Realme 3 Pro Review
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| Realme 3 Pro is the company's new flagship offering designed to take on the Redmi Note 7 Pro |
Realme had introduced its third-generation Realme 3 (review) smartphone in a bid to take Xiaomi's Redmi Note 7 (review) almost a month ago.
Table Of Content
4. Verdict
In the launch event, the company also spiked an imminent arrival of a display-oriented version of the phone, which is called Realme 3 Pro. Unexpectedly, this new model stands against the Redmi Note 7 Pro (review).
HIGHLIGHTS
- Realme 3 Pro is powered by the Snapdragon 710 SoC
- App performance and battery life are very good
- Realme 3 Pro price in India starts at Rs. 13,999
Xiaomi has been dominating the mainstream smartphone segment in India for a long time, making it the biggest competitor of Realme.
Looking at its predecessors in Realme 3, 10,389 Pro, there are some very big shoes to fill, Realme 2 Pro 2 was 12,599 (review) and remains a solid alternative in its price segment.
Redmi Note 7 Pro will not be a Cakewalk once you go up to 19,999, because Xiaomi already has 48-megapixel rear camera with this phone, glass body and only Rs. Bar High High is set by offering a powerful interior that starts with. 14,000
Realme 3 Pro has some aces above its sleeves, and now it's time to find out if it can conquer its biggest opponent. let's get started.
Realme 3 Pro design
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| The Realme 3 Pro is available in some cool colour options |
However, on closer inspection, some differences become clear. The most obvious is a curved back panel, which leads to the sides, blending the phone's polycarbonate frame.
Realme 3 Pro has a slightly curved section in the back panel, with the side frame of the phone. The back panel is still made from injection-molded plastic, but we get some new colors with a microscopic pattern, which is thought to be inspired by a racetrack.
The color option for our review is Nitro Blue, which has dual-tone blue and purple finish, but you can buy this phone in a more cool carbon gray or light granite finish, also in another gradient finish.
Realme 3 Pro is not very wide, which makes it easy to hold, but it is quite long, so reaching the notification shade is usually a two-handed case. At 172g, it does not look very heavy, and in 8.3 mm thickness, it is easy to keep it in pocket.
The buttons are thoughtfully understood so that they are well aligned with our fingers, and have a 3.5mm headphone socket, micro-USB port, and a single speaker below.
Realme 3 Pro has two nano-SIM cards and slots for a MicroSD card simultaneously, so if you do not need to expand the storage then the second SIM must be discarded.
6.3-inch display has a lot of thin bezel in all sides, except that there is a comparatively thick chin on the bottom. Realme uses an IPS panel with a full-HD + (1080x2340) resolution and Gorilla Glass 5.
The display produces vivid colors, it has good looking angles, and there is enough brightness for easy accessibility under the sun. Like the Realm 2 Pro, there is a step upside down which presents the front camera, while the earpiece sits right above it. You also have a screen guard already applied.
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| Realme 3 Pro ships with ColorOS 6, which is based on Android 9 Pie |
On the back side, Realme 3 Pro has a stacked dual-camera module and a capacitive fingerprint sensor. The camera module differs slightly, but thankfully we did not close any chrome lining during our review.
We deliberately used the phone in case of unbundled plastic, to see how the body will wear against everyday wear and tear. In one week, it was well organized but we saw light scaffolding marks with one of the lower corners of the phone.
Fingerprint sensor works well and also faces recognition, which works faster like most other Realme devices. You do not get headphones in the box, but Realme 3 Pro ships with a fast charger, which some Xiaomi still refuses to include with their Redmi offerings.
This phone supports the VOOC 3.0 Fast Charging Standard (20W) of Oppo which is especially useful when you have a 4045mAh larger battery.
Realme 3 Pro specifications and software
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| The Realme 3 Pro has a noticeable chin but overall, packs in a nice design |
In the case of Brut Strength, the Snapdragon 675 in Radmi Note Pro 7 has a slightly better CPU power, but the 710 has the advantage with better integrated graphics capabilities and its more powerful 10nm fabrication. In principle, it should allow better battery life when using heavy apps like cameras and gaming.
Realme is presenting two variants of the phone. You get 4GB RAM and 64GB storage with base variant and 6GB RAM with 128GB of storage at the top-end, which we are reviewing.
While you have a large amount of storage, you have the option to increase it to 256GB using a MicroSD card. Phone Dual 4G VoLTE also supports standard suite of dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 5, FM radio, USB-OTG, GPS and sensor.
Realme 3 Pro runs on ColorOs 6, which is based on Android 9 Pie. Even it comes with the March 2019 Android security patches. There is a new look of ColorOS 6, and we just recently saw it when we tested Realme 3. You can turn navigation keys into a Google Pixel 3-style swipable button, or get rid of gestures completely.
A fast swipe from the home screen lets you access your app drawer, and like the previous iterations of ColorOS, you get lots of motion and screen gestures to play with.
Realme continues to preinstall some third-party apps such as Webnovel, NewsPoint, ShareChat, etc., but these can all be uninstalled if needed.
