REALME 10 Review | Techno Review

REALME 10

 Realme introduced a replacement premium ‘X' model back in May, as its first proper flagship within the Chinese market. With the Realme X, the corporate has tried to include many flagship-level features while still hitting that sub-Rs. 20,000 price segment, during which it currently has some pretty popular phones, like the Realme 3 Pro . The Realme X is now in India, and while it'd lack a real flagship-level processor, it tries to balance that out with a contemporary , notch-free design, pop-up selfie camera, and in-display fingerprint sensor — all at a really affordable price.

We currently have some specialized options under Rs. 20,000 like the Samsung Galaxy M40 , Redmi Note 7 Pro, and Vivo Z1 Pro , therefore the Realme X has some tough competition. On paper, it seems as if Realme has covered its bases pretty much , and now it is time to ascertain if can deliver the type of results we're expecting in day-to-day usage.

Realme X design

The Realme X scores well in terms of design, and aside from the striking looks, it even feels premium. This phone is out there in Polar White and Space Blue trims, of which we reviewed the previous . The off-white finish complements the chrome-plated sides well. The phone may be a little thick at 9.33mm, but it doesn't feel too heavy, even at 191g.

Realme also launched the Realme X in special Onion and Garlic finishes in China, which can even be available to shop for in India. There's also a special Spider-Man: faraway from Home edition which comes with a Spider-Man themed case, special theme, and a commemorative box.

On the front of the Realme X, we've an outsized 6.53-inch, full-HD+ OLED display with Gorilla Glass 5. The bezels round the display are very slim, apart from the marginally thick chin at rock bottom . there is no notch or hole, which suggests there is no interruption to your content. the edges of the display aren't curved, but overall, this phone resembles the OnePlus 7 Pro quite bit, which isn't a nasty thing in the least .

Colours are vivid and punchy, and therefore the brightness gets satisfyingly high which makes it easy to look at content under any quite light. Our review unit had a screen protector pre-applied, but its edges felt rough to us when interacting with the display, so we got obviate it.

The Realme X has an in-display fingerprint sensor from Goodix, which is very fast at authenticating your finger you furthermore may get five different animations to settle on from. there's face recognition too, using the centre-mounted pop-up selfie camera.

Realme says the pop-up mechanism on the Realme X has been tested to face up to around 200,000 cycles, so hopefully, you should not have any issues for as long as you own the phone. the fabric covering the front sensor is claimed to be sapphire glass, which is sweet for durability. There's also a motion-triggered safety mechanism, which automatically retracts the camera module when the phone detects that it's falling.

The shiny back of the Realme X seems like glass, but it's actually a polycarbonate layer. Thankfully, it didn't seem to select up scuff marks, and smudges aren't easily visible on the white colour. The Realme logo is placed vertically within the centre this point , and above it, we've the twin cameras and LED flash. The physical volume and power buttons are placed ergonomically on either side of the phone.

At rock bottom , we've the headphone jack, USB Type-C port, and one speaker. It's nice to finally see Realme adopting the newer USB standard. The SIM tray is on the side, and only accepts two Nano-SIM cards. The Realme X is that the company's first phone without expandable storage. In India, this should not be an enormous issue since all variants have 128GB of storage.

In the box, you get a tough plastic case for the phone, a USB Type-C cable, a VOOC 3.0 fast charger, a SIM eject tool, and manuals.

Realme X specifications and software

The Realme X is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 SoC, which we recently saw within the less costly Realme 3 Pro. Compared to the Snapdragon 675, which is additionally a well-liked choice during this segment, CPU performance may be a little weaker but it's better integrated graphics capabilities and is slightly more power efficient because of its smaller 10nm fabrication.

In India, the Realme X is out there in two variants — one with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage (Rs. 16,999), and therefore the other with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage (Rs. 19,999), which is that the one that we've . the sort of RAM used is LPDDR4X and you furthermore may get decently quick UFS 2.1 storage.

Other specifications of the Realme. X include dual 4G with VoLTE, dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5, support for GPS, GLONASS, and Beidou navigation systems, and therefore the usual suite of sensors. This phone doesn't have FM radio though.

The software is fairly up-to-date, with the Realme X running ColorOS 6 supported Android 9 Pie, along side the June Android security patch. The interface is analogous to what we've recently seen on the Realme 3 Pro ₹ 13,999 , with no major changes. because of the OLED panel, you'll have an always-on display when the phone is in standby. However, it's limited to only showing the time, date, battery percentage, and missed alerts for SMSes and calls, but not notifications from the other app.

There are many pre-installed apps, from Realme also as third-party vendors. Some like NewsPoint are notorious for spamming you with notifications, but it are often uninstalled. Realme's App Market is another app that does this, but you'll reduce the amount of notifications you get by disabling alerts from within the app.

