realme 7 Pro Review

Just four months after the realme 6 Pro’s release, realme has already launched its successor, the realme 7 Pro. One of its selling points is its 65W SuperDart fast charging but can realme live up to its claim? What else does it have under its sleeve? Find out in our full review.

Design and Construction

The realme 7 and 7 Pro share the same design language and even colors. But you’ll notice the difference since the Pro version feels a little more compact with a slimmer and lighter form factor.

Its back aesthetic is called a mirror space design, and it has this nice light effect when you move the device in different directions. It’s made out of polycarbonate material, yet it doesn’t look cheap at all, especially with its matte finish. Our unit is in Mirror Blue, but there’s also a Mirror Silver variant that looks equally premium.

Here at the back, we’ll find some realme branding and its protruding rectangular quad-camera module. The camera bump isn’t that thick, and it’s just enough that it won’t wobble when you put a case on.

Meanwhile, we get a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display. At the top left corner of the display we have a hole-punch cut-out that houses its front-facing camera. We can also find the call speaker on the upper middle of the screen, which also serves as a secondary speaker.

On the right side, we have the power button.

While on the left are its volume rocker and the triple card tray with a dedicated microSD slot that is expandable up to 256GB.

Up top, we have a secondary noise-canceling microphone.

And at the bottom are its primary microphone, loudspeaker, 3.5mm audio port, and USB Type-C port. In the hands, the realme 7 Pro feels solid and sturdy. The curved sides make it comfortable to hold; however, a one-handed operation can be quite tricky if you have small hands. It’s also quite a smudge magnet, so better use the protective jelly case that comes from the box. 

Display and Multimedia

Unlike its standard version and its predecessor, the realme 7 Pro doesn’t come with a 90Hz refresh rate option, and we’re guessing that this is to save cost. So they decided to remove the 90Hz and give the 7 Pro a Super AMOLED panel. I’m still having mixed feelings about it, but it seems fair.

Besides, this display looks great. It gives off punchy and vibrant colors, and the blacks look deep too. If you want to boost the display quality even further, in the settings, you can tweak the color mode to vivid or brilliant. You can also turn on OSIE Vision Effect, which uses Artificial Intelligence to enhance colors and picture quality for supported apps.

There’s no option to cover the notch part with a black bar, but you can control specific apps if you want them to maximize the full screen or not.

As for audio, it comes with dual stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos support. The sound is excellent, considering that this is a midrange device. Audio comes off crisp and clear, and it can get amply loud in a small room. Plus, we always appreciate having the option for wired earphones so you can also take advantage of its 3.5mm audio port.

Camera

One of the realme 7 Pro’s selling points is also its cameras. We get a quad-rear camera setup consisting of a 64MP Sony IMX682 F1.8 (primary sensor), 8MP F2.3 (ultra-wide), 2MP F2.4 (B&W), and 2MP F2.4 (macro lens). Meanwhile, for selfies, we have a 32MP in-display shooter.

The camera app itself should be familiar for old time Android users, and it’s loaded with features. But we don’t know if it’s just our unit, but at certain times we get an overly sharp and saturated live view when taking photos and selfies. Nonetheless, it doesn’t reflect in the photo outputs as they look fine and have just the right details. Either way, this can be fixed with a software update.

As for photo quality, shots taken from the rear cameras have accurate colors, decent dynamic range, and a significant amount of details, especially when you take advantage of the 64MP lens. The standard mode gives a depth effect, which is nice, and you can turn on the Dazzle AI color button to get more boosted colors. We wouldn’t recommend that you always leave it on, though, as it tends to overdo it sometimes. But we like that you can use this feature and the Pro mode even when using the 64MP shooter, so you can get high-quality photos with this.

Using the wide-angle mode can be a hit or miss with the colors. Often it doesn’t match the color reproduction compared to the standard mode, but it’s still nice to have this option.

As for night photography, its night mode is impressive. You can use the Pro mode with it too, and the results we get have lesser noise, good lighting, and noticeably sharp details. I also like that you can now use nightscape for the front camera, and even if it’s not as good as its rear shooters, we still get a significant amount of details.

Speaking of the front camera, we no longer have a wide-angle option for selfies as we’ve seen in the 6 Pro, but quality-wise, photos look natural, sharp, and there’s some slight skin smoothening going on even when you’re not using beauty mode.

