Brand: Realme
Product: Realme 7 Pro
Key specs: 6.4-inch sAMOLED display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G, 64MP primary camera, 65W super dart charge
Price: ₹19,999
Rating: 4/5
Realme is a name that needs no introduction. Over the past couple of years, the company has earned a name for itself in India for delivering smartphones with decent features at an affordable price. Yet, its efforts have somehow seemed a bit confusing if not half-hearted. Sure, you get a flagship-level device every six months but that comes with its share of pros and cons. And this hasn’t changed in the case of the Realme 7 Pro.
It features several upgrades over the Realme 6 Pro and yet it misses out on a number of key details that are available in the Realme 7, which supposedly is the vanilla variant of series 7 smartphones. For instance, it gets a better display than the Realme 6 Pro and yet the Realme 7 takes away the crown for having a smarter display. Similarly, the Realme 7 Pro has a better and far more efficient charging technology than the Realme 7, but it is the vanilla variant that gets a bigger battery. Do you see what I mean? It’s a bit confusing!
That said, the Realme 7 Pro isn’t a lost cause at all. It’s a good smartphone in its own right. There are some parts of it such as the camera, the display and the charging technology that manage to stand tall. In fact, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to say that it is easily one of the best smartphones in the 20K range.
But the question remains - is the Realme 7 Pro worth it and should you invest in it? Read on…
Design
Realme changes the back of its smartphones with each generation of smartphone. The Realme 3 series had a wave-like design, the series 5 smartphones had diamonds and the series 6 smartphones had a lightning bolt design. Following this trend, the company has changed the design in its series of smartphones, only this time it’s good.
Realme 7 Pro comes with a simple yet extremely classic design that is an eye-pleaser. It sports a mirror-split design with a matte finish that gives it a more premium look compared to the older generations of Realme smartphones. While the back of the phone is made of plastic it almost doesn’t seem like it, at least not at the first glance. On taking a closer look, you not only realise that the phone has a plastic back but you also realise that it is a fingerprint magnet. Thankfully, Realme ships a transparent silicon cover in the box that is more than capable of keeping the phone... well... clean.
Coming to the specifics, the Realme 7 Pro measures 160.9x74.3x8.7mm and it weighs a mere 182grams. On the other hand, the Realme 6 Pro, which in some ways is the ‘soul predecessor’ to the phone, measures 163.8x75.8x 8.9mm and weighs 195grams. The phone, as you can see, is lighter and marginally smaller than its predecessor. In practice, the Realme 7 Pro feels more natural while holding in hands. It also doesn’t tire your arm when you are talking on the phone for a long time. I, for one, surely appreciated this thanks to the long phone calls I usually am on.
Beyond these, the Realme 7 Pro comes with a hybrid slot that can hold two SIM cards and a microSD card. This is placed on top of the volume rockers on the left. On the right side, you get a power button glazed in yellow that shines brightly against the royal blue body of the phone. At the bottom, there is a speaker, a Type-C port for charging and my favourite, a 3.5mm jack.
All in all, the Realme 7 Pro has a well-rounded design that is comfortable to use and pleasing to look at. It makes a relatively affordable phone look a whole lot expensive.
Display
The Realme 7 Pro looks good but its display is even better. It comes with a 6.4-inch super AMOLED display with a 60Hz refresh rate and a resolution of 2400x1080 pixels. The non-Pro variant of the series, that is the Realme 7, comes with a bigger 6.5-inch display super AMOLED display with a similar resolution. Now, here’s a fun fact. The Realme 7 comes with a smarter 90Hz display, which is the same as the Realme 6 Pro. The Realme 6 also gets Gorilla Glass 6 protection, which is a step up from the series 7 smartphones that come with just the Gorilla Glass protection.
This is exactly why I said that Realme is a bit confused.
Differences aside, the super AMOLED display of the phone is fun to look at and use. The phone offers vivid colours along with high contrast. The colours are rich yet soothing, which makes the entire experience of watching shows and movies on various OTT services, which I admit I have been doing frequently for the past one year, a pleasant one. What’s more, the display held up its end of the bargain nicely both indoors and outdoors even during the daylight hours.
In addition to this, the in-display fingerprint sensor of the phone also worked spectacularly well each time. It unlocked the phone in a blink of an eye without fail each time, which in my opinion is one of the many good things about this phone. While the fingerprint sensor was a hit, the facial recognition system of the phone, which is another way you can unlock it, didn’t disappoint either. It unlocked the phone almost instantaneously each time I used it.
Overall, the display of the Realme 7 Pro, despite being shy of a 90Hz display, gets a thumbs up from my side.
Camera
Now let’s talk about another good feature of the Realme 7 Pro: its camera.
The Realme 7 Pro comes with a quad-rear camera setup and an LED flash that is housed inside a vertically stacked camera module. This camera module is nicely aligned with the phone’s mirror split design. As far as the details are concerned, the phone comes with a 64MP primary camera with Sony IMX682 Sensor, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens, a macro lens and a Black and White portrait lens.
