Realme 8 Pro Review: Should you consider this just for that 108MP camera over the Realme 7 Pro?

A major camera upgrade but still lacks the fineness required.

The mid-range segment has been always been dominated by manufacturers like Realme and Xiaomi. Xiaomi has held a strong foothold with the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max  (Review) that possesses some segment-first features like premium glass design, a 120Hz display, powerful Snapdragon 732G chipset, a 108MP camera setup, and stereo speakers making a very strong statement in the market.

Realme provides some of the best mid-range smartphones in the market with their regular number and the Narzo series which is focused on performance. The Realme 7 Pro (Review) was a well-balanced smartphone for Realme in the mid-range segment. It had some segment-first features like an AMOLED display, stereo speakers, 65W fast charging, an improved camera setup compared to its previous generations, etc.

The Realme 8 Pro has almost all the things that we saw on the Realme 7 Pro but there are two things that differentiate one is the camera as it has the 108MP camera and a newer design whereas it does some sacrifices also which we are going to see in the full review. The Realme 8 which is the smaller sibling of the Realme 8 Pro is one of the best mid-range smartphones out there.

Can the Realme 8 Pro be the true successor to the Realme 7 Pro and should you consider it just for the camera? Let's find out in the full review.

Realme 8 Pro Design:

The Realme 8 Pro has the same polycarbonate back as that of the Realme 7 Pro but the design is completely different. Instead of the glossy back, there is a textured matte finish at the back that provides a good grip while holding the smartphone in hand. The large "Dare To Leap" logo is present at the back which is some sort of an extra and can be an extra disturbance to the looks.

The camera bump is slightly raised and this time instead of the rectangular camera setup, there is a square module that houses the quad cameras combined with an LED flashlight where the main camera is a 108MP camera. Below the cameras are the dual LED flashlights. The Realme 8 Pro is very slimmer and the slight curves at the back make it look attractive.

The thinner back does account for the 4500mAh battery and the weight is kept at 176grams which makes it very light to hold. In terms of protection, there is no IP53 rating like we get on the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max but Realme says they have provided a P2i coating making it slightly splash-resistant. To the sides, there is a plastic frame running where on the right, there are the volume buttons and the power button. 

The left side has a triple card slot that houses two slots for dual SIM cards and a dedicated slot for a microSD card for storage expansion. The bottom has a USB Type-C port, a primary microphone, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a loudspeaker grille whereas the top only has a secondary noise-canceling microphone only. On the front, there is a punch-hole display with minimum bezels to the sides.

Overall, the looks are refreshing but the lack of a glass design and IP rating at the back, when compared to its competitors, is slightly disappointing. 

Realme 8 Pro Display:

The Realme 8 Pro has a 6.44 inches Full HD+ (1080x2400 pixels) Super AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9. This display remains unchanged from the Realme 7 Pro as you get the standard 60Hz refresh rate but now the touch sampling rate has been increased from 120Hz to 180Hz on the Realme 8 Pro from the Realme 7 Pro.

As it is an AMOLED display, you get inky blues and blacks with great color reproduction and excellent viewing angles. There is support for Widevine L1 and HDR10+ which means streaming content from OTT platforms is a lot easier. The brightness of the display is good and under direct sunlight, the peak brightness can be achieved close to 700nits when using the Adaptive Brightness.

The lack of a higher refresh rate is a sort of a disappointment because it was lacking on the Realme 7 Pro as it was the first smartphone from the Realme number series to have AMOLED and leaving that aside, even the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max which is priced close to the Realme 8 Pro has a 120Hz AMOLED display. 

The front of the display is protected by Asahi DragonTrail Glass which provides sturdiness almost like Gorilla Glass but Realme could have provided a Gorilla Glass 3 for better protection which we generally associate with smartphones in this price segment. The display also houses an in-display optical in-display fingerprint scanner which is quite fast and accurate with faster face unlock also.

This display is very good as it is an AMOLED display which makes it really good for watching contents but the lack of a higher refresh rate is a sort of miss when compared to the competitors. 

Realme 8 Pro Performance:

In terms of performance, Realme 8 Pro still sticks with a Snapdragon 720G chipset which we have seen on the Realme 6 Pro and the Realme 7 Pro which means from the past two generations. The daily performance is good as it handles various tasks with ease whether it is scrolling of webpages, rendering videos, and also multitasking between applications.