As for videos, you can record up to 4K at 30fps, as well as 1080p up to 60fps. It also has Ultra steady mode for stabilization and ultra night mode for when you need it.

OS, UI, and Apps

Now for software, the realme 7 Pro runs on Realme UI based on Android 10. It’s clean and customizable, and it’s one of our favorite skins. The UI is also easy to use and to navigate. There are system colors, animations, new wallpapers, and icon customization.

Some of its features include Dual Mode Music Share, Smart Sidebar, Riding Mode, Game Space (to optimize gaming experience), Screen-Off Display, Fraud Prevention, Private Space, and Dark Mode, among others. There’s an app drawer option, and you can navigate with virtual buttons or with swipe gestures—whichever you prefer.

We get the usual pre-installed Google apps and some proprietary Realme tools, including the File Manager and Phone Manager. Out of 128GB storage, we get a usable 110GB of storage, which you can further expand via a microSD card.

Performance and Benchmarks

The realme 7 Pro is also powered with the same chipset as its predecessor, and that’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G chip paired with Adreno 618 GPU and 8GB RAM. Without a doubt, performance is snappy, and apps launch fast. It handled gaming very well, and multitasking is a breeze.

• AntuTu v8.4.5 – 284,399
• Geekbench 5 – 573 (Single-core), 1,798 (Multi-core)
• PCMark – 10,364 (Work 2.0)
• 3DMark – 2,541 (OpenGL), 2,372 (Vulkan)
• AndroBench – 512.37 MB/s (Seq Read), 203.76 MB/s (Seq. Write)

For security and biometrics, we get an in-display fingerprint scanner and face recognition. Both are snappy and accurate. Like most smartphones nowadays, both work reliable and quick. The fingerprint scanner is leaning more towards the edge of the screen than the middle part, so you might need to adjust your finger a little lower.

Connectivity and Battery Life

For connectivity, the realme 7 Pro comes with your usual connectivity features such as WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and 4G LTE.

Giving life to the device is a 4,500mAh battery w/ 65W SuperDart fast charging. Realme claims that it can charge your device from 0-100% in 34 minutes. So is it true? We drained it to 0% and got 30% of charge in just 10 minutes. However, it took us 50 minutes to reach a full 100%, we didn’t get the claimed charging speed, but then again, 50 minutes is already fast enough!

In our PCMark’s battery test, the 7 Pro got a score of 16 hours and 55 minutes. Meanwhile, in our standard video loop test (1080p movie on loop, 50% brightness, 50% volume, airplane mode on), it yielded 24 hours and 32 minutes of playback. That should last you a whole day or even more.

Conclusion

The realme 7 Pro has an official price tag of PHP 17,990. On its own, it’s definitely an impressive device. You get reliable performance, and the premium feel is still there complimented with a display that stands out—not to mention that it now has an in-display fingerprint scanner.

The cameras are loaded with features that I can see most users can enjoy, and of course, the high-speed charging is a real plus. But if you’re coming from the realme 6 Pro, I think you’d agree with me that you can skip this one for now. But, if you’re planning to buy between the 6 Pro and this 7 Pro, it honestly still depends on your needs since, either way, you get the same expected performance from both. Nonetheless, compared to most phones in this price range, the realme 7 Pro is one to consider seriously.

realme 7 Pro specs:
6.4-inch Super AMOLED display (1080 x 2400), 409ppi
Corning Gorilla Glass
Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G octa-core processor SoC
Adreno 618 GPU
80Hz touch sampling rate
6GB, 8GB LPDDR4x RAM
128GB UFS 2.1
microSD card slot (dedicated)
Quad-rear cameras
• 64MP Sony IMX682 F1.8 (primary sensor)
• 8MP F2.3 119-degree (ultra-wide)
• 2MP F2.4 (macro lens)
• 2MP F2.4 (B&W sensor)
32MP in-display selfie camera
Dual-SIM (Nano)
4G LTE
Bluetooth 5.0
GPS, A-GPS, BDS, GLONASS NavIC
In-display Fingerprint
Dual Stereo Speakers
Dolby Atmos sound
USB Type-C port
4,500mAh battery w/ 65W SuperDart fast charging (0-100% in 34 mins)
realme UI (Android 10)
160.9 x 74.3 x 8.7 mm
182 g
Mirror Blue, Mirror Silver

With inputs from Justine Basco