Do the new additions make the Realme 7 Pro worth buying?
Realme 6 Pro was one of the best upgrades in the mid-range lineup of Realme smartphones launched this year. It brought in many new features like a 90Hz display, a glass sandwich design, and a telephoto camera in the mid-range segment which is very rare to see on smartphones.
Now Realme has brought in the 7 series that includes the Realme 7 and the 7 Pro. Both of them have a newer design and come with some very good features. The Realme 7 is an incremental upgrade over the Realme 6 and is a strong offering.
The Realme 7 Pro is an incremental upgrade over the Realme 6 Pro as it comes with a Super AMOLED display, an in-display fingerprint scanner, a newer set of cameras, and an insane 65W fast charger which was never seen on the mid-range segment.
But there are certain misses like a 90Hz display which is seen on its younger sibling the Realme 7. There are many smartphones like the Galaxy M31s, the newly launched POCO X3, and the POCO X2, so Realme 7 Pro has a lot to compete, so is it worth buying, and can it be the best mid-range smartphone under Rs.20000?
Realme 7 Pro Design:
The Realme 6 Pro had a glass sandwich design with Gorilla Glass 5 but with the Realme 7 Pro, now you get a polycarbonate back with a smooth matte finish to it and on the front, it has a Gorilla Glass 3. There is a color shift from blue to black which is clearly noticed when titled from different angles.
Instead of the vertical alignment of cameras at the rear, the Realme 7 Pro has a rectangular setup of cameras similar to the cameras found on the Realme 7. The Realme 7 Pro comes in two color variants - Mirror Blue and Mirror White.
On the front, there is a punch-hole display found on the Realme 7 with the punch hole lying to the top left corner of the smartphone and around the display, there are almost no bezels. The speaker just lies on top of the display which together with the bottom loudspeaker acts as a stereo speaker.
Moving to the top of the smartphone, the top has a secondary microphone and moving to the sides, the right side has the power button and to the left, there are the volume buttons with a dual SIM card slot with an additional microSD card slot for storage expansion.
At the bottom, there is a loudspeaker vent, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a USB Type-C port that supports fast charging. The back of the Realme 7 Pro feels good to hold and since it weighs around 182 grams, it feels lighter than most of the smartphones in this price range.
The back of the Realme 7 Pro is splash-proof and can resist some water spills or can be used during the rain. On a whole, Realme may have downgraded from glass to plastic build on the Realme 7 Pro, but the newer design will appeal to most of the buyers.
Realme 7 Pro Display:
The Realme 7 Pro houses a 6.4 inches Full HD+ Super AMOLED display (1080x2340 pixels) with a screen to body ratio of 20:9. The move from an LCD display on the Realme 6 Pro to the AMOLED display on the Realme 7 Pro is good but what you lose is the 90Hz refresh rate.
The display is now set at standard 60Hz for the Realme 7 Pro which is a slight disappointment but now you get deep blacks and blues with AMOLED and the viewing angles are excellent. The fingerprint scanner is now an optical in-display one compared to the Realme 6 Pro's side-mounted one.
The Realme 7 Pro has support for Widevine L1 but does support HDR content which the POCO X2 has. The lack of a higher refresh rate is a big miss since its predecessor, the Realme 6 Pro had and the POCO X2 has a 120Hz display.
There are various color temperature settings - Vivid, Brilliant to chose from and set it accordingly. The screen on the Realme 7 Pro is quite bright and under direct sunlight, the color reproduction is good as it is an AMOLED panel and even in low-light or in dark, the screen visibility is good.
There is a Super nighttime standby to reduce too much battery at night and since it has an AMOLED panel, there is DC dimming also. The optical in-display fingerprint scanner is accurate and fast and it is always lit up when turning on the Always-On display. The auto-brightness calibration has been done well on the smartphone.
Overall, the AMOLED display feels better than the traditional LCD displays on other smartphones, but the lack of a higher refresh rate which even the Realme 7 has, and no support for HDR content lets it down a bit.
Check here: Realme 7 Review
Realme 7 Pro Performance:
The chipset carries unchanged from its predecessor, the Realme 6 Pro to the Realme 7 Pro. So you get the similar Snapdragon 720G chipset which is an octa-core chipset: 2x2.3 GHz Kryo 470 Gold cores (based on ARM Cortex A76) and another 6x1.8 GHz Kryo 470 Silver cores (based on ARM Cortex A55) and is coupled with an Adreno 618 GPU.
