Realme 8 Pro review – excellent camera at a great price

• The Realme 8 Pro has been launched with a starting price of ₹17,999 in India.
• The main highlight of the device is its 108MP primary camera.
• The device is powered by the Snapdragon 720G chipset and offers up to 8GB RAM.
• Read our detailed Realme 8 Pro review to find out if this can be your next smartphone.

The Realme 8 Pro is the latest budget smartphone from the company, trying to strike a good balance between camera features, performance and price. It succeeds the Realme 7 series, bringing an updated camera and a striking new design.

The primary highlight of the Realme 8 Pro is the 108MP camera on the back, giving it a real shot at becoming one of the most interesting smartphones in its price segment.

While 108MP cameras are starting to show up in mid-range and upward devices, it’s not often you see a budget smartphone with these specifications. From using a Qualcomm chipset to featuring a somewhat unique design, the Realme 8 Pro gets a lot of things right apart from the camera.

But how does it fare in real life? Let’s find out.

Realme 8 Pro price and availability

The Realme 8 Pro is priced at ₹17,999 for the 6GB variant and ₹19,999 for the 8GB variant. It comes in blue, black and yellow colours. It is available for purchase from Flipkart, Realme.com and offline stores.

Some of the phones that the Realme 8 Pro competes with are:

Design and build quality

One of the standout aspects of the Realme 8 Pro apart from its camera is the design. The unit we tested featured an anti-glare finish on the back with textured design. This makes it different from other phones in this segment – and while it might not be the best looker, it certainly feels rugged and repels fingerprints as if it’s a feature.

The phone is lightweight at just 176 grams and yet, it feels sturdy.

Display

The Realme 8 Pro comes with a 6.4-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED display. It gets bright enough under direct sunlight so readability concerns are non-existent. Colour reproduction is fairly good when considering the price of the phone.

However, what is slightly disappointing is the refresh rate, which is just 60Hz. At a time when 90Hz is becoming the norm in this price segment, Realme seems to have missed a trick here.

Camera

The primary selling point of the Realme 8 Pro is its camera prowess. It rocks a 108MP camera on the back along with an 8MP ultrawide angle snapper, and two 2MP cameras for capturing depth and macro shots.

While megapixels are not everything, we were impressed by the phone’s ability to capture shots with good detail and colour reproduction. The camera is fast and doesn’t miss a beat.

Images captured in daylight conditions were good, with detail and accurate colour reproduction.

Performance and battery life

The Realme 8 Pro is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G chipset, which is paired with up to 8GB of RAM and 128GB storage. It supports only 4G, though, so you might want to keep that in mind.

In day-to-day usage, the phone performed well without any lags or stutters. The slow 60Hz refresh rate of the display might seem a little too low for those who have used a 90Hz or 120Hz refresh rate phone. Apart from that, though, the phone’s performance is good.

Realme has used a 4,500mAh battery with support for 50W fast charging. The phone is rated to charge to 100% in 47 minutes. Surprisingly enough, Realme has bundled a 65W charger in the box even though the Realme 8 Pro supports only 50W charging.

Software

The Realme 8 Pro comes with Realme UI 2.0 and runs on Android 11 out of the box.

Realme UI is feature packed and sports a slightly customised interface when compared to stock Android. Despite the additional features, we found the experience to be fluid and without any lags. There are some bundled apps that come with the phone, but they can be uninstalled if you don’t want them.

Verdict – should you buy the Realme 8 Pro?

The Realme 8 Pro comes with a great camera and the pricing is aggressive as well. The design, build quality and overall performance are good, too, but the phone is handicapped by the 60Hz refresh rate display. More so when the competition offers 120Hz support at similar prices.

Even though the Snapdragon 720G chipset is capable enough, devices like the Poco X3 Pro offer a significantly more powerful chipset at similar prices.

But with that said, the camera could be the phone’s saviour.

SEE ALSO:

Samsung Galaxy A52 review – combining colour with simplicity

Moto G30 review – a decent budget phone with a bloat-free user experience

Realme X7 Pro 5G mobile review – democratising 5G