New Delhi: To make a splash when 5G services become a reality in India, smartphone brands are now launching more and more affordable 5G-ready handsets and realme has been quite busy unveiling mass-level 5G devices.
realme 8 5G is the new offering that comes in two storage variants. The 4GB+128GB storage variant is priced at Rs 14,999 while the 8GB+128GB variant costs Rs 16,999.
The devices are available in two colours — supersonic blue and supersonic black.
We used the smartphone with 8GB RAM and supersonic black colour for a while and here’s how it fared.
In terms of design, the smartphone’s shade looks gorgeous but attracts fingerprints.
On the back panel, there’s a squared-shaped camera bump on the top left with an LED flash. There’s a USB-C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a speaker grille at the bottom.
The power button comes integrated with the fingerprint sensor.
realme 8 5G features a 6.5-inch punch-hole display with a 90Hz refresh rate and maximum 180Hz sampling rate.
The display comes with 2400×1080 Full HD+ resolution, up to 180Hz touch sample rate, 600 nits brightness peak and 16.7 million screen colours.
Be it your favourite Netflix movie, series or any games, the display offers an immersive viewing experience.
The smartphone sports a triple rear camera set up. It has a 48MP main camera, a 2MP B&W portrait lens and a 2MP macro lens.
The primary camera comes with an f1.8 aperture and comes equipped with professional HD lenses that can record ultra-clear scenes with specific photo details and double the overall texture.
The camera also consists of a B&W portrait lens which comes with the new colour filter system that enables the portrait lens to detect a more comprehensive array of light, assist the primary lens in capturing light better, enhance image contrast, create retro-style images and add texture to portraits.
The macro lens in the camera enables users to get closer and discover the beauty of the micro world with a 4cm shooting distance.
For selfies, there’s a 16MP AI selfie camera, which comes with an f2.0 aperture, supporting smart beauty mode, Bokeh Effect, etc.
The smartphone features a brand-new beauty algorithm developed for different genders, different skin types and facial shapes and features allowing users to take selfies that show natural skin.
Pictures clicked in broad daylight delivered beautiful and crisp shots. However, low-light images were decent. The selfie camera did a good job as it delivered apt images to post on social media.
As per the company, this is India’s first smartphone to come with MediaTek Dimensity 700 5G Processor, which mixes two highly capable Arm Cortex-A76 cores in its octa-core CPU operating up to a speedy 2.2GHz.
MediaTek Dimensity 700 uses the leading 7nm production processor, which is up to 28 per cent more power-efficient than an equivalent 8nm process, allowing the MediaTek Dimensity 700 to use its high-performance processors while only using power, extending battery life to keep the user connected for longer.
While using the device for longer hours, which included gaming, clicking pictures, 3G/4G usage etc, the smartphone heated up a bit. However, we did not find any lag while using the device.
The smartphone runs Android 11 OS with Realme UI custom skin out of the box.
It sports a 5000mAh battery with an 18W type-C quick charge support. It also supports Smart 5G Power Saving.
On heavy usage, the phone lasted around a day, but the good part is that it also allowed quick charge.
Conclusion: realme 8 5G is a 5G-ready device that comes at an affordable price. It has a powerful processor, stylish design and massive battery under Rs 20,000, giving a tough competition to rivals in the same price range.