OPPO RX17 REVIEW.

Introduction

The un-flagship-y flagship from Oppo - the Oppo RX17 Pro or also known as the Oppo R17 Pro in China with the same hardware, though. A feature-rich device with a sleek design, capable hardware and rather questionable use case of the third camera on the back. However, there are quite a few things that raise the coolness factor of the handset and the in-display fingerprint is one of them. Also, it's no secret that this phone is a close relative to the OnePlus 6T but the RX17 Pro has a few unique selling features of its own too - a clear case of sibling rivalry.
Don't expect any awe-inspiring sliding mechanism in Find X-esque fashion or Snapdragon 845-like performance but the 3D TOF sensor on the back of the phone has some potential that we hope Oppo will unlock with future updates because for now, the functionality is rather limited. On the other hand, the usable under-display fingerprint reader and the stupid fast SuperVOOC charging make for a less gimmicky user experience.

Oppo RX17 Pro specs:

Body: 157.6 x 74.6 x 7.9 mm, 183 g, glass front and back panel with an aluminum side frame.
Screen:6.4" AMOLED, 1080 x 2340px resolution (19.5:9); ~402 ppi.
Chipset: Snapdragon 710 (10nm) chipset: octa-core CPU (2x Kryo 360 Gold @2.2GHz + 6x Kryo 36 Silver @1.7GHz); Adreno 616 GPU.
Memory: 8GB LPDDR4X RAM, 128GB built-in storage, microSD slot support (takes the second SIM slot).
OS: Android 8.1 Oreo; ColorOS 5.2.
Rear camera: 12MP f/1.5-2.4, 26mm (wide) 1/2.55", 1.4µm dual pixel PDAF, OIS + 20MP f/2.6, AF, LED flash; 1080p@30/120fps, 2160p@30fps, 720p@240fps video recording with stereo sound.
Front camera: 25MP, f/2.0, 1/2.8", 0.9µm, 1080p@30fps video recording.
Battery: 3,700mAh; SuperVOOC fast charging support (proper charger included).
Connectivity: Dual-SIM; LTE-A, Cat.15/13 (800Mbps/150Mbps); USB-C; Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac; GPS; Bluetooth 5.0, USB 3.1 Type-C.
Misc: Under-display fingerprint reader, 3D TOF camera on the back.

At €600 starting price, one would argue that a Snapdragon 845 chipset would have been more adequate. However, for the extra cash, you get some added value in the form of hardware features that are hard to come across for the asking price. And don't get us wrong - the Snapdragon 710 is an excellent upper-mid-range SoC that matches the Snapdragon 835's CPU compute power and it's super efficient. Or we just got spoiled by OnePlus and the Pocophone F1.

Unboxing the Oppo RX17 Pro

The phone's box comes in a matching gradient color containing all the usual user guides and USB-C headphones that look strikingly similar to Apple's EarPods. And probably those are the reason the phone doesn't come with a USB-C to 3.5mm jack adapter so you will have to look for a third-party one if your's are better. And, of course, the handset also comes with a SuperVOOC-compliant charger that can handle up to 50W output.
Other useful stuff includes a SIM ejection tool and a transparent silicone case that fits around the edges just perfectly. Also, for extra protection, our unit came with a pre-applied screen protector that seems to attract quite a lot of fingerprints and smudges.

Design, build and 360-degree spin

The design and the build quality is worthy of a flagship device featuring aluminum side frame and glass panels on the front and back. Of course, the design is a more subjective matter but you can't overlook the super slim bezels and the gorgeous gradient color on the back. Still, we can't shake off the feeling that this is a OnePlus 6T with fancy colors.
Starting with the sides, we see the volume rocker on the left and the power button on the right. They have clicky tactile feedback to them but we also noticed some unpleasant wobble from the volume keys. It's not something that gets in the way of using the phone but we felt the need to share.
Moving on to the top side of the frame where the noise canceling microphone is located while the bottom accommodates the hybrid SIM slot, the second microphone and the loudspeaker grill. The USB-C charging port is right in the middle and according to Oppo, it's a USB 3.1 (Gen 1) connector supporting transfer speeds of up to 5Gbps. However, the read/write speeds of the internal storage will be a bottleneck here.