This chipset is built on the 8nm process and comes with 6/8 GB LPDDR4X RAM and has base storage of 128GB. Here the storage is UFS 2.1. The RAM management has been done very well on the smartphone as the base variant ships with 6GB RAM.
The general performance is good when it comes to the loading of applications and multitasking heavily. When it comes to playing games like Call of Duty, Asphalt 9, the Realme 7 Pro handles all of them with ease. Realme's GameSpace has also some features for additional gaming.
But still, for better gameplay, the Realme 7 is a better option as it has the powerful Mediatek Helio G95 compared to the Snapdragon 720G on the Realme 7 Pro. The Call of Duty ran at HD graphics on the Realme 7 Pro whereas on the Realme 7 you can set to HDR.
The move from glass to plastic on the Realme 7 Pro feels better while gaming as the heat did not felt much on the back. Moving to benchmarks, on Antutu v8, the Realme 7 Pro scored 288281 which is slightly lower than the 292939 on the Realme 7. and in Geekbench 5.1, the scores were 572 and 1786 in single and multi-core tests.
Overall, the gaming and performance are good on the Realme 7 Pro is good but we would have liked to see an upgraded chipset since this chipset was found on its predecessor, the Realme 6 Pro.
Realme 7 Pro Software:
The Realme 7 Pro runs on RealmeUI which is Realme's own custom skin built on top of Android 10. RealmeUI 2.0 will soon be around the corners and will be seen on the Realme 7 Pro. With each update, the RealmeUI has been adding quite a good amount of features and provides software experience almost close to Stock Android.
The RealmeUI is an enhanced version of ColorOS with a cleaner look. There are the Android 10 features like the system-wide dark mode for all the applications, navigation, and gestures, and provides customizations to icons, and there are a lot of themes to choose from.
But there are some of the pre-installed applications which can be uninstalled easily. Like the Realme 7, you also get Google Stock apps for the dialler, contacts, and messages. There is App Clone, a side smart bar, and also the Dual Music Share using which you can connect two earphones both at the same time.
There are some of the ads present but you can turn off them in the Recommendations in settings. However, the ads are not as much as on MIUI in Xiaomi smartphones. Overall, the RealmeUI feels refined and much better than most of the UI present on smartphones.
Realme 7 Pro Camera:
Both the Realme 7 and the 7 Pro sport a similar set of cameras. However, the Realme 7 Pro has the newer set of cameras and it does miss out on the telephoto camera present on the Realme 6 Pro. Like the Realme 7, you also get a Sony IMX682 sensor for the main 64MP camera instead of the old Samsung ISOCELL GW1 sensor on the Realme 6 Pro. Instead this time, the Realme 7 Pro has a macro camera.
The Realme 7 Pro has :
- 64MP f/1.8 Sony IMX682 main camera
- 8MP f/2.3 ultrawide camera with 119-degree field of view
- 2MP f/2.4 macro camera
- 2MP f/2.4 depth camera for portraits
The images from the main 64MP camera come out with good details, the color reproduction is good and the contrast works well. The dynamic range is good and when zooming into the images, each and every subject has a good amount of detail.
Similarly, at night, the images have a good amount of detail and the dynamic range is pretty well. The dedicated Night Mode improves the dynamic range and also the long exposure in taking images. The highlights in the shadows are well maintained and the noise is reduced a lot.
The 64MP Mode takes nice and detailed images with a good amount of detail and when zoomed in, there is a crop clearly noticed but the dynamic range needs to be improved.
The 8MP ultrawide camera takes some good images with decent color reproduction but the details are not as good as the main camera. The noise is clearly seen and the dynamic range is good.
At night, the images have a good amount of detail but still, the color reproduction is above average. There is quite a bit of noise present and turning on the Night Mode improves the details and also the dynamic range improves.
The 2MP macro camera has good details but it is just there to make up for the numbers. This camera can focus as close as 4cm but the dynamic range is not so good. There is noise clearly present and the images look slightly washed out in color.
The 2MP depth camera does a good job when it comes to portraits and the background blur is well maintained. But the edge detection needs some improvement. And when you zoom into the images, the details look washed out, and still, the dynamic range needs improvement.
