Realme has had fairly the meteoric rise in India in excess of a relatively small time span. The hugely competitive firm at this time has a wide portfolio of smartphones, but the charge at which it’s heading, I consider it demands to pump the brakes a bit and take a a lot more focused tactic to its launches. I am referring to the recently launched Realme 8, which launched alongside the Realme 8 Professional. The firm has managed to cover quite substantially each single rate position under Rs. 20,000, but the sheer quantity of telephones it now sells, such as the 7 series, X-series and Narzo models, usually means that you will find a great deal of overlapping, with just minute distinctions involving quite a few of them.
The Realme 8 begins at Rs. fourteen,999 and heading purely by requirements, is fundamentally a slimmer Realme 7 with an AMOLED display. The Realme 7 itself is fundamentally a Realme 6 Professional with a MediaTek SoC alternatively of Qualcomm, and equally these models are also continue to on sale at comparable price ranges. The best-stop variant of the Realme 8, which I’ll be reviewing, charges Rs. sixteen,999. This usually means it competes specifically with the Realme Narzo 30 Professional, which comes about to have a 5G SoC and a 120Hz display. Do you see what I mean? Deciding upon a Realme smartphone these days can be fairly challenging.
It is really time to see how the Realme 8 actually performs, and regardless of whether you should really hassle with it or select some thing else.
Realme 8 style and design and display
The Realme 8’s style and design is seriously focused on creating it slender and gentle, and it does a extremely good occupation listed here. The all-plastic overall body helps it realize a snug body weight of just 177g, and it just isn’t extremely thick both at 7.99mm. Equally these figures are large advancements in excess of the significant Realme 7. The plastic again is a bit of a letdown, because the edges picked up scuff marks extremely quickly. A glass again could have prevented this. The buttons on the Realme 8 have good feedback. At the bottom, we have the speaker, headphone jack, and USB Kind-C port.
The large improve in contrast to the Realme 7 lies in the display, which is a 6.4-inch Tremendous AMOLED panel with a whole-High definition+ resolution, fairly than an Lcd panel. This is the initial time Realme’s non-Professional quantity series has obtained the AMOLED procedure. With this display, you also get a speedy in-display fingerprint sensor, but you sacrifice the 90Hz refresh charge that the Realme 7 offered. The display has a monitor protector pre-used but you will find no formal point out of bolstered glass, which past models had. When we asked Realme, a firm representative explained to us that it has used Dragontrail glass on the Realme 8.
The Realme 8 has a placing rear panel style and design, to put it mildly, but it’s continue to plastic and not glass
I am not a large admirer of the Cyber Silver colour that I obtained, as the rainbow effect on sure sections of the again panel and the significant ‘Dare to Leap’ slogan are a bit too flashy for my taste. Fingerprints are also a large problem on this colourway. The Cyber Black solution appears to be a bit a lot more subdued and is in all probability the a person I might go with.
The Realme 8 is a person of the a lot more snug telephones I have reviewed recently and should really be quick to live with, especially thinking about it has a 5,000mAh battery. Having said that, I consider Realme could have performed a great deal a lot more to up the high quality quotient, this kind of as giving a glass again alternatively of plastic. The box contents contain a 30W charger, Kind-C cable, case, and SIM eject tool.
Realme 8 requirements and software package
The Realme 8 reuses the MediaTek Helio G95 SoC from the Realme 7, which has proven to be good more than enough for gaming at this rate degree. The Realme 8 is accessible in 3 RAM variants, all owning the very same 128GB of UFS two.1 storage. The 4GB variant is priced at Rs. fourteen,999, the 6GB variant is Rs. fifteen,999, and the 8GB variant is Rs. sixteen,999. Realme despatched me the best-stop 8GB variant for this overview. Other requirements contain twin-band Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 5.1, and the usual array of sensors and satellite navigation assistance.
The 6.4-inch Tremendous AMOLED display on the Realme 8 generates wealthy and vivid colours
The Realme 8 (and 8 Professional) are some of the initial telephones to ship with Realme UI two. out of the box. It is really centered on Android 11, and on the area, it appears to be extremely comparable to the past edition. Having said that, there are subtle style and design and animation variations. There’s an upgraded icon customisation menu, and all the security and privacy advantages that arrive with Android 11 have been implemented.
Regretably, the new edition hasn’t drop any bloatware, and you will find continue to a tonne of third-occasion and redundant applications that arrive pre-put in. Most of them can be uninstalled if wanted, but some this kind of as Browser, which can be infamous for spamming you with unwelcome notification, can not.
Realme 8 performance and battery everyday living
Possessing an AMOLED display promptly livens up illustrations or photos and films, creating the Realme 8 a good gadget for media intake. The display’s distinction concentrations are good and brightness is a lot more than satisfactory even for out of doors use. The in-display fingerprint sensor is extremely brief at authentication, and experience recognition is just as dependable. The bottom speaker gets decently loud, whilst it would have been nice to have had stereo speakers.