We've noticed that the SIM/microSD card tray has a red watertight seal despite the handset not being waterproofed. Perhaps it will withstand splashes like the OnePlus 6 and 6T.
And while we are on the frame, it's hard not to complain about the protruding edges around the screen. While the glass back connects to the side frames seamlessly, the front glass panel appears to form a sharp edge with the frame where they meet. It's rather unpleasant when holding the device and unfortunately, doesn't help with the grip at all.
Speaking of the grip, we've noticed that the Radiant Mist's matte finish helps with the grip to some extent while the Emerald Green model that we have with us feels like it's buttered. It's super slippery and fingerprints stick easily. Also, the protruding camera module elevates the phone and wobbles quite a bit when placed on its back.
And now, a few words about the front. Whether you like the notch or not, you can't deny that the droplet-style cutout that Oppo has been using for its phones is less intrusive. It doesn't take away too much from the screen and looks pretty simplistic. Oppo has managed to cram up all the needed sensors in there including the front-facing one but unfortunately, the LED notification light has been left out.
Arguably the most impressive thing about the front design is the slim bezels - and we even mean the top bezel and the chin. Only a handful of smartphones boast such slim bezels and the iPhone XS and XS Max are among them.
This leaves us only with the in-display fingerprint reader. It's a neat feature to have but the question still stands - is it any good in terms of performance and reliability? Well, the answers are still no. Don't get us wrong, some users who prefer the readers on the front than on the back will greatly appreciate the new tech but don't expect the reliability of a conventional scanner.
The scanner here often couldn't read the fingerprint and prompted us to type in the PIN code instead. And it's not an inherent issue of the technology that's to blame. The OnePlus 6T has a much a better implementation of the same Goodix optical fingerprint sensor. Side by side, the OnePlus 6T performs noticeably better than the RX17 Pro which leads us to believe that it's all in the software.
Additionally, when the phone is in power saver mode, the fingerprint sensor works with degraded performance and when you add more than two fingerprints, the performance deteriorates even further. We found that pressing with your finger just a little helps with the reading.
Still, for the less pretentious user, the fingerprint reader should perform just fine. And besides, the lift-to-wake-up feature works flawlessly and the face detection is so fast that the phone unlocks before you even reach for the reader. But more on that later.

At the end of the day, the Oppo R17 Pro is a well-built device with little to no complaints about the quality and the design. The only few things that stand out are the exceptionally slippery back and the sharp edges around the screen. But the slim bezels and gorgeous gradient back make up for these flaws. Moreover, ergonomics-wise, the phone feels pretty easy to handle considering the massive 6.4-inch screen.

Nice AMOLED display with sufficient brightness and vivid colors

As expected, the Oppo R17 Pro shares the same AMOLED panel with the OnePlus 6T so expectedly, our test results are almost identical. The waterdrop-styled notched 6.4-inch display with tall 19.5:9 aspect ratio and 1080 x 2340 pixels resolution. This aspect ratio works great for browsing and multitasking with the split-screen feature but watching YouTube and Netflix videos is a mixed bag as the content spills across the notch. Luckily, the minimalist notch doesn't take away too much screen real estate. And the screen is still perfectly sharp at 402 ppi.
When it comes to brightness, the screen doesn't impress with over-the-top luminance but it will surely keep the content on your phone readable even under direct sunlight. It can't go against the best in the industry but it's definitely one of the better in the segment. However, there's no additional brightness boost so the maximum 455 nits would have to do.
As far as the color accuracy is concerned, the Oppo RX17 pro is just about average. There are no color modes to choose from - only one slider for cold or warm color temperature. At maximum brightness, we measured an average dE2000 of 5.2 and a maximum deviation of 8.4. But as soon as we ran the test, we noticed that the blues, reds and greens extend outside the sRGB color space, so we ran the test one more time using the DCI-P3 mode.
The results were a bit better - the average dE2000 was 4.5 and the maximum was 8.5. In DCI-P3, the reds are a bit overblown while in sRGB mode the greens were oversaturated. All in all, the display appears to be better calibrated for the DCI-P3 color space.

Display test	100% brightness
Display test	Black, cd/m²	White, cd/m²	Contrast ratio
Huawei Mate 20 (Max Auto)	0.554	778	1404
Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Max Auto)	0	631	∞
Huawei P20 Pro (Max Auto)	0	582	∞
Huawei Mate 20	0.347	491	1415
Oppo RX17 Pro	0	455	∞
Xiaomi Mi 8 SE	0	455	∞
OnePlus 6T	0	453	∞
Huawei P20 Pro	0	412	∞
Oppo R15 Pro	0	410	∞
Samsung Galaxy S9+	0	376	∞

The sunlight contrast ratio, however, puts the phone in one group with best in the industry making it one of the best displays for using outdoors. And, of course, the 4,434 score is pretty close to that of the OnePlus 6T.

