Realme 3 Review
Realme seems to have struck the right chord with Indian audiences, having started its journey under Oppo, and soon breaking away to become an independent company. |
| Realme 3 Review |
Since then, Realme has expanded its portfolio beyond phones to include audio and travel accessories as well. The company is also planning to set up exclusive retail stores in the second half of 2019, which shows its commitment to the Indian market.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Realme 3 has a MediaTek Helio P70 SoC and comes with up to 4GB of RAM
- It's a decent upgrade to the Realme 2, but could have been better
- Realme 3 price in India starts at Rs. 8,999; 4GB variant costs Rs. 10,999
Now, the company has launched the next model in its main smartphone product line, which is called Realme 3 only. The phone is the successor of Realme 2, (review) and its price is similar. However, to remain competitive, the company has given new models a lot of boost in CPU power.
Read More: Oppo K1 Full Review
Add that new design language and updated software, and we have Rs. Marks of 10,000 Let's see if Realme 3 should be your top pick in this price segment.
Realme 3 design and display
Compared with its predecessor, the big change with the design of Realme 3 is the presence of Waterdrop, which gives you high screen-to-body ratio. |
| Realme 3 Review |
Realme is also using its new unibody design for the back, which is curved all sides without any side seams. Instead of back glass the injection is made of molded plastic, but it feels rigid and comfortable.
Realme 3 is not particularly light on 175g and is not diluted on 8.3mm, but weight distribution is good and there is enough surface on the sides for a good grip.
Fingerprints are a real nightmare. It is impossible to keep the pre-applied screen guard and bright back clean. After a few days of use, we also saw some minor hairline scuffs around the edges of the back.
We have a radiant blue color trim, but also available in Realme 3 Black and Dynamic Black. The upper three-fourth part of the phone is black, while the blue shield (sometimes purple, depending on the angle you hold) is only towards the bottom of the fourth.
Two nano-SIM cards and a mciroSD card can be adjusted in the SIM tray. 4G also supports Dual VoLTE. Below, there is a 3.5mm headphone socket, micro-USB port and speaker.
In Realme 3 there is a 13-megapixel front-facing camera in the notch, while the earpiece is placed right next to the sensor. You get a much larger 6.2-inch HD + (720x1520 pixel) display, which also has a Gorilla Glass Protection.
However Realme has not specified the version. In the lower part of the phone, Chin, other recent offerings like Realme, like Realme U1 me 10,999 (review) is quite big compared to the people.
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The resolution for this size is a little lower, given that the competition has gone into the full-HD panel in this segment. As a result, pictures and lessons do not look sharp, but it is not bad for being a deal breaker.
The colors look vivid and the brightness is very good, so we did not have any problem reading our emails even under the direct sunlight.
At the most, the Realme logo is now vertically aligned to the bottom, and on the top, we have two cameras, the LED flash, and the middle fingerprint sensor.
The latter works well in authentication, but like the previous Realme phone, the Face Unlock is just fast if it is not fast, and therefore we rely on it during our daily use.
Overall, the Realme 3 is a nice visual upgrade over the Realme 2, though we would have liked to see other improvements like a glass back or maybe even a USB Type-C port.
The Realme 3 ships with a silicone case, SIM eject tool, data cable, and 10W charger. You don't get earphones in the box.
Realme 3 specifications and features
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| Realme 3 Review |
The specifications of Realme 2 looked strange at its launch, given that there was a better SoC in Realme 1. Thankfully, the company has decided it with Realme 3. This new phone is powered by the MediaTek Helio P70 Octa-Core SoC, which actually made its debut in Realme U1.
There are two versions of Realme 3 - one with 3GB of RAM and 32GB storage and the other is with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.
Our review unit is the later version. Realme 3 has a general suite of single-band Wi-Fi 802.11 B / G / N, Bluetooth 4.2, USB-OTG, GPS, and sensors. FM radio is absent.
The software eventually becomes a very necessary overhaul with ColorOS 6.0. This new Android skin is based on Android 9 Pie, and our unit was a safety patches in January 2019. ColorOS is not our favorite custom Android skin, if we are honest, but the new version fixes a few things.
The first thing that captures your attention is that the clean and minimalistic form of the OS Icons look like we have seen in the old version of ColorOS, but they are slightly smaller, and somehow look more sophisticated.
The new version of the OS is also suitable for some specific features of Android 9 pie, such as a round for menus, a bubble-like design, and a two-layer navigation system with app drawer.
To access recent apps, you only swipe for a long time and shift your thumb to the right or left button so that you can cycle between them. In the notification shadow, the toggle switches for Wi-Fi, etc. are now over-sized and easy to use. Either by pressing the Volume Button comes the volume bar just ahead, which looks like MIUI 10 on the Xiaomi phone.
Google's digital wellbeing feature is not available in Android 9 pie. One more thing that is still missing is the Android's battery level graph, which provides a visual representation of your usage over time, instead of showing your list of uses over time.
Our unit had a group of preinstalled apps like ShareChat, which is a content discovery app, Webnovel and some social apps. If not needed, all of them can be uninstalled.
The color space of ColorOS also exists, and gets a new look. Added 'Riding Mode' to the Smart Driving Sub-menu, which, when enabled, mutes all notifications except for incoming calls.