There's a Theme Store app for customising the wallpapers and icons; commuting aids like Driving Mode and Riding Mode which silence notifications; and a few motion and gesture shortcuts. ColorOS also allows you to run two instances of certain apps, and there is a gesture for quickly enabling split-screen mode in compatible apps.

Game Centre is an app store which curates free games from the Play Store, but it is a little redundant once you have already got the Google Play Store. Game Space organises all of your games in one place and offers options to lock the brightness and prioritise system resources to the run .

The unit that Realme sent us was only Widevine L3 certified, however the corporate says that retail units will carry the L1 certification, which allows video on-demand apps like Netflix and Prime Video to stream video in HD resolutions and above.

Realme X performance and battery life

The Realme X may be a big phone. it isn't very wide, so getting an honest grip isn't a problem , but it's tall, which makes reaching the highest of the display with one hand virtually impossible. you'll enable one-handed mode, which shrinks the whole interface. We didn't find the body to be slippery, but just in case you are doing , the bundled case should provide additional grip.

The Realme X feels comfortable within the hand and is sort of the eye grabber. A fun fact is that tons of individuals mistook it for the OnePlus 7 Pro, since they both have a really similar design language.

The Realme X also runs cool with regular use also as when performing CPU-intensive tasks like gaming. Realme says it's used a replacement sort of gel cooling technique, which uses a copper foil, graphite flakes, and an aluminium alloy for better cooling . The Snapdragon 710 SoC delivers good gaming performance, and heavy titles like PUBG Mobile default to the ‘High' graphics preset. Gameplay was smooth, with none stutter even in intense battles. Other titles like Asphalt 9: Legends also ran smoothly, with no visible frame drops.

The Realme X is additionally excellent for media playback. this is often Realme's first phone with Dolby Atmos support. It's enabled by default for rock bottom speaker and can't be turned off. However, if you're using headphones, you'll switch it off. you'll choose from different sound modes or leave it at ‘Smart' which can automatically pick the simplest effect for the sort of content being consumed. albeit there's only one audio channel, it doesn't sound one-sided. the quantity also gets loud and therefore the quality is sort of good.

While the fingerprint sensor on the Realme X is quick at authentication, face recognition is additionally fast. you'll engage this in two ways —either press the facility button to wake the screen and pop the camera module up, or swipe abreast of the lock screen. darkly , the screen flashes brightly for a quick moment, which is enough for the camera to authenticate you.

Even with heavy use of the camera, the Realme X remains ready to deliver solid day-long battery life. The 3,765mAh battery lasted for 14 hours and 28 minutes in our battery loop test, which may be a good sign. When using this phone on a regular basis with a mixture of video streaming, camera usage, gaming, and social apps, we had easily managed to travel each day and a half, on one charge.

The phone also supports VOOC 3.0 fast charging, and that we managed to urge from zero to about 93 percent in an hour.

Realme X cameras

 

The Realme X uses Sony IMX 586 48-megapixel rear camera, alongwith a 5-megapixel depth sensor. the most sensor has an aperture of f/1.7 and uses 4-in-1 pixel binning which treats four pixels together to capture more light, and saves 12-megapixel photos. this is often an equivalent sensor utilized in the Redmi Note 7 Pro (Review) and therefore the OnePlus 7 Pro (Review), which both showed good results once we reviewed them.

With landscapes shot under good light, the most camera on the Realme X does an honest job with colours and detail. Distant objects have good definition and therefore the overall image has good sharpness. The areas at the acute edges of the frame have a touch of noise but it isn't very noticeable, unless you concentrate all the way.

The Realme X does an honest job with HDR, and dynamic range is sweet . The Chroma Boost toggle within the viewfinder helps boost colours and brightness, which helps when shooting objects against the sunshine . you furthermore may get a ‘2x' button but this is often just for digital zoom.

The Realme X features a 16-megapixel front camera, which also does pixel binning when shooting with portrait mode. this provides you an 8-megapixel portrait shot, but when shooting regular selfies, even in the dark , the phone saves a 16-megapixel image.

Selfies shot with the Realme X generally look pleasing, with good colours and sufficient detail. The AI isn't too aggressive in beautifying your skin. Even in low light, selfies have good brightness and hues . you'll add a bokeh effect for selfies, which looks a touch artificial, but edge detection is sweet .

The Realme X can increase to 4K video, but there is no image stabilisation. If you are not moving about an excessive amount of , then the footage are going to be usable as image quality is sweet . Even in low light, there's not tons of visible noise and hues and details are preserved well.

At 1080p, the phone automatically stabilises video footage. This works well and there's not tons of distortion when shooting in low light either. There are some slow-motion modes to play with too.