When it comes to gaming, all heavy games like Call Of Duty Mobile, Asphalt 9 Legends, etc ran smoothly with the graphics set to high and the frame rates at max. However, there were minor stutters noticed and the frame drops were quite noticed but switching to medium graphics resulted in smoother gameplay. The 180Hz touch sampling rate ensures faster touch response with controls falling easily in hands.

After a long session of gaming, the Realme 8 Pro did not heat up much as the temperatures were well under control with the temperature hovering around 38-40 degrees Celsius. This is a very stable chipset and the temperature is rise is not no much as we have seen with the powerful Snapdragon 860 chipset on the POCO X3 Pro. Even the Mediatek Helio G95 powered Realme 8 has better performance.

With the Realme 8 Pro, there are two options available i.e. the 6/8GB LPDDR4X RAM with 128GB storage with UFS 2.1 speeds. There is a triple card slot that houses two SIM cards and an additional slot for microSD card for storage expansion.

In terms of benchmarks, the Realme 8 Pro scores 566 and 1678 in single and multi-core tests in Geekbench 5.1, and in Antutu v8, the scores were around 289373 which are not the best but good considering it as a mid-range chipset. Overall, the performance is good but Realme could have upgraded the chipset at least to the Snapdragon 732G or even the Mediatek Dimensity 800U found on the Realme X7.

Realme 8 Pro Software:

The Realme 8 Pro runs on the RealmeUI 2.0 with Android 11 out of the box. The Realme 8 series are the first smartphones to run on RealmeUI 2.0. The software experience is very good as it provides almost Stock-Android experience. 

The software is the same on all Realme smartphones so for a detailed please look at the Realme 8 Software which is almost similar to the Realme 8 Pro.

Realme 8 Pro Cameras:

The biggest area of upgrade on the Realme 8 Pro is in terms of cameras. The Realme 8 Pro is one of those few smartphones to have a 108MP f/1.9 Samsung HM2 sensor for the main camera, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera, and a 2MP depth camera. On the front, there is a 16MP f/2.5 Sony IMX471 sensor for the main camera. The main camera is similar to the one found on the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max.

The main camera on the Realme 7 Pro is a 64MP Sony IMX682 sensor for the main camera whereas the other three cameras are similar to the Realme 8 Pro. The images from the main camera of the Realme 8 Pro come out in 12MP with excellent details and a good dynamic range. The noise is very low with good contrast and white balance. But the colors do look more saturated than natural.

There is an AI Scene Enhancement option usually known as Chromaboost that enhances the color saturation by bringing out more popped out colors and almost close to when you switch to HDR mode. 

There is also a native 108MP resolution mode that clicks many detailed images with less noise but does apply a heavy crop to reduce noise and maintain good color saturation.

The images at night have sharp details with excellent dynamic range but the colors look more saturated and the contrast is good. There is some amount of noise present and more distortion can be seen when you zoom into the images. The exposure in images and the details in shadows seem to be average though.

But with the dedicated Night Mode, the contrast improves and the noise is reduced by a larger extent but the images do take 5-10 seconds to process thus it brings back the highlights in shadows much better and the exposure improves to a larger margin. This camera performs almost equivalent to the camera on the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max which also has the same sensor for the main camera.

Though there is no telephoto camera, Realme claims that you can go 3x lossless optical zoom which is a good addition and all the way up to 20x zoom from the main camera. The images at the 5x zoom have a good dynamic range and a lower amount of noise but going beyond 5x results in a loss in dynamic range, blurry details with more noise present.

The 8MP ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of colors and dynamic range. The 119-degree field of view ensures a wider aperture in the images. There is some amount of noise present and around the edges, there is a lot of distortion present. The same goes for the images taken at night that have a lot of noise and the dynamic range is just average.

The details are good not the sharpest but if you turn on the dedicated Night Mode, the dynamic range improves, and the noise is cut down to quite some extent. It also restores the highlights in darker areas but these images do crop in a bit to get that well-lit shot at night.  