Realme 3 performance, cameras, and battery life
MediaTek Helio P70 offers good CPU and GPU performance for its class, which is reflected in the benchmark. In AnTuTu, we were able to get 1,36,619 points, and we also got 46fps in GFXbench's T-Rex graphics test.Benchmark numbers are generally more than those, say, competing snapdragon 660 which is found in phones such as Asus ZenFone Max Pro M2.
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New software and updated hardware make Realme 3 a great phone. When using social and chat applications, we did not face any unnecessary heating, which is a good sign. The phone handles multitasking very well and we do not face any issues here.
Despite the shiny back, this phone is not surprisingly slippery in no case. However, fingerprints and spots begin to look dirty within a few seconds of using it.
The phone performs well in gaming. We tested two of the most popular titles around - Asphalt 9: Legends and PUBG Mobile - both enjoyed playing In Asphalt, we managed to get comfortable framerates even with graphics set on 'High' presets.
PUBG Mobile runs well in the middle graphics preset, which is a bit intermittent at all times. When gaming took place, the phone got a little hot but it was nothing but ordinary.
Realme works well with 3 media files too Animated films have good color saturation and look vibrant. Blacks are crushed slightly in dark scenes but overall, this is not bad for the HD + display.
The single speaker gets loud, but seems quite average. Its position on the bottom also means that keeping the phone in landscape mode is easy to block it from its palm.
Realme 3 retains the 13-megapixel and 2-megapixel rear camera setup of Realme 2 (review), although the primary sensor has been improved and the lens is now f / 1.8 aperture. While shooting in portrait mode the second sensor is used only for depth calculation.
The new version of ColorOS has changed a bit in the camera app. Realme is introducing two new shooting modes for the rear camera, called Nightscape and Chroma Boost.
According to Realme, Knightscape uses AI and multi-frame exposure to give you a brighter image in low light. In practice, it actually gives good results in most scenarios, but it was not very effective in extremely low light conditions.
The shutter is kept slightly less open than normal 1/10 or 1/15 seconds (maximum maximum time was 1/8 seconds), and low ISO value.
There is also a sharp sharpening of implementing While taking shots you will have to keep your hand steady for a few seconds, but the final result is a big improvement compared to shooting in auto mode, because the details are fast and the shadows are picking up, they reveal more details.
The second new addition is the chroma boost, which can be toggled from within the viewfinder. It is said to promote the dynamic range of an image, especially when shooting a subject against bright light. In our test shots, colors and shine got a great boost. The results did not always look natural, but the effect was definitely striking.
While shooting the landscape, the quality of pictures taken with the primary camera was a bit hit or miss. There were very good details in some shots, but Realme struggled with complex textures such as leaves.
Macros were fast and well-expanded, with good color under good lighting, but again, we had such examples when the phone refused to focus properly on a visible subject, while our tapping of the viewfinder in spite of.
HDR is present but the colors can look slightly oversaturated. In low light, the camera produced soft and meaty shots, until we used the nightscape mode, but it only works fine when you and your friends remain stationary.
Portrait mode for both front and back cameras. Edge Detection was handled very well for objects with simple geometric shapes while using rear camera. However, at times it happened when it became very wrong.
Background blur is slightly offensive, and sadly there is no way to adjust it before or after taking a shot. Edge Detection was not very good in portrait mode with front camera.
Front 13-Megapixel sensor has f / 2.0 aperture. It pulled wide selfies in good light but struggled in low light. AI is beautification which allows you to smooth your skin, make your cheekbones slim, etc. You can allow AI to do this automatically or adjust the individual sliders manually.
Realme 3 can shoot videos from 1080p to 30fps. When the shoot was under good light then the video quality was good, but there is no stabilization, so if you move too much then the footage is unstable. There is also a slow video mode that captures 720p video at 90fps.
Realme 3 has been packaged in a 4230mAh battery, which runs on average for the entire day with our usage, typically an hour's gaming, music streaming on Bluetooth, social and productivity apps, and some calls in between Includes taking.
In any case, Realme 3 did not perform very well in our video loop test because it lasted only 9 hours and 52 minutes, which is below average.
There is no fast charging, but the 10W charger can increase the battery to about 49 percent in one
hour.
Verdict
Realme 3 is a good all-round upgrade for Realme 2 (review). There is a more modern design, the rear camera gets some interesting new tricks, and the display is bright and vivid. Even though our internal test did not rent the batteries very well, the use of the real-world battery was good.The biggest improvement in this phone is its processor, which gets a lot of boost. The cameras, even though slightly improved, can do much better. We also like other type of charging ports, a metal or glass enclosure and a high resolution display.
The most obvious competitor of Realme 3 was recently launched by Xiaomi Redmi Note 7. Although we are still not looking at the phone through the same phone to see how its camera, battery and CPU are compared to Reality 3, Xiaomi has a strong reputation for offering features and performances that match Are hard for
For starters, Redmi Note 7 features a glass back, a full-HD + display, USB Type-C port and Qualcomm Quick Charge 4 support. Those features will seem to keep it ahead of Realme 3, but we will give definite answers after testing both the phones.
If you are on a tight budget of a room with no skirts, then the 3GB version of Realme 3 is worth considering. However, remember that Rs. More than 1,000, you can get Redmi Note 7. The higher version of Realme 3 overlaps with the 3GB version of Realme U1.
Realme has told Us that there will be no change in availability of other Realme models for at least the next few months, but we would recommend Realme U1 (review) which has the same processor but better specs such as if you Choosing between two models, the full-HD display.
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