On the front, the Realme 7 Pro gets a 32MP Sony IMX616 camera which takes some very good selfies. The images have a wider aperture and the dynamic range is excellent. The level of detail is good but there is some over-sharpening in the images.
At night, the selfies come out with a good dynamic range and have good contrast also. The images have a low amount of noise. The front camera feels like an upgraded one from the Realme 6 Pro but you do miss on the 8MP front ultrawide camera on the Realme 6 Pro.
The portraits from the front camera come out really good with proper edge detection and the background blur works well.
In terms of video, the Realme 7 Pro can shoot up to 4K at 30fps. The videos have a good amount of detail at this resolution but the video footage seems to be slightly shaky because there is no stabilization at this resolution. Moving to 1080p resolution, the videos come out great as the EIS kicks in and the dynamic range remains excellent.
The color reproduction has been done very well and the sharpness in the videos is well maintained. But, the videos come out the good but the dynamic range needs some improvement. The Ultra Steady Mode does help in masking out the noise and also improves stabilization on both the cameras tough.
But this Ultra Steady Mode does crop in many subjects in the video to improve stability. There is also a Slow-Mo mode for recording slow-motion videos and there are other camera modes like Pro NightScape, AI color portrait mode, astrophotography, and also some new light filters.
Overall, the cameras are a step over as the Realme 6 Pro but the presence of a telephoto camera could have been better as with its predecessor.
Realme 7 Pro Battery Life:
The Realme 7 Pro houses a 4500mAh battery which can last well more than a day with normal usage and RealmeUI's customizations have been improved for enhanced battery life. Since the display has a standard 60Hz refresh rate, the average screen on time was around 5-7 hours.
With heavy usage that includes heavy gaming with Call of Duty for 3-4 hours, streaming content from social media, and the Wi-Fi being used the whole day, the Realme 7 Pro lasted for one single day with 15-20 percent left.
Now when it comes to charging, the Realme 7 Pro is the current king when it comes to charging speed. It ships with a 65W SuperDart charger that has been never seen in the mid-range segment as all the standard smartphones in this segment either ship with a 30W or an 18W fast charger, but Realme has broken all the barriers when it comes to the charging technology.
The Realme 7 Pro charges from 0 to 100 percent in 35 minutes which is insanely fast. You can get 0 to 50 percent in 15 minutes which is just amazing and here Realme has maintained the temperature of the back of the smartphone thus transferring all the heat to the power brick.
It also supports USB Type-C PD/QC charging i.e. you can use power banks to charge quickly. So overall with good battery life, you get the fastest charging standard in the mid-range segment.
Realme 7 Pro Audio Quality:
Finally, with the Realme 7 Pro, you get a set of stereo speakers where the earpiece and the loudspeaker vent at the bottom together produce a stereo effect while playing games or watching movies. There is also the Dolby Atmos which enhances the sound further.
The levels of loudness are good and turning on the volume to the highest, the sound is one of the best in its price segment and here we get very few smartphones with stereo speakers. You also get a 3.5mm headphone jack and the sound output through it is really good.
The audio quality is just impressive and makes the Realme 7 Pro to somebody who listens to a lot of music or watches videos a lot.
Verdict:
Overall the Realme 7 Pro is a very good smartphone in the mid-range segment as it brings a lot of features like an AMOLED display, stereo speakers, a newer set of cameras, and an insanely fast 65W charging solution. Realme has also improved the RealmeUI with each software update.
When it comes to the hardware, you still get the Snapdragon 720G chipset that was also seen on the Realme 6 Pro, but it has good gaming performance and the smartphone handles all tasks without any problem. Still, Realme could have provided the newer Snapdragon 732G that is seen on the newly launched POCO X3.
Then there are certain misses. The Realme 7 Pro has a plastic back instead of the glass back on the Realme 6 Pro, and the display lacks support for 90Hz refresh rate and now you lose out the telephoto camera previously found on the Realme 6 Pro.
What makes it really stand away from the crowd is the 65W SuperDart charger bundled in the box which is the fastest charging solution found in a mid-range smartphone. Realme's optimizations have also improved battery life.
So if you want a smartphone that has a good display, a good set of cameras, gaming and performance, battery life and want that faster charging and if the higher refresh rate, premium glass build is not your concern, then the Realme 7 Pro is the perfect mid-range smartphone to consider.
0 Comments
Please do not enter any spam link in the comment box