Realme 8 Pro Long Term Review! By TecworkZ

Hey guys It’s Sagar, and here is my full review of the Realme 8 Pro after using it for over 2 months. Now in a very short time, Realme has covered a lot of ground and they came up to be one of the leading smartphone brands in India. They did that by giving very tough competition to the its main competitor Redmi, by launching amazing phones at similar or sometimes even at a lower price point. But did the Realme 8 Pro taking the same approach? Let’s find out. Realme launch this phone in just 2 variants.6 GB RAM and 128GB storage variant was launched at Rs.17,999 and the 8GB RAM variant also comes with 128GB if internal storage, and it is available at Rs.19,999. It is nice to see that Realme is making 128GB as the base storage variant, and this makes the 6GB RAM variant batter value for money option for most people.

Realme made this phone available in open sale right from the first day, which is a huge convenience. Only people who have tried getting a phone in flash sales, would understand, how big of a deal this is. So big thumbs up to Realme for that. I have average sized hands, so I don’t like big and bulky phones. Thankfully Realme 8 Pro comes with a 6.4 inch display, which make the overall form factor a bit compact compared to the other phones in its price range. It is even narrower and shorter and much lighter than the Redmi Note 10 Pro, which I really like.

It fits comfortably in my hands, and it is narrow enough, so with a bit of practice, I can manage it with just one hand. Realme continues using plastic for the frame and back of their phones in this price range. While I love frosted matte glass back, I really don’t mind using phones with plastic backs. I actually prefer plastic back over glossy glass back. Having plastic back also reduces the risk of breaking the glass on your phone by half.

The front gets glass protection, but it is unclear that which version of gorilla glass it is, or Realme doesn’t even mention that if it is Gorilla Glass or not. Thanks to this sandstone type rough texture to the back, you get a good grip on the phone, and it also helps hide the fingerprints and smudges really well. Now this finish tries to mimic the frosted matte glass back, and in all fairness it doesn’t look or feel bad, but it doesn’t feel nearly as premium. But using plastic instead of glass makes this phone feel considerably lighter. The frame as I mention before is also made of plastic.

I am not against plastic frames, but for some reason this one doesn’t feel very comfortable in my hands. Maybe because I am used to rounded frames, or maybe because there is very small portion for us to hold on to on either sides. This of-course doesn’t matter if you use a case with the phone. But because it gets a plastic back and the phone is so light and manageable with 1 hand, I was hoping to use it without a case. But to get more grip, I had to use it with a case this whole time.

I feel the overall design of the Realme 8 Pro, specially with this squared quad camera module, makes it look smart. But I am not a fan of the bold Dare to Leap text on its back. I don’t know what you guys feel about it, or why brands do this, but I like the back of my phones to look clean and minimalistic. Ports wise, you get a 3.5mm headphone jack at the bottom, and it supports Hi-Res audio. So if you have decent or good sounding pair of earphones, you will enjoy the audio via this port.

There is a single speaker placed at the bottom, this was a bit surprising because the Realme 7 Pro came with a pair of stereo speakers. This single speaker can get loud enough, but it is still a single speaker. It also sounds a bit hollow, the sound is not as rich as you might expect. Since the back is made of plastic, if you have the phone in your hand, you can feel the back vibrate at higher volume. So I am not very impressed with the speaker on this phone.

I prefer to use wired or wireless earphones while playing games or streaming media, so this wasn’t a big issue for me. But I still mentioned it because I got a few questions about it in my unboxing video. The SIM tray on the left side can hold 2 SIM cards and 1 micro SD card. Recently while swapping SIM cards, I noticed that there is no rubber ring or gasket around the SIM tray. That gasket prevents dust, water or moisture of any kind from entering the phone, and it is not present on this phone.

This phone does not get any water, dust or splash resistance rating. So be very careful if you have this phone around water or in rain. If you liked the video so far, please hit the like button and consider subscribing to the channel, for more quality tech videos like this. At the front, there’s a 6.4inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 2400x1080pixels. The peak brightness rating for this display is 1000nits.

The bezels on the sides and at the top are pretty thin, but the bottom bezel of this phone is very thick, at least according to todays standard. It not a huge issue, but seems like Realme could have worked a bit harder on reducing the size and weight of this phone even more. As I said before, we don’t know if the display gets gorilla glass protection or not. The AMOLED panel is one of the nice ones. Colours are vivid and punchy, blacks are deep and viewing angels are also pretty good.

Brightness is enough for any indoor lighting conditions, but will definitely face some issues if you use it outside under bright sun. A major downside about this display is that gets a regular 60Hz refresh rate, and 180Hz touch sampling rate. Now personally I dont think this is as big of a deal as most people are making it to be. But Redmi is providing 120Hz refresh rate on their Note 10 Pro and Note 10 Pro Max, and this Realme 8 Pro was launched after those phones, so everyone kind of expected it to come with higher refresh rate, to compete with those phones. Other than that, it gets Widewine L1 certification, so you can view HD content on streaming platforms like Amazon and Netflix.

And it also gets DC Dimming option in the settings. There is also Always on Display option, but you can’t customise this screen at all. And again, just like on the Redmi Note 10 Pro, it doesn’t always stay on. It comes up when you tap or move the phone, and stays on for 10 seconds. I am not too sure about HDR capabilities of this display, because I was able to playback HDR videos on YouTube, but on Netflix and Amazon Prime HDR10 was not available.

