Review of Realme 7 Pro

After reviewing the Realme 7, it’s time to test the Realme 7 Pro, the premium model of this new series. It is an upgrade to the Realme 6 Pro and is quite similar to the Realme 7, but obviously with some upgrades. Although there were not many major changes between the Realme 6 and Realme 7, the Realme 7 Pro does bring some big changes compared to its previous model Realme 6 Pro, out of which the most noticeable changes are AMOLED display, stereo speakers and 65 watt fast charging support.

The Realme 7 Pro price in India starts at Rs 19,999, which is significantly higher than the launch price of the 6 Pro. The new phone’s major rivals currently include the Redmi Note 9 Pro Max (Review) and Poco X2 (Review) and, to a lesser extent, the Redmi K20 (Review) and Oppo F17 Pro. Now it’s time to find out if the new Realme 7 Pro is worth buying.

Realme 7 Pro: design and display

The Realme 7 Pro gets the same mirror-split design as the Realme 7, but it’s much thinner (8.7mm) and lighter (182g) than the Realme 6 Pro. This means you have a better grip on the phone and it’s much more comfortable to use. The frame and back panel are still made of plastic, but the quality is very good and the phone feels sturdy. The matte finish on the back means it doesn’t catch fingerprints easily and we like the look of the Mirror Blue unit. The phone is also available in White colour.

The button placement is good, and at the bottom you get a headphone jack, USB Type-C port, and speaker. With a 6.4-inch screen size, the Realme 7 Pro is smaller than the 6 Pro in terms of display, but it comes with a Super AMOLED panel with full-HD+ resolution. Realme has also claimed the use of Gorilla Glass in the series, although there is no clarity about which version. The display is bright, the colors are good, all credit goes to the panel. The 7 Pro has an always-on display and an in-display fingerprint sensor. The experience of unlocking the phone was good and the phone was also fast in recognizing the face.

Sadly, this phone misses out on a big feature present in the Realme 6 Pro, which is a high refresh rate screen. The Realme 7 Pro gets a standard refresh rate of 60Hz, which is a bit disappointing. We can’t call it a deal breaker either, but it is disappointing considering that its predecessor and the cheaper model in the same series, the Realme 7, get a 90Hz display panel. Also, the display doesn’t come with HDR10 certification, which again is a bit disappointing considering that the Motorola One Fusion+ (Review) gets this feature on a cheaper phone.

In the box of Realme 7 Pro you get the smartphone, 65W Superdart fast charger and some common accessories.

Realme 7 Pro: performance and features

The Realme 7 Pro performed well during our time with it and I wasn’t surprised as it is powered by the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G chipset as the 6 Pro. It’s still a good chip. It does its job well and doesn’t heat up too much even when put under a lot of stress. The base variant of the Realme 7 Pro comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage and is priced at Rs 19,999, while the higher-priced variant comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, which will set you back Rs 21,999. We have the top variant for review. The RAM and storage on the phone come in LPDDR4X and UFS 2.1 formats respectively. Realme also claims that the 7 Pro is the first smartphone to pass TUV Rheinland’s Smartphone Reliability Verification test.

Realme UI ran very smoothly on this top-end variant. Be it launching apps, switching between multiple apps or playing a heavy game, the phone handled every task with ease. We missed the high refresh rate a bit, but that could be because we have tested many phones with 90Hz screens recently.

The Super AMOLED display was great for watching videos and this experience was enhanced by the stereo speakers. The stereo effect is good and Dolby Atmos helps boost the volume and audio fidelity. Games also ran pretty well.

Realme 7 Pro: Battery life

The Realme 7 Pro has a 4,500mAh battery, which easily lasts more than a day on average on a full charge. Our HD video loop test also showed good results. The phone lasted more than 22 hours. It also takes quite a short time to fully charge, thanks to the included 65W fast charging adapter. In our test, the 7 Pro’s battery charged up to 87 percent in half an hour and took only 10 more minutes to reach 100 percent.

Realme 7 Pro: cameras

The rear cameras on the Realme 7 Pro are similar to the Realme 7. It comes with a 64-megapixel Sony IMX682 primary sensor, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle lens, a 2-megapixel depth sensor, and a 2-megapixel macro sensor. For selfies, it gets a 32-megapixel camera sensor with an f/2.5 aperture. Compared to the Realme 6 Pro, the Realme 7 Pro lacks an ultra wide-angle selfie camera and a rear telephoto camera sensor. Realme claims that the new 64-megapixel primary camera can offer better clarity compared to a 2x optical telephoto camera.

Let’s see how well the setup works. In the first shot, we noticed this tree which was a little distance away. If we zoom in to examine both the photos, the primary camera on the Realme 7 Pro and the telephoto camera on the 6 Pro extracted very similar detail. The result using the 2x digital zoom on the 7 Pro was pretty good, but the telephoto camera on the 6 Pro still extracted slightly better detail and smoother depth. Overall, if you want to take good zoomed-in shots with the 7 Pro, shooting a 64-megapixel photo and then cropping it later is a good option.

Regular photos taken in daylight were generally good. The camera handled HDR well, details were good and colours looked natural. The same was true for close-ups, where blur in the background appeared natural. The ultra wide-angle camera was not able to capture as much detail as the primary camera. We found that landscape photos taken with this camera had some chromatic effect.

Portraits came out well, with good edge detection and the background blurred well. The macro camera was decent and could capture some good photos if we held the phone steady.

Low light photos were fine. There wasn’t much noise in the photos and details were good, even if the photo was taken in very dark. You can brighten the subject using Night mode. This mode made a clear difference in the photos. The Realme 7 Pro comes equipped with other night modes, such as Starry mode and Pro Night mode. The ultra wide-angle camera doesn’t take very good photos in low light.

The front camera captured good selfies during the day, at its native 32-megapixel resolution. Portrait mode also worked well. The HDR capabilities of the selfie camera were equally impressive and it managed to properly expose even bright backgrounds without losing details on the subject’s face. Selfies taken indoors under good artificial lighting also looked good. However, in very low light conditions, details dropped.

Verdict: Should you buy the Realme 7 Pro?

All things considered, we think Realme has done a pretty good job building the 7 Pro. It brings major upgrades over the Realme 6 Pro in the form of features like an AMOLED screen, stereo speakers, and awesome fast charging. The primary rear camera delivers better results thanks to the new sensor, but overall, we feel all the cameras in general still need some improvement in low light. Perhaps offering an ultra wide-angle selfie camera instead of a depth sensor would have been a good move.

Given the competition in this segment, we don’t think the Realme 7 Pro is the outright winner. It’s hard to ignore the good value you get with the Motorola One Fusion+, which has a pop-up selfie camera, a slightly faster chipset, and an HDR10 certified display. Poco is also gearing up to launch the Poco X3. If the phone launches around the price of the Realme 7 Pro, the competition is sure to heat up.