Realme’s latest Realme 8 Pro has been launched by the company yesterday after a lot of hype regarding the ‘108MP’ camera. The smartphone is priced at Rs 17,999 for the 6GB + 128GB variant while it’s Rs 19,999 for the 8GB + 128GB variant.
For the price, Realme is playing in a territory here that a lot of smartphones are aiming at including the big players such as Samsung, Xiaomi and even Oppo. Realme’s 8 Pro has been built around the 108MP camera and it seems like there’s not much else to the phone.
We have already talked earlier about how Realme tends to cannibalize its own products but this time there’s more to it than just cannibalization. Let’s take it spec by spec. Talking about the design first, Realme has finally changed their design language from a rectangular camera array to a square one. But the huge ‘Dare to Leap’ branding is what is putting most of the people off. Here’s what the feedback looks like on Twitter.
The Realme 8 Pro features a 6.4-inch full HD+ Super AMOLED display with a Resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels, 1000-nits peak brightness, and 180Hz touch sampling rate.
Read More: Realme 8 and Realme 8 Pro launched in India with Super Amoled displays, Quad cameras and more
While it looks like a good display as it’s a super Amoled panel meaning highly saturated and accurate colours. But it comes with 60Hz of Refresh Rate and this is where it falls short considering how its main competitor, Xiaomi, is providing people with a 120Hz Amoled display at a much lesser price on its Redmi Note 10 Pro, as well as the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max. The same panel with 60Hz also seems to be equipped on the Realme X7 that was revealed back in January.
Talking about the processor, Realme 8 Pro is powered by a 2.2GHz Snapdragon 720G Processor with Adreno 618 GPU, up to 8GB of LPDDR4xRAM and up to 128GB of UFS 2.1 onboard storage expandable via microSD card. This is the third phone from Realme that is using the same Chipset and notingly, Realme 8 Pro’s predecessor, which was the Realme 7 Pro, and its predecessor as well, the Realme 6 Pro, uses the same chipset and there’s no upgrade in this area which is a bummer because a successor is meant to be an upgrade over the previous generation. Realme has been using the same chipset for the past 2 years.
For the camera, the Realme 8 Pro has a quad-camera setup with a combination of a 108-megapixel f/1.88 Samsung ISOCELL HM2 primary sensor, an 8-megapixel sensor with an ultra-wide-angle f/2.25 lens and 119-degree field-of-view (FoV), a 2-megapixel macro shooter with f/2.4 aperture, and a 2-megapixel black and white sensor with an f/2.4 aperture. On the front, there is a 16-megapixel Sony IMX471 sensor with an f/2.45 Aperture lens housed in a hole-punch cutout that can be used for selfies
This is the part around which the Realme 8 Pro has been built. Realme specifically held an event for this to reveal which camera they are using. It is the same sensor which Xiaomi has used on its Redmi Note 10 Pro Max which offers much better specifications overall at the same price, and not just a good camera which is the case with Realme 8 Pro. Also, Xiaomi beat Realme in introducing their smartphone that is equipped with this camera sensor. And if you note, the front camera on the Realme 8 Pro is a downgrade than the Realme 7 Pro which had a 32MP selfie-shooter.
Talking about the battery, the Realme 8 Pro is equipped with a 4500mAh battery which supports 50W Fast charging but comes with a 65W charger in-box. Well, it might be good for some as you can use the brick with other phones as well, but this will surely increase the overall cost of the phone.
To conclude, apart from the design of the device which depends on the consumer’s liking and the camera, the Realme 8 Pro seems to be a downgrade overall. We get the same chip, same display, and a good feature that was present in the Realme 7 Pro, which was dual stereo speakers, has also been removed in the 8 Pro.
At this point, it seems like Realme is releasing phones just for the sake of keeping up with the competition, and a true value for money smartphone from the brand is still awaited. In our opinion, Xiaomi took the lead and did go all-in with their Redmi Note 10 series which is a much better pick over the Realme 8 Pro. All things considered, the Realme 8 Pro doesn’t seem worth an upgrade.