Realme Share is Apple's answer to AirDrop's company. This allows you to quickly share files between compatible Realme devices. When you try and share a file from Gallery, you will see this option. We tried it between Realme 3 Pro and Realme 3, and it did a good job.
Realme 3 Pro performance, cameras, and battery life
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| Realme 3 Pro Review |
One of the promised fixes is WidewineL1 certification (our unit currently has only L3 certification) which will allow you to stream videos from applications like Netflix, etc. at higher resolution than HD.
We were promised 960fps slo-motion video recording mode (which we got later via updates) and the camera app in the final firmware was improved.
Media playback is handled well, and the video is presented with porous colors. Black levels are acceptable. Single speakers for media playback get quite loud, although we would prefer a second speaker for a proper stereo effect.
The area on either side of the nock is usually hidden when watching the video, but you can force the app to fill all the available space from within the settings. Being a 'Pro' model, we were expecting Realme to go with USB Type-C, but sadly we are still stuck with the micro-USB port.
Heavy games also run fine. PUBG Mobile defaulted to the High Graphics Preset and the gameplay became smooth without any interruption or interval.
Other titles such as F1 Mobile and Asphalt 9: Legend also run smoothly. Even after a long session, the phone does not get too hot, which is good.
At Realme 3 Pro Redmi Note 7 Pro may lack a large sensor, but it still packs in a decent size 16-megapixel Sony IMX519 sensor with f / 1.7 aperture.
This is the sensor used in some premium phones like OnePlus 6T, 34999 (review). The secondary 5-megapixel depth sensor is for the portrait mode of the phone.
Realme 3 Pro got very good information in Landscape shots taken in daylight. The colors were extended slightly, but it gives the pictures a bit more special pop, especially when it is shot in the rainy conditions.
We also saw some shortage in some parts of a subject, but it was worth noting when you zoom in all the way.
Macros were sharp and well-elaborated, and Ai's visual recognition of the phone was quick to recognize most common objects such as flowers.
In low light, the camera greatly reduces the speed of its shutter, which is reduced by 1/10th time at a time, due to which it is not easy to catch moving subjects such as pets.
When your topic is still there, the details are good. On the other hand, during the shooting in Auto mode this did not look very good at all. In very little light, the focus was usually soft.
However, the NightScape mode of the phone comes in handy. Capturing your shot takes more time than normal, but the end result is a sharp image with very good details.
Still zooming reveals some dim blurred edges and smoke-out texture, but images are generally very useful as long as you do not cut your image too much.
Depth sensor works very well with Age Detection, and even in low light, we have got a very good Bokeh effect.
Realme 3 Pro has a 25-megapixel selfie camera with f / 2.0 aperture. Under the good light, we managed to get some good shots, and if you're shooting against the light, then the HDR works well.
However, in low light, the images usually looked flat and slightly granular. The phone works very poorly, implementing Bokeh effects for selfies so that they are artificially exposed.
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| Realme 3 Pro Review |
Realme 3 Pro can shoot video up to 4K resolution but there is no stabilization. In daylight, the quality of the image is good, with decent color reproduction. At night, the quality decreases slightly but noise is still handled well. At 1080p resolution, the video is stable.
The camera app has a simple design and it's easy to use. Additional shooting modes available include Timelapse, Expert, Pano, and Slo-mo. The phone also has chroma boost mode, which enhances colors and brightness while shooting backlit objects.
Realme 3 Pro got another firmware update, we were just wrapping the review. There was no change but the camera app did not find the 960fps shooting mode.
When you switch from SlowMo to within the Camera app, you can now select between 120fps or 960fps. The former is shot at 1080p resolution, while later captured at 720p resolution.
However, there is no scale to fit the video screen shot at 960fps, even in landscape mode, leaving you with black bars on all the edges of the video.
You need to give your shots well, because there is no auto-capture feature and the footage of a few seconds extends up to a 10 second clip. Overall, when quality under decent light is decent.
Battery life is solid. The 4045mAh battery lasted 14 hours and 13 minutes in our HD Video Loop Test which is very good. With normal use, which included a bit of gaming, watching videos, using the chat app and surfing the web, we were able to easily go beyond a day on a charge. In fact, even using gaming or cameras did not make a big dent in the battery life, which was good to see.
The VOOC Fast Charger can up to 90 percent of the battery in an hour, which is effective. It is worth noting that the micro-USB cable bundled for VOOC charging is required, and will not work regularly.
Verdict
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| Realme 3 Pro Review |
While the improvements we saw were welcome, Realme Redmi could do a bit more to actually repair the Note 7 Pro (review). We would love to see a USB Type-C port, a glass back and maybe AMOLED display. Low-light camera performance could be even better for both front and rear cameras.
If you are looking for a smartphone that costs Rs. 20,000 is a good place to start Realme 3 Pro. You get a good set of cameras, solid battery life and a feature-packed OS, so this is a good option to consider.
In some cases, Realme 3 Pro is better than the Redmi Note 7 Pro because the UI is not spam and there is no heating problem. On the other hand, there is a lot of premium for the Radmi Note 7 Pro Glass Back.
We are in the process of making detailed comparisons of both phones, so if you want to make a decision between both smartphones, be ready for that too.
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