The 2MP macro camera is a fixed focus one and the output has good details with washed-out colors and the dynamic range is just average. There is a lot of noise present and sometimes there is a focussing issue which hopefully Realme fixes in a future software update. For better close-up images, it is always recommended to use the main camera for a closer zoom which results in better details with lower noise.

The 2MP depth sensor does a good job in terms of portraits. The portraits have good color reproduction with natural-looking skin tones on the subject with good dynamic range. There is some overexposure in the background sometimes but what you get are perfect edge detection and proper background blur. Realme provides a lot of filters to tinker around with the background blur also.

On the front, there is a 16MP camera which is having a Sony IMX471 sensor which results in good details and dynamic range also. The skin tones look good but there is some noise present. The contrast and white balance are good but sometimes the selfie camera overexposes things in the background. The portrait selfies have good details but could do with better background blur.

In terms of videos, the Realme 8 Pro can capture 4K videos at 30fps. The videos have good details and the dynamic range is above average with perfect color saturation. The noise is quite present though but switching to 1080p at 60fps on the main camera results in videos with better dynamic range and stabilization as the EIS kicks in at this resolution.

The dynamic range is excellent with low amount of noise and for the ultrawide camera, it is only restricted to 1080p at 30fps and there is no support for 4K video recording. The videos from the ultrawide camera have good dynamic range but the edge distortion and lot of noise is present. Turning on the Super Stable Mode does improve the stabilization in videos at 1080p both on main and ultrawide cameras.

Overall, the cameras seem to be a solid upgrade over the Realme 7 Pro and one of the best camera smartphones around in the mid-range segment.

Realme 8 Pro Battery Life:

The battery capacity on the Realme 8 Pro remains unchanged from the Realme 7 Pro that is you are getting a 4500mAh battery which can easily last for two days with normal to medium usage. Since there is no high refresh rate available, the battery can last very well at standard 60Hz and the average screen-on time was hovering around was 7-8 hours which is really good.

This is achieved due to the AMOLED display which consumes lower amount of power and when you use it heavily which includes playing games like Call Of Duty Mobile for 3-4 hours continuously, or rendering videos, attending calls for longer time and watching videos, the smartphone typically lasted for a single day with some battery left.

Realme provides an enhanced power saving mode for saving battery and the SuperNight Time standby is really good as it reduces the background process during the night by lowering the brightness to save on battery. There is a 65W fast charger bundled inside the box to juice up the Realme 8 Pro quickly but sadly it only can support up to 50W fast charging which is similar to that of the Realme X7 (Review).

The Realme 8 Pro takes around 45-50 minutes for a complete charge from 0 to 100 percent which is still the fastest in the mid-range segment but this is a slight downgrade from the 65W fast charging support on the Realme 7 Pro. However, it is better than the 33W fast charging on the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max. Overall, the battery life is very well optimized and the fast charging adds a bonus.

Realme 8 Pro Audio Quality:

The Realme 8 Pro comes with a single facing downwards speaker which is a downgrade from the stero speakers on the Realme 7 Pro. The sound is adequately loud and clear but the bass level and the loudness is not the best. However, there is a 3.5mm headphone jack available and the sound output is really good. For enhanced sound, there is Dolby Atmos present.

Verdict:

The Realme 8 Pro is a good mid-range smartphone that does most of things perfect for a smartphone in the mid-range segment but with some compromises. It has a good AMOLED display, an exciting design, good performance, good battery life with fast charging, and great software experience with the RealmeUI 2.0. The biggest standout feature of the Realme 8 Pro is the cameras.

The 108MP camera is also found on other smartphones in this mid-range segment and Realme has also adopted this. But there are some things side by side which let the smartphone down. You do get an AMOLED display but there is no high refresh rate, the design is exciting but the build is still plastic, the chipset though providing good performance is two generations older.

Other smartphones like the Moto G60 and the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max provide Snapdragon 732G chipset and the POCO X3 Pro (Review) is the segment best in performance as it has the powerful Snapdragon 860 so in terms of performance and gaming, the Realme 8 Pro does feel short. This might not be a major problem but taking away the 65W fast charging is a sort of a miss and there is no more stereo speaker setup.

But if you look beyond performance and gaming as well as sound quality, the Realme 8 Pro is a great mid-range smartphone and will appeal to all the customers with its exciting looks.