Sunlight contrast ratio

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Samsung Galaxy S9+

4.537
Oppo RX17 Pro

4.434
Oppo R15 Pro

4.251
OnePlus 6T

4.138
Huawei P20 Pro

4.087
Xiaomi Mi 8 SE

3.901
Huawei Mate 20

3.052

Oppo RX17 Pro battery life

Since the Oppo R17 Pro and the OnePlus 6T have the same battery capacity of 3,700 mAh, we expect near identical battery runtimes but we were surprised to see a significant difference in the results. The Oppo R17 Pro did great but not nearly as good as OnePlus' latest and greatest. Perhaps Oppo's software optimization is lacking in this department.
Yet, an overall score of 80h isn't bad by any means. The video playback test was particularly exceptional. And don't forget the insanely fast SuperVOOC Flash Charge will not only change your charging habits but also compensate for not having enough juice to make it through the day. You can read more about the tech in our dedicated article.
Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSer App. The endurance rating above denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Oppo RX17 Pro for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so that our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty. You can check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
Speaking of juice, we've tested the charging speed using the included SuperVOOC brick and it got from 0% to 93% in just 30 minutes. Keep it plugged in for another 6 minutes and you get a full charge. Oh, and a standard VOOC charger won't do anything for you if you are wondering about backward compatibility.

Loudspeaker

The phone has only one bottom-firing loudspeaker, just like the OnePlus 6T, and the results from the test were essentially the same. The overall loudness score is "Very Good". The ringing audio produced the best effect so you can rely on the speaker for incoming calls in loud environments.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overall score
Motorola Moto G6 Play	62.6	68.0	71.0	Average
Huawei Y7 Prime (2018)	64.9	70.5	71.9	Average
Realme U1	68.6	73.4	72.4	Good
Samsung Galaxy S9+	68.4	74.0	80.1	Very Good
Oppo RX17 Pro	68.3	72.7	81.8	Very Good
OnePlus 6T	67.2	72.5	84.5	Very Good
Huawei Mate 20	74.3	70.2	82.6	Very Good
Apple iPhone XS Max	70.5	74.0	84.7	Excellent
Huawei P20 Pro	71.8	69.2	91.0	Excellent

Audio quality

The Oppo RX17 Pro doesn't have a 3.5mm audio jack. Since our review units didn't come with a USB-C-to-3.5mm adapter dongle of its own, we didn't do our usual audio output quality test. The reason for that would be that a third-party dongle would have skewed the results. Most of these dongles house their own digital-to-analog converters (DAC) so any audio test with a random dongle will not be indicative of the phone's audio chops.