The Realme 6 Pro, which as you would know by now, also features a quad-rear camera setup. It has a 64MP primary camera with a Samsung sensor, a 2MP macro lens, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens and a 12MP telephoto lens. Another shocker, it also features 20x zoom capabilities, something that remains amiss in the Realme 7 Pro. Sure, the Realme 7 Pro has the latest Sony sensor powering the primary camera, but the overall package, especially the absence of a telephoto lens is hard to ignore.
Details aside, the Realme 7 Pro does a good job at snapping images be it during the day or the night. The primary camera snaps good images. It gets all the details right with a fair amount of depth and contrast. It does sharpen the images a bit while adding a tinge of brightness, it doesn’t go overboard with it. The ultra-wide-angle also manages to maintain the same level of contrast but there is a drop in the sharpness on zoom, which makes cropping an image almost impossible.
The phone also does a surprisingly good job while snapping images in low-light conditions. The Realme 7 Pro manages to capture all details and colours perfectly in the Night Mode while sharpening the images a bit. Surprisingly, the images clicked in the normal mode are almost as good while almost no noise even on zooming in.
Coming to the front camera, the Realme 7 Pro comes with a 32MP selfie. It almost feels like a downgrade from the Realme 6 Pro’s dual-selfie camera system consisting of a 16MP wide-angle lens and an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens. Specs aside, the Realme 7 Pro does a great job at clicking images under various lighting conditions. When clicking images in the regular mode, the phone ends up capturing far more details than you normally would want it to. Switch to the portrait mode and you can click Insta-worthy images that don’t seem too made up. Simply said, it doesn’t over-smoothen the images. The end result is that you get natural yet almost flawless images both during the day and at night.
Performance
And now, the performance.
The Realme 7 Pro is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G processor that is coupled with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage space. These are exactly the same specifications that you get in the Realme 6 Pro, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
The octa-core Snapdragon 720G chipset is available in a number of budget smartphones. Pair it up with the Adreno 618 GPU and the result is that you get a phone that functions smoothly. Whether you are meaninglessly scrolling through your social media feed, which I do a lot of times, or you are managing all of your workload from your phone, the Realme 7 Pro doesn’t disappoint.
It performs equally well while playing games. I am not a gaming fan but I do binge on Temple Run at times. During my time with the phone, it glided like a hot knife on butter. But that, of course, is not a heavy-duty game. Serious gamers would miss not having a 90Hz display on the phone.
Coming to the software, the Realme 7 Pro runs on Android 10 with Realme UI on top. Now, I have mixed emotions about this one. Realme has refined its UI over the years. Results you can while using the Realme 7 Pro smartphone. The overall interface is clean and customisable. I did not notice any lag while using the phone. The apps function smoothly and the transition from one app to another is equally seamless. The only downside is that the Realme 7 Pro features a lot of bloatware which can sometimes clog the overall experience especially while using the browser. Other than that, it’s a smooth sail.
Lastly, the battery. The Realme 7 Pro comes with a 4,500mAh battery with 65W Super Dart charge technology. This is one area where the Realme 7 Pro has an edge over the Realme 6 Pro that features a 4,300mAh battery with 30W Flash Charge technology.
Now, an interesting bit. The not-so-vanilla Realme 7 comes with a 5,000mAh battery with 30W Flash Charge technology. The Realme 7 Pro clearly has better-charging technology, but it is the Realme 7 that gets the bigger battery. Fortunately, that doesn’t get in the way of the phone’s overall performance. What it lacks in size, it makes up in speed.
The Realme 7 Pro charges 74% in 30 minutes and it gets completely charged, from 0 to 100, in around 50 minutes. You can charge it for 30 mins and easily get ahead of a long night that follows a hectic day. No qualms there. The battery, which I mentioned earlier isn’t the best of what the series 7 has to offer, also does a good job. During my time with the phone, the battery lasted for a whole plus a couple of hours extra. I mostly use it for checking endless emails and answering a bunch of calls coupled with 1-2 hours of social media time and 4-5 hours of video viewing time. But if you are a gamer, this time would reduce slightly based on what game you prefer.
Conclusion
Now the most important question: should you buy the Realme 7 Pro or not? Well, I don’t have a clear answer for you. Don’t get me wrong. The Realme 7 Pro is a great smartphone in its own right. It has the looks, the features and it goes easy on the pocket. FYI, it costs just ₹19,999. It stands tall on its own. Things get a bit murky when you compare it with its siblings.
At 17,999, the Realme 6 Pro offers a lot of what the Realme 7 Pro is offering. Sure, the Realme 7 Pro has a better (not smarter) display and a better battery. But keep that aside, Realme 6 Pro is an option worth considering. And if you want something more recent, the Realme 7, which starts at ₹14,999 is also a great option.
But if you are looking forward to experiencing the magic of Super Dart Charge with the gorgeous super AMOLED display, the Realme 7 Pro is the one for you.
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