A couple of weeks ago I was asked to review the latest mid range phone from realme – a new (18 month old) rapidly growing mobile phone brand.
Whilst phone reviews aren’t normally my thing – there was no way I could pass up a chance to check out the latest phone from them – and I’m happy I did!
Realme target a young audience who value quality, affordability and want the latest features – and whilst I’m (slowly) sliding out of this category I think this phone is attractive to everyone looking for a quality device but doesn’t want to drop 2,000 AED + on a flagship device from one of their competitors.
The realme 5 Pro retails at between 800 and 900 AED depending on specs and has features not normally seen at this price point, along with a build quality & feel that makes you think you’re holding a phone worth twice the amount.
Read on to learn more!
Unboxing and first impressions
The first thing you notice when picking up the realme 5 pro is the quality of the build and finishing. The holographic finish of the back stands out (I had the blue one – though I think their green colour may be my favourite!) and everything feels superbly put together.
In the box you get the phone, a 20W fast charger, usb cable and a transparent case. All feels premium and like realme care about your experience using their phones from the very first moment.
Whilst the phone has a 6.3 inch screen, the small bezels make the phone feel smaller than it is. The dew drop notch is small, and about as small as they can sensibly get until punch hole cameras or pop up cameras become commonplace at this price point. And the back of the phone is eye catching – everyone who saw the phone commented on how attractive a device it is.
Camera
The camera in the realme 5 Pro is, for the price, standout quality.
It has a quad camera array featuring a 48 megapixel main shooter, dedicated wide-angle lens for landscape and group shots, dedicated portrait lens and a macro lens.
Picture quality is excellent and I can see more companies moving to quad camera arrays as the benefits are obvious.
Performance
The realme 5 Pro has a Snapdragon 712 AIE Cpu and the review unit I’ve been using has 8GB of Ram, and it’s a well performing phone. All apps opened and responded quickly, the camera opens fast, and I never felt the phone slow down in use.
I’m a fan of stock android and realme have used a very lightly customised version of it which I’m thankful of. If you’ve used an Android phone before then this will feel familiar and there’s no odd gestures required or things moved away.
There’s also not much junk preloaded which is a bonus, though I can’t see myself paying a premium for the installed email client when there’s great free options on the play store.
Sound quality through the single bottom facing speaker is decent and sounds fine at a higher volume – and the also phone has a headphone jack so you can use normal headphones without a usb-c adaptor.
Value for Money
This phone is, from a value for money point of view, outstanding. Normally at the sub 1,000 AED price point I’d expect to find one or two breaking issues which stop me wanting to use the phone, but with the realme 5 Pro I haven’t come across any of them. If I were to be picky and try and find flaws, the quality of pictures taken with the camera isn’t quite up to the standard of the onePlus 7 pro I normally use, but that’s a phone which retailed at roughly three times the price.
Would I buy it?
I really enjoyed using the realme 5 Pro. It’s a great phone which feels and performs like a phone costing a least 50% more. Whilst it’s realme’s mid range phone, it never felt lacking like most mid range phones.
The camera is great, especially for the price point, the phone is fast and has a decent amount of storage, and the battery life and fast charging implementation is well done so I was never concerned about my battery surviving the day’s use.
This is my recommended phone at the moment in the sub 1,000 AED price range and I’m looking forward to seeing the flagship of the range and how it compares to the onePlus 7 Pro I normally use!
Specs (as tested)
Display
- 6.3-inch (16.0cm) dew-drop fullscreen
- LCD multi-Touch display
- 90.6% screen-to-body ratio
- 2340-by-1080-pixel resolution at 409 ppi
- 450nit max brightness (typical)
- Night mode for eye care
Camera
- 48MP AI Quad Camera
- 8MP wide-angle camera
- 2MP portrait camera
- 2MP macro camera
- 16MP front camera
Chip and Capacity
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 AIE
- 8 GB LPDDR4x RAM
- 128 GB ROM
Power and Battery
- 4035mAh (typical)
- VOOC charging power (5V, 4A inbox)
Ports
- 3.5mm headset jack
- Type-C
- Dual nano-SIM and TF card