User interface

The Oppo R17 Pro runs a slightly dated Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box with the company's ColorOS 5.2 on top. The skin is pretty far from a stock Android so keep that in mind. Nevertheless, ColorOS offers quite a few features and functions that you can't find on most smartphones. So without further ado, let's dig in.
The lock screen isn't anything out of the ordinary except for the fingerprint reader area prompting you to place your finger and unlock the device. When it's charging using the included SuperVOOC charger, it will display a pretty cool animation. And once you unlock, you will be greeted with home screen containing all the pre-installed system apps. There's no app drawer so you have to spend a little time organizing.
Swiping to the right will bring up the a pane with common app shortcuts, quick search, weather information, the steps tracker and quick access to your favorite contacts. The "Edit" button on the bottom will let you add, change or remove panels to your liking.
Swiping down from the home screen opens up the quick search for apps and if you swipe from the upper edge will bring down the notification shade. It offers quick access to the settings menu and four toggles per row with up to four rows when extended. Naturally, the quick toggles can be customized. The brightness slider is there as well with the notifications coming right under it. Contrary to most other notification shades we've seen, this one doesn't have a translucent background.
The settings menu has big colorful icons for each section and unfortunately, we didn't find any option to change the white theme to a dark one. The AMOLED would have liked it.
Anyway, the display menu caught our eye at first and opening it doesn't reveal advanced features. It lets you adjust only the color temperature, set up the night mode that reduces the blue light before you go to bed, the font size and some other minor tweaks.
The "Homescreen & Lockscreen Magazine" menu gives you a bit more control over the overall appearance. The Lockscreen magazine, for example, will greet you with a new picture every time you turn on the screen. The Theme section will let you browse through the available themes in the store, which also sets the accent color around the menus.
The security section is where you set up the fingerprint and the face unlock. Both are pretty straightforward and easy to set up but it does give you a lot of options. For example, you can use a combined unlock method and the system will look for a fingerprint or a familiar face each time you wake up the screen and will unlock the device with whichever comes first. Both unlock methods can serve as a screen unlock and app unlock. The face detection even offers some extended functionality - it can light up the screen brightly in poorly-lit environments to recognize your face better, you can set it up to unlock the phone only after a swipe in iPhone XS style or refuse to unlock if your eyes are closed.
We do have to note that the facial unlock is exceptionally fast and pretty reliable in most conditions. Upon lifting the phone, the screen lights up, looks for your face and unlocks the handset before you even reach for the fingerprint scanner. It's pretty neat but we must remind you that the facial unlock is still the least secure way to unlock your content and phone. And it depends on the available light since it relies only on the front-facing camera and software algorithm.
Next down the list is the "Smart & Convenient" sub-menu. You can set up an assistive ball, enable or disable the smart sidebar or use the smart driving mode that turns on automatically when connected to the car's Bluetooth. The mode lets you focus on driving, takes rid of distractions like notifications and simplify the use on the fly. Backing up to the Smart & Convenient sub-menu we see the Gesture and Motion menu. You can add a couple of off-screen gestures and there are tons of them. The double-tap-to-wake option is in there as well and we suggest leaving it on because it lights up the fingerprint area when the phone is lying flat on its back.
We suppose the "Navigation Keys" menu is where you'd spend most time until you find the right fit for you. Oppo gives you plenty of combinations to choose from aside from the conventional software buttons. The one we spent the most time with is the first option where the back gesture is on both sides, the middle swipe takes you to the home screen and when you swipe and hold brings out the recent apps menu. The rest of the options are slight variations of the first where the swiping gestures just act as replacements of the regular software buttons.
The Security section in the Settings menu aims to give you more control over the apps and the content on your phone. The most useful options would be the apps' permission to access your data, lock some of the apps with a passcode and set up the "Find My Device" feature.
The Battery section, on the other hand, offers the usual options like auto-optimizing power efficiency, information about how much battery the apps and the hardware have drained and the option to take your phone into a deep sleep if you don't use it for longer periods of time.
The rest of the sub-menus in Settings include the App Manager, Software Updates, Clone Apps, App Split screen, etc. They are pretty much self-explanatory. The Game Space, however, sounds quite promising - it should boost overall performance for better gaming experience and makes distractions such as incoming calls and app notifications easier to manage during gaming sessions.
And as for the pre-installed apps, the usual Google Apps are at hand along with a couple of productivity apps like WPS Office, iReader, Recorder, etc. We grew quite fond of the File Manager, which was pretty easy to use, organized and has access to most of the system files on the phone.
While there are some things that need a little tweaking like the overall appearance of the UI and the structure of the Settings menu, the ColorOS offers a lot of features and options that will surely come in handy to most users. The off screen gestures and the navigation gestures were our favorite. Both are well-implemented and are worth the praise.

Benchmarks

The Oppo R17 Pro sports one of the latest SoCs in town - the Snapdragon 710. It's based on the 10nm manufacturing process and it's designated for the upper-mid-range segment by outperforming the Snapdragon 660 both in efficiency and raw compute power. In fact, the results from the synthetic benchmark tests say it's on par with last year's flagship Snapdragon 835 in terms of CPU performance and only falls behind it when it comes to graphics processing.
The CPU configuration consists of two clusters - 2x Kryo 360 Gold cores clocked at 2.2GHz and 6x Kryo 360 Silver cores ticking at 1.7GHz. The Adreno 616 GPU takes care of the graphically-intensive tasks.
During our testing, we didn't notice any overheating or thermal throttling even after several benchmark tests. Also, the results we got were on par with the Xiaomi Mi 8 SE, which incorporates the same Snapdragon 710 chipset. Here's how the RX17 Pro stacks against the competition.

