Let’s talk about the South African tech market. It’s a brutal place. We’re not talking about Silicon Valley here, where a few thousand dollars on a phone is just pocket change. Here, every rand counts, and the price of a phone can be the difference between a nice toy and a genuine asset.
Which brings us to the OPPO Reno 14 5G.
OPPO has dropped this thing in South Africa a couple of weeks ago at a price point that puts it right up against the big boys. At R19,999, it’s tough to call this a “mid-ranger”. It’s sitting in the same stadium as Apple’s flagship iPhone 17, which just launched at R20,799. This isn’t a David vs. Goliath story; at this price it has to be a battle of equals.
So you’re forced to have to ask yourself: is this phone good enough to go toe-to-toe with the iPhone?
The Reno 14 is a genuinely fantastic piece of hardware. It feels great in the hand—light, slim, and polished. The build quality is solid. It’s the sort of phone you pick up and immediately get the sense that someone actually gave a damn when they designed it. Especially in the “Luminous Green” colour of my review unit.
Performance is what you’d expect at this price and day-to-day use is a breeze. Apps open without a hiccup, and you can jump between tasks with the kind of effortless grace you’d expect from a much more expensive phone. The standout is OPPO’s fast charging which at 80w is an absolute game-changer. Pair that with the 6000 mAh battery and you forget what it’s like to leave your phone plugged in for hours.
The cameras are also pretty good. OPPO has a knack for this, and the Reno 14 delivers with vibrant, detailed shots. It’s not trying to out-shoot a high-end Galaxy Ultra, but you won’t be embarrassed to post your photos on Instagram.
Here’s the rub, though, and it’s a big one: the software.
OPPO’s ColorOS is generally fine—fluid and quick once you get it set up. But out of the box, it’s a nightmare of bloatware. A bunch of pre-installed apps you didn’t ask for, cluttering up the home screen like a bad ad campaign. It’s a minor annoyance, but when you’re paying twenty grand for a phone, you expect the company to respect your digital space a little more. You shouldn’t have to spend your first ten minutes with a new device on a digital clean-up mission.
This phone is in a strange place. It’s trying to be a premium device, but still trapped in a mid-range brand’s body, and its price tag reflects that identity crisis. It’s a great piece of tech that’s maybe R5,000 more expensive than it should be.
If you can get past the price and the initial software clean-up, the Reno 14 is a quietly confident performer that will not let you down. But in a country where every rand is a negotiation, that’s a big “if.”
