operating at up to 2.2 GHz.
The Snapdragon 710 is fabricated on Samsung’s 10nm LPE process and features six Kryo 360 Silver high-efficiency cores operating at 1.7 GHz, which are effectively the same as the Cortex-A55, and then two high-performance Kryo 360 Gold operating at 2.2 GHz which are Cortex-A75.
Theoretically, this should put the two chipsets side by side in performance for CPU related tasks. The main difference is the fabrication process, combining that and Qualcomm’s famous power efficiency, the Snapdragon 710 should outclass the P90 by a significant margin for battery life.
GPU
The P90 incorporates a PowerVR GM 9446 GPU operating at up to 970 MHz.
The Snapdragon 710 integrates the Adreno 616 GPU operation at 500 MHz.
Drawing conclusions from the two GPU specification is harder as the underlying architecture is not quite the same and comparing clocks does not necessarily mean anything in real-life performance.
Chipset Specification Table
[table id=100 /]
Benchmarks
With the Reno Z being quite new, there are not many benchmarks available for either the phone or the chipset itself.
The only reference I can find is for an Antutu score of 166935 which is a touch behind the 167500 scores achieved by the OPPO Reno which is a more expensive phone.
Earlier benchmarks for the Helio P90 running on a device with 6GB of RAM achieved a score of 162861.
OPPO Reno Z vs OPPO Reno
[table id=101 /]
Pricing
The Reno Z is launching in the UK for £299 whereas the normal Oppo Reno costs £80 more at £379.00.
The specification of the two phones is almost identical apart from the chipset, which both performs almost identically and then that shark fin pop up. Due to the pop-up, the two phones have different selfie cameras, the Reno Z uses a 32 MP f/2.0 camera, while the more expensive Reno uses a 16 MP, f/2.0, 26mm wide camera.
So if you can live without the pop up you are looking at saving £80 for effectively the same phone.
[content-egg module=Amazon template=list]