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

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Huawei Mate 20

9793
OnePlus 6T

8977
Samsung Galaxy S9+

8883
Huawei P20 Pro

6679
Oppo RX17 Pro

5944
Xiaomi Mi 8 SE

5908
Oppo R15 Pro

5809

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

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Samsung Galaxy S9+

3771
Huawei Mate 20

3284
OnePlus 6T

2431
Huawei P20 Pro

1907
Xiaomi Mi 8 SE

1890
Oppo RX17 Pro

1835
Oppo R15 Pro

1612

AnTuTu 7

Higher is better

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OnePlus 6T

293994
Huawei Mate 20

273913
Samsung Galaxy S9+

246660
Huawei P20 Pro

209884
Xiaomi Mi 8 SE

170218
Oppo RX17 Pro

154861
Oppo R15 Pro

146526

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

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OnePlus 6T

4452
Huawei Mate 20

4093
Samsung Galaxy S9+

3354
Huawei P20 Pro

3252
Oppo RX17 Pro

2735
Xiaomi Mi 8 SE

2658
Oppo R15 Pro

2438

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

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OnePlus 6T

83
Huawei Mate 20

77
Samsung Galaxy S9+

74
Huawei P20 Pro

66
Xiaomi Mi 8 SE

33
Oppo RX17 Pro

32
Oppo R15 Pro

22

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

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Huawei Mate 20

60
OnePlus 6T

59
Huawei P20 Pro

55
Samsung Galaxy S9+

45
Xiaomi Mi 8 SE

30
Oppo RX17 Pro

28
Oppo R15 Pro

19

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

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OnePlus 6T

35
Samsung Galaxy S9+

28
Huawei Mate 20

28
Huawei P20 Pro

23
Oppo RX17 Pro

13
Xiaomi Mi 8 SE

13
Oppo R15 Pro

9

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

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OnePlus 6T

31
Huawei Mate 20

28
Huawei P20 Pro

21
Samsung Galaxy S9+

14
Xiaomi Mi 8 SE

12
Oppo RX17 Pro

11
Oppo R15 Pro

7.6

Basemark X

Higher is better

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OnePlus 6T

43886
Huawei Mate 20

43822
Samsung Galaxy S9+

42134
Huawei P20 Pro

39945
Oppo RX17 Pro

28537
Xiaomi Mi 8 SE

27560
Oppo R15 Pro

20693

Three cameras, two of them with unclear purpose

On paper, the Oppo RX17 Pro has a beastly camera setup - three on the back, one on the front. Although, the third one on the back isn't a regular camera but it's called a 3D stereo time-of-flight camera or ToF for short. For now, it's downright useless as Oppo hasn't provided any software or features to go with it. The only remotely useful application would be the 3D animated stickers in the camera menu. They do appear to be quite accurate and cute but you will get bored with them pretty fast.
Makes us wonder why would they place it on the back instead of the front where it can shine. Allegedly, the ToF technology is superior for augmented reality applications being faster, more accurate and more reliable than Apple's implementation. Nevertheless, only time will tell if Oppo will find a use of the new tech on board. The potential aside, we are amazed that Oppo is shipping a smartphone with hardware which isn't of any use to anyone.
Anyway, the other two sensors are the main camera and the depth sensor. The main one is a 12MP sensor with big 1.4µm pixels and a variable aperture lens (f/1.5-2.4) snatched directly off the Samsung's Galaxy S+9 and Note9 playbook. It comes with dual pixel PDAF and more importantly, it's aided by OIS.
Despite being fancy, the secondary camera is more of a depth sensor than anything else. It's a 20MP unit with f/2.6 and autofocus support but it's still just a regular depth sensor used only for the portrait shots. They could have easily achieved the same results with a 5MP cam or just with software. Or maybe, just maybe, put that 3D TOF tech in use.
This leaves us with the front camera - it uses a 25MP sensor with f/2.0 opening, 0.9µm pixel size.
The camera app is generally pretty simple with limited options. In the normal photo mode, you have the HDR toggle, the PI Color toggle (more on that later), and the AI beauty mode. As we found out, the purpose of this AI mode is only to make human faces prettier and it won't do anything for any other scenes. For those shots, you have built-in AI scene recognition but it's toggle is burried in the additional camera settings.
There's also an "Expert" mode that lets you tamper with the settings like white balance, exposure, manual focus, ISO and shutter speed. Unfortunately, the aperture remains locked out in this mode and the phone will take full control of the opening unlike on what you would find on a Samsung.
Now let's get busy with the camera samples.