In conditions of performance, the Realme 8 feels snappy. I did miss out on the fluidity in scrolling offered by a 90Hz display but usability was continue to good. The Helio G95 SoC posts good benchmark quantities too, scoring two,89,587 factors in AnTuTu. I did not face any heating concerns, even when gaming for extended stretches. Speaking of which, game titles ran extremely nicely and looked good on this display.
The Realme 8 also delivers solid battery everyday living. The 5,000mAh capacity quickly lasted me for an full working day with large use, and even extended when my use was a bit lighter. In our High definition video clip loop examination, it ran for a full of 24 hours and 11 minutes. 30W rapid charging allows it to charge entirely in roughly 65 minutes. There’s also assistance for USB Kind-C Electricity Shipping (PD) rapid charging (up to 15W).
The Realme 8 has a comparable set of rear cameras as the Realme 7, but the performance just isn’t as good
Realme 8 cameras
The rear cameras are comparable to what we noticed on the Realme 7 in conditions of requirements. At the again, you will find a 64-megapixel primary digital camera, 8-megapixel extremely-broad digital camera, two-megapixel macro digital camera, and a two-megapixel monochrome digital camera. Having said that, the primary 64-megapixel sensor is produced by Omnivision and not Sony, like the a person on the Realme 7. You get a sixteen-megapixel selfie digital camera. The digital camera application features a wealthy variety of capturing modes, comparable to what we have found on past Realme smartphones.
Graphic high quality, regrettably, is weaker than what I seasoned with the Realme 7. Landscape pictures looked alright when found on the phone’s display, but on nearer inspection, details and textures on objects generally appeared flat and not nicely defined. The extremely-broad digital camera manufactured even weaker details, as anticipated, with visible barrel distortion alongside the edges. Shut-ups fared substantially greater in conditions of details, but they tended to have a seriously processed seem when magnified. The AI scene enhancer has the tendency to improve colours, so if you want a a lot more all-natural seem, it’s most effective to go away it off.
Realme 8 major digital camera sample (faucet to see much larger impression)
Realme 8 extremely-broad digital camera sample (faucet to see much larger impression)
Realme 8 shut-up digital camera sample (faucet to see much larger impression)
Reduced-gentle images commonly turned out a bit grainy unless of course I used Nightscape mode. This also served get usable small-gentle images with the extremely-broad digital camera. For shut-ups, the autofocus wasn’t extremely precise in less-than-ideal gentle, so at times, it took a couple tries to get a good shot.
The Realme 8 can document video clip at up to 4K 30fps, but devoid of any stabilisation. Video clip high quality is fairly typical. At 1080p, the cellular phone tries to stabilise footage but ends up undertaking a quite very poor occupation of it. You can shoot video clip with the extremely-broad digital camera too, but the high quality is below typical and you will find no stabilisation. Useless to say, video clip high quality in small gentle is not the most effective unless of course your subject matter or scene is extremely nicely lit.
Realme 8 selfie digital camera sample (faucet to see much larger impression)
Realme 8 Nightscape digital camera sample (faucet to see much larger impression)
Selfies shot for the duration of the working day seem respectable but types taken in small gentle are just quite typical. The macro digital camera lets you get excessive shut-ups but the high quality is not wonderful. Portrait mode will work nicely and there are various filters to play with.
In general, the cameras on the Realme 8 are certainly serviceable in the ideal problems, but this design is not a move up from the Realme 7 in conditions of options or high quality.
Verdict
Immediately after expending a 7 days with the Realme 8, it’s secure to conclude that it’s practically nothing a lot more than a Realme 7 (Evaluate) with an AMOLED display and a bit worse digital camera performance. I consider the Realme 7 is continue to a greater select as it’s less pricey, features a 90Hz display, and ideally should really receive an Android 11 update before long. The only authentic advantage of the Realme 8 is that it’s slimmer and lighter than the 7. Realme is also planning to launch a 5G edition of the 8 extremely before long, which could be priced involving the Realme 8 and Realme 8 Professional, so it’s worthy of at least ready.
The best-stop variant of the Realme 8 is a substantially harder offer than the foundation variant, as the Realme Narzo 30 Professional is accessible at the very same rate, and features a a lot more powerful 5G SoC as nicely as a 120Hz display. There’s also the Xiaomi Redmi Observe ten Professional, which is greater than the Realme 8 in each attainable way, at least on paper, and begins at Rs. sixteen,999. Other than the primary rear digital camera, the Redmi Observe ten Professional is identical to the Redmi Observe ten Professional Max (Evaluate), which we have reviewed and liked fairly a bit.
The Realme 8 might not have any offer-breaking flaws, but it isn’t going to actually offer anything distinctive, even when in contrast to its possess siblings, which helps make it really hard to propose.
Why did LG give up on its smartphone small business? We talked about this on Orbital, the Devices 360 podcast. Later on (starting at 22:00), we communicate about the new co-op RPG shooter Outriders. Orbital is accessible on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.