So if or not it can play HDR10 videos might be an app specific thing. If anyone has more information about this, please let us know in the comments. Since its and AMOLED panel, Realme went with an In-display fingerprint sensor. Many people like it and I admit, it looks very modern and futuristic, but I still prefer the physical fingerprint sensor on any phone because they are much faster. This one is not as fast, but it does seem to be more accurate than the in display sensor on other phones in this price range, or even than the ones on previous Realme phones, which is nice.

Unless you have sweat or moisture on your finger, it will unlock the phone without any issue. While unlocking the phone, you get a tase of the vibration motor and it is Okish, in my opinion. There are a few vibrations throughout the UI, but it feels like the whole phone is vibrating in a cheap way. These are not small tiny localised haptics, these are actual vibrations, which don’t feel very premium. This phone is powered by the Snapdragon 720G, yes its the same processor that Realme has been using on the previous 2 generations of this phone.

It is couples with Adreno 618 GPU and 6 or 8 GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. Realme could have gone with 730G or 732G processor, but honestly, all these are same processor with a few parameters changed. And other than the difference in the benchmark scores, actual difference in real life is much smaller. And since they have used this processor before, they know very well how to optimise it. Speaking of optimisation, the overall performance of this phone is very smooth.

It can run most of the apps that you can through at it. It might struggle a bit while playing heavy games on high settings, but on moderate settings, it can run them. I have heard people say that this phone runs cool no matter what. But with moderate or long gaming sessions, it gets just as warm as the Redmi Note 10 Pro. That being said, none of them overheat or anything like that, but they do get slight warm towards the top part, and this is absolutely normal.

This phone is running Realme UI 2.0 which is built on top of Android 11. I like this skin of android. It is very similar to Colour OS. Animations are smooth, there are a lot of features, and you get a ton of customisation options with Realme UI 2.0. This skin of android seems much more optimised when compared to MIUI 12 or MIUI 12.5. But it doesn’t come without faults.

You do gets ads in the form of clickbait notifications. You can disable them by going deep into settings. Other than this, I feel pretty comfortable with this UI. Realme is known for not being very good with updates. So this might be an issue, if you plan on getting and using this phone for a long time.

You get Google dialer, so there is call recording option. There is also career aggregation, so you get good download speeds, and cellular reception also seemed to be stable and strong with my JIO sim at-least. Battery on this phone easily lasts an entire day, and gives me a screen on time of 6 to 6 and half hours. I would call this average battery life. Don’t get me wrong, although the battery lasts 1 full day, but this is on 60Hz refresh rate, and the display is OLED, so the backup should have been much better.

And this is with just 1 SIM card, and the phone is mostly connected to WIFI through the day. When its time to charge it up, it comes with a 65 watt charger just like the Realme 7 Pro, but the maximum charging speed is capped at 50 watts, which can make it go from 0 to 100% in well under an hour. So while the charging speed is faster than the competition, it is still a step down from the Realme 7 Pro. The main camera is a step up front he Realme 7 Pro.8 Pro gets a 108 Megapixel Samsung HM2 sensor as its main camera. Other 3 cameras include 8 megapixel ultra wide lens, 2 megapixel macro lens and another 2 megapixel black and white sensor.

Now I have made a very detailed review of all the cameras on this phone, so if you want to see a lot of image and video samples from all these cameras, and know more about them, I suggest you check that video out. I will leave a card to it on the top right corner of your screen and also link it in the description section. The gist of that video is, Realme 8 Pro has got a very good set of cameras for its price. It can take good images in almost all lighting conditions. It need a bit of refinements via software updates, specially while shooting portrait shots.

Wide and Macro cameras are average and not the best or most detailed. Videos turn out to be good from the main camera, but the selfie camera needs a bit of work as it captures very soft images. So overall the camera performance is good for most average users. I won’t call it the best cameras in this price range, that definitely goes to the Redmi Note 10 pro Max and the Note 10 Pro. I also have a video comparing the cameras on this phone with the ones on the Redmi 10 Pro, you can check that out to gain more insights.

Now the Realme 8 Pro is a good phone, but it doesn’t stand out in any specific way. Realme didn’t seem very serious while making this phone. If you have the Realme 7 Pro, you don’t have to think about upgrading to this phone. In many ways, this one is a downgrade compared to it. This one gets updated camera compared to Relame 7 Pro, but the processor is same, battery is same, charging speed is slower, comes with a single speaker, so as you see, its is not worth the upgrade for you.8 Pro might have not seemed so average if Redmi had not hit a home run with their Note 10 Pro and Note 10 Pro Max. Realme did write Dare to leap behind this phone, but they don’t seem to have taken any huge leaps with this Realme 8 Pro.

So while this is a very good phone, I won’t recommend you getting this one over the Redmi Note 10 pro Max or even the regular Note 10 Pro. You should only go for this one if you are a hardcore Realme fan, or if you want a phone with a plastic back or if you absolutely need that super fast charging speed. For anything else, I would ask you to look at the other options. I am not against Realme or anything like that, in fact I really like the size and weight of this phone, and the fact that I can manage it with one hand and I am a huge fan of the charging speed. But leaving these things, Redmi Note 10 Pro series provides you a better value for your hard earned money.

This is what I feel about the Realme 8 Pro. What do you guys think about it, and would you choose it over the Redmi Note 10 Pro or the Pro Max, let me know in the comments. If you decide to get this phone, I will appreciate if you get it from affiliate links in the description section. That is it for this video guys, Please hit the like button if you enjoyed this video, and subscribe to the channel for more quality tech videos like this. You can also check out some of the other videos from this channel.

This has been Sagar and I will catch you guys in the next video. Take Care.

Source : TecworkZ