Image quality

In good light, the camera produces shots with punchy colors, plenty of detail and the performance can be considered consistent. The autofocus is good and the OIS does its job pretty well, especially indoors and in poorly-lit scenarios. However, we've noticed that some of the photos have a bit too much noise for our taste even in during the day.
Sharpness is also one of the strong suits of the phone. But speaking of sharpness, it's too bad that the phone was way too heavy-handed with the sharpening when the HDR mode kicked in. The HDR mode recovered some of the detail from the shadows but it overexposed the highlights quite a bit which seems like a lazy implementation and overall, we'd refrain from using it.

HDR: Auto • On • Auto • OnWe also didn't find any use of the AI mode - it rarely produced any prominent effect although it prompted us with messages when a scene was recognized.
Here are a couple of indoor and outdoor shots as well. Indoors, the phone was able to preserve the detail, noise was once again introduced in some poorly-lit areas of the image but colors remained punchy.

With HDR auto turned onWhen it comes to night photography, the handset exceeded our expectations. We made sure we tried both the normal Auto mode and the special Night mode that Oppo so insistently advertised.

Trying the camera at night: Normal modeThe normal mode produced photos with less noise than expected and the OIS gave a helping hand with keeping the images sharp with some quite slow shutter speeds. You can expect consistent performance and generally good low-light performance.

Night mode/Nightscape: R17 Pro • OP6TAnd since Oppo and OnePlus introduced their night modes almost at the same time, we couldn't help but wonder if both companies are using the same algorithm for the night stills. That's why we snapped a few night shots with the OnePlus 6T as well using its dedicated Nightscape mode.
You can definitely see some similarities in the way both phones handle night scenery yet somehow, the RX17 Pro does it better. Kudos for that.

Night mode/Nightscape: R17 Pro • OP6TOnePlus 6T did worse with the lights on the streets, especially the neon ones, and produced quite a bit of flare. We also noticed that it tends to oversharpen the Nightscape images quite a bit. The RX17 Pro, on the other hand, preserves more detail and offers more natural-looking lights. It tends to oversharpen things as well but in the end, it still looked more natural than the OnePlus' Nightscape.

Night mode/Nightscape: R17 Pro • OP6TWe've also included some comparison shots from our studio in a more controlled environment. Here's how it stacks against some of the competitors.

Portraits

This mode is pretty limited, aside from the available pre-applied filters in the camera menu, and it produces some questionable results. The edge detection is pretty nice even when a more complex background or hairstyle is introduced and colors were spot on. But detail is where it failed to impress. It almost feels like the beautification mode is constantly turned on although, we didn't find the off switch.

Selfies

The front-facing shooter sounds pretty solid on paper but the lack of autofocus keeps us from giving it a good score. It's quite picky about the distance you are using it at and we found it to perform its best at about half a full arm's length. Colors are good and the detail is okay but since we're talking about a 25MP sensor, we'd say it leaves more to be desired. The AI appears to be softening the skin and gives it a less natural-looking color to it.

In challenging lighting scenarios, the HDR kicks in to restore the shadows while destroying everything in the background. It appears that the HDR issue is prominent across the board. Portrait shots are about average with a little more to be desired from the edge detection algorithm.
Here's how it stacks against the competition.

Video recording

The device supports video recording in 4K@30fps or 1080p@30fps. Slow-motion modes are 1080p@120fps and 720p@240fps. The downside is that video settings are also pretty limited with barely any options to choose from. For example, you can't toggle on or off the EIS nor can you choose the frame rate at which you record the 1080p video. You are stuck with either 4K@30fps or 1080p@30fps. That's bit of a letdown since some users prefer 1080p videos at 60fps.
Oppo did include the option to choose between H.264 and H.265 encoding so we do give them credit for that.
The quality of the video in 1080p@30fps is generally serviceable - no hiccups, good amount of detail, vivid colors but we see the overexposing issue from the stills creeping up once again.

Naturally, the 4K mode introduces much more detail but our complaint about overblown highlights remains.

When it comes to stabilization, we are pretty certain that it doesn't work in 2160p mode, even though there's no switch for that. On the 1080p video, however, the EIS is constantly turned on and works great.

Here are some screenshots from our lab video samples compared to other models.
You can download short untouched samples as well - 2160p/30fps (10s, 62MB) and 1080p/30fps (10s, 23MB).

