You've probably heard someone say it before: "Nowadays, all smartphones look the same!" While one might argue that the general aesthetic language of the smartphone-as-a-commodity has been widely streamlined by more than a decade of refinements and evolution, that's still a pretty shortsighted take on the current state of smartphone design. 

If you need further proof, OPPO just delivered a perfect one. The Reno8 Pro is the latest entry in the widely successful OPPO Reno family. The company is introducing it in Paris, during its first in-person event since the beginning of the pandemic. The French capital has a special meaning for OPPO, as it's the city where the company made its European debut in 2018 with the launch of the Find X.

The new Reno8 is what happens when detail-oriented design meets material science and high-precision engineering. The smartphone features a new unibody streamlined design that elevates the device's physical and general user experience. OPPO designers observed how users interact with their phones and decided to focus on the concept of “burdenless”, taking on the challenge of bringing together an ultra-slim body and a prominent optical module that had to make space for a top-class camera system. 

OPPO's designers opted for the hardest possible path to achieve this ambitious goal. Instead of constructing a separate camera module using a different material, as we see in countless other smartphones today, they were able to cover the entire back of the device with a single, uninterrupted piece of glass. 

It's a similar design approach to what OPPO had already experimented with FindX 3 Pro last year, and in the more recent OPPO FindX 5 Pro, whose ceramic back gives the device an organic feel when users are holding it in their hands. 

Strong with those previous experiences, OPPO's designers took the challenge a step further with Reno8 Pro by applying the same engineering concepts and techniques to a single piece of Gorilla glass. After more than one hundred iterations and 400 days of research and development, OPPO achieved the desired result. In the final form of the Reno8 Pro, the camera module has been positioned using a 75-degree arc that connects without any interruption to the surrounding back cover. 
The result is a unique, aesthetically pleasing, and ergonomically sound design. The user won't be disturbed by any hard edge when they touch the back cover with the index or middle finger while holding the device. 

Creating such a smooth integration was no easy feat. For each of Reno8 Pro’s back cover, OPPO needs to forge the single piece of back glass using a process that reaches 800℃ in temperature and 120kg in pressure. The temperature is key to the entire operation. It's way higher than the standard glass forging temperature, and it's what enables the arc transition between the camera module and the surrounding back cover to remain both smooth and sharp at the same time. 

Furthermore, the glass molding process has to go through additional painstakingly precise steps. The mold has to undergo a three step smoothing process to ensure that the glass back coming out of it wouldn't retain any unwanted texture. Even then, the molded glass needs to go through other nanometer-scale polishing processes to ensure that no microscopic asperity or areas of unevenness are left on the glass piece. 

As OPPO engineers needed to include a prominent camera module with large sensors and matching large lenses, the designers also had to develop a balanced solution to incorporate all of that into the unibody all-in-one structure. The answer was to embrace the prominent size of the module by leveraging the great classic of design: the golden ratio. Moreover, the back cover of Reno8 Pro features curves on its vertices which have been calculated by employing an arithmetic sequence, thus striking a well-calculated balance between geometrical rhythm and aesthetics.

"It should feel like the camera module is floating up from the water, as though the ripples on the surface have solidified as the smartphone is about to emerge from the body of water but is still intrinsically connected to it," explained the Reno8 Pro designers. 

To further highlight the photo and video capabilities of the camera system, the binocular camera's design drew inspiration from the round shapes of the film roll canisters of vintage cinema cameras. Other minor yet distinctive touches include a clover-shaped design that integrates the macro camera and color temperature sensor, plus a Ring Flash design for the two additional camera flashes.

Alongside design breakthroughs in shape, form, materials, and layout, OPPO is once again introducing new colors to the Reno series. Reno8 Pro comes in two versions: Glazed Green and Glazed Black. As the name suggests, the color finishes take further inspiration from porcelain glaze techniques, another detail adding to the elegance and uniqueness of the back cover design.

In OPPO's view, Glazed Green is the color finish that provides a calming and soothing sensation. It's meant as the "relaxing" color option, offering a visual oasis of quiet in a frenzy and ever-changing world. Glazed Black, on the other hand, redefines the classic black smartphone finish by adding a level of sober elegance to an already distinct and unique design. 

Whatever the color, Reno8 Pro offers solid proof of how important design is today in defining a smartphone's market proposition, and it's a strong example of why saying that smartphones all look the same is often just a lazy, uninformed trope.