Competition

Since there aren't many Snapdragon 710-powered smartphones out there and the asking price of the Oppo RX17 Pro is in the upper bracket of the upper-mid-range segment, it gives us no choice but to compare it against some dated flagships from the beginning of this year. And that's the beauty of Android - if you are willing to wait a bit longer, say a few months to a year after a flagship phone has been released and you aren't on the market for the latest and greatest, you can find some pretty sweet deals. That's why we decided to pit it against some flagship phones from early 2018 and a couple of midrangers - all in the same €600 ballpark, of course.
The obvious choices such as the Samsung Galaxy S9+ and the Huawei P20 Pro. Yes, both fit perfectly the price range and in fact, the Galaxy S9+ can be found for even less. There's no reason to go into detail about how much better both flagships are when it comes to photography, especially the P20 Pro's impressive night mode. But they also have better AMOLED screens across the board, feature more powerful and future-proof SoCs and battery life is measurably better according to our testing. The software is more of a subjective preference but you do get better support from Samsung and Huawei overall.
Of course, the list wouldn't be complete without the R17 Pro's close relative, the OnePlus 6T. Once again, the former is hard to recommend mainly due to its higher price. The OnePlus 6T has a more refined software, which in turn results in faster and more reliable FP reader performance, better battery optimization and cleaner, clutter-free and faster Android experience. Not to mention the more powerful Snapdragon 845 on board and better software support from OnePlus.
Another flagship that made it to our list is the recently released Huawei Mate 20. It does have its downsides like barely usable selfie cam, an LCD IPS display and no memory expansion (given that NM cards are kind of an expensive and rare unicorn for now) but it does give the Oppo RX17 Pro a run for its money. Especially with that Kirin 980 powerhouse on board and humongous 4,000 mAh battery.

Verdict

Once again, the pricing of the Oppo R17 Pro puts it in a tough spot and makes it hard to recommend over the similarly-priced competition. Especially when the competition consists almost entirely of flagship models. Perhaps over the course of few months, the Oppo R17 Pro will get cheaper and it will be worth considering.
Another deal-breaker for some would be the inconsistent fingerprint performance, despite being pretty cool, and the lack of 3.5mm audio jack. At least the dongle could have been included in the retail package. The utterly useless 3D TOF camera and the 20MP sensor used only for depth sensing (no telephoto or wide-angle lenses) is another pill hard to swallow. We really hope that Oppo finds a way to put the 3D stereo camera to a better use with a future update. At this point, however, we can't shake off the feeling that it's nothing more than a gimmick.
In any case, we can't overlook the Oppo RX17 Pro's other key selling point - the absurdly fast SuperVOOC charging. Charging the entire battery in 30 minutes or so is something that none of the competitors offer.
And it's not only that. The smartphone has its fair share of commendable features like a good camera quality with a nice handheld Night mode, an awesome screen, a cool design, a dependable battery life, and a handful of useful software features.
If only Oppo had swapped the 3D camera and the 20MP depth sensor for something genuinely useful, and if only the price was a bit more competitive, we could have given it our full recommendation.

Pros

Rigid build with a glass back, aluminum side frames and stunning gradient design.
Excellent AMOLED panel with great sunlight legibility, vibrant colors, skinny bezels and unobtrusive minimalist notch.
Generally good camera experience and capable night mode.
Powerful and efficient Snapdragon 710.
Loads of cool ColorOS features.
Stupid fast SuperVOOC Flash Charge charging (from 0 to 100% in 35 minutes)
128GB base storage and supports microSD expansion

Cons

No 3.5mm jack and no dongle included.
No EIS at 4K@fps, overblown highlights in videos and HDR stills and some amount of noise in well-lit scenarios.
At least some kind of ingress protection would have been appreciated.
Useless 3D TOF camera on the back and no wide-angle or telephoto lenses.

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OPPO RX17 REVIEW.

Introduction

Oppo RX17 Pro specs:

Unboxing the Oppo RX17 Pro

Design, build and 360-degree spin

Nice AMOLED display with sufficient brightness and vivid colors

Sunlight contrast ratio

Oppo RX17 Pro battery life

Loudspeaker

Audio quality

User interface

Benchmarks

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

AnTuTu 7

Basemark OS 2.0

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Basemark X

Three cameras, two of them with unclear purpose

Image quality

Portraits

Selfies

Video recording

Competition

Verdict

Pros

Cons

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