Content

1. TECH SPECS
2. Positioning
3. Equipment
4. Appearance
5. Screen and sound
6. Battery life
7. Камеры
8. Performance
9. Communication capabilities
10. Software features
11. Impressions and competitors

TECH SPECS
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 (10 nm), Octa-core (2 × 2.3 GHz Kryo 360 Gold & 6 × 1.7 GHz Kryo 360 Silver), Adreno 616 graphics * the model on the test was powered by Snapdragon 710!
Operating system	Android 9, shell Color OS 6 / Updated to Android 10, shell realme UI 1.0
Memory	4 GB / 128 GB, dedicated microSD slot UFC 2.1 * in the 8 GB test model
Screen	6.3 inches, IPS LCD, 1080 x 2340 pixels, 19.5: 9 ratio, 409 ppi dot density, 450 nits brightness, Corning Gorilla Glass 3+
Battery	Li-Po 4 mAh, fast charge 035% in 50 minutes
Main camera	48 MP, f / 1.8, (wide), 1 / 2.0 ″, 0.8µm, PDAF 8 MP, f / 2.2, 13mm (ultra wide angle) 2 MP, f / 2.4, (macro), 1 / 5.0 ″, 1.75µm 2 MP, f / 2.4, (depth sensor) Video recording 2160p @ 30fps, 1080p @ 30/60 / 120fps, 720p @ 960fps, gyro-EIS
Front camera	16 MP, f / 2.0, 25mm (wide), 1/3 ″, 1.0µm
Sim card	2 Nano-SIM
Network and data transmission	GSM 900/1800/1900, 3G, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac, 2.4 GHz + 5.0 GHz, Bluetooth 5.0, A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS, USB 2.0 Type-C 1.0 with USB On-The-Go function. Realme 5 has microUSB
SENSORS	fingerprint scanner (rear), accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity, compass
Other	there is an FM radio, there is a 3.5 mm jack, no NFC, case included, splash proof
Materials	plastic frame and plastic case, front glass
dimensions	157 x 74.2 x 8.9 mm, weight 184 g

Positioning

All realme smartphones (that’s right, the brand prefers writing in lowercase letters) are positioned aimed at the young and daring. The only difference is in the price. More successful young people can afford, for example, X2 Pro (33 thousand rubles). This is the flagship model in the company’s portfolio. Well, the less fortunate will be content with the realme 5/5 Pro. A bit cynical, but, as they say, even at a very young age, many have to realize that for some reason Santa Claus always loves children from rich families more.

The realme 5 Pro model in the company’s portfolio occupies a position at the beginning of the middle segment. So while for the price it may seem like an entry-level, for realme it’s a confident aspiring midrange. When you realize this, it becomes clearer why the smartphone is so good.

Realme slogan: “Change the standards.” It can be perceived in different ways, but it seems to me that the company hints at the fact that for less money it gives more quality. If you take Xiaomi smartphones of a similar price, then you may have to tinker with them, disabling ads and pre-installed applications. Realme gives a clean shell. This is captivating.

Realme identifies as motivating elements for buying:

• 48 MP camera with artificial intelligence
• 16 MP front camera
• FHD + IPS screen (resolution 2340 x 1080 pixels)
• 4mAh battery and fast VOOC charging
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 Chipset (Upper Midrange)

The company also notes the design, game mode and shell of ColorOS 6 on Android 9. The last point is already wrong, because for so long I have been reviewing that the smartphone managed to upgrade from Android 9 to 10 and get its own version of the shell, which is called realme UI (shell review will be released after the smartphone).

Equipment

In the box:

• Smartphone
• Clip
• Transparent silicone case
• USB Type-C wire
• Quick charge
• Documents Editing

The smartphone was put in a large box. Usually, smartphones try to choose the most rational size boxes so that they fit more during transportation. Realme 5 Pro has a spacious box. Considering that the equipment is standard, I immediately had the idea that there must be something else in the box. But no. Perhaps this is the first budget smartphone that will be easy to pack back in a box and hand over.

Interestingly, the box is as laconic as possible. Usually, some cool device chips are written on the sides, and here only the name of the model. The box has been on the desktop for a month now, and so I could not get used to writing the letter “r”, which looks more like the Russian “g”.

Along the way, on the box you can read the English-language slogan of the brand “Dare to Leap”, that is, “dare to jump, jump.” Considering that the main market for realme is India, where the authorities build tens of millions of toilets every year, but many locals still prefer squatting the old fashioned way (10% of such fans in cities and 40% in rural areas), the motto is additional meaning. I have been to India and I can confirm that from time to time it is really necessary to dare and jump there.

Appearance

• Front panel: 6.3-inch screen, IPS LCD with a cutout for the 16 MP camera, a speaker above the camera, Gorilla Glass 3+ protective glass
• Back panel: 4 cameras, flash, fingerprint scanner, plastic or plastic panel, but definitely not glass
• Bottom end: USB Type-C, 3.5 mm headphone jack, microphone, speaker
• Upper butt: microphone
• Left-hand side: two volume buttons, 2 nano-SIM slot and dedicated microSD slot
• Right side: power button

As I understand it, according to the idea, the pattern on the back cover of the smartphone should be technologically futuristic. This is hinted at by a promo video about a smartphone.

To me, the pattern looks more like cracks in ice. In general, the back cover of the smartphone is made with high quality. The material feels like glass, but the frame of the smartphone is definitely made of plastic. It is extremely rare that glass is planted on a plastic frame, so that the back is definitely plastic or plastic, but of a fairly high quality. Good scratch resistance.

Overall, though, the design of the back panel shouldn’t worry too much. The smartphone comes with a hard, smoky silicone case. It is difficult to put it on, even more difficult to take it off, so, having put it on once, I wear it now.

Along the way, I would like to note one point. The edges of the cover protrude, so the screen does not touch the surfaces if the smartphone is placed with the screen down. On the one hand, it’s useful. On the other hand, the Android interface and the realme UI shell are focused on gesture control, and I had to practice making swipes from the edges.

The smartphone is in a case or without it fits perfectly in the hand. The camera block is on the side, and the fingerprint scanner is in the center, you can’t touch the camera. Along the way, it can be noted that the manufacturer emphasizes the splash protection of the device. For this price category, this means that the smartphone has a very high-quality assembly, so it is not afraid of water.

Overall, a typical iridescent design, but with its own unique pattern. For the appearance and usability of the device, you can put a five.

Screen and sound

The smartphone has a 6.3-inch screen. This is an IPS LCD panel with a Full HD + resolution, that is, 2340 x 1080 pixels, an aspect ratio of 19.5: 9, and a pixel density of 409 ppi. The screen is flat, without slopes at the edges.

The manufacturer claims a brightness of 450 nits, which is typical for this segment. My measurements showed 480 nits. The smartphone has a light sensor, but the device does not have an increase in brightness in the “auto” mode.

The color rendition of the screen is good, but standard. There are no cool features like HDR10 or DCI-P3 color gamut, but this is found in models costing from 20-25 thousand rubles. Realme 5 pro has just a solid screen – great for playing games or watching Netflix. And since this is IPS, there is no ripple here either. The screen has few settings. You can’t even hide the cutout.

Speaking about the screen, I would like to note a couple of software features.

Firstly, there is, of course, a blue light filter that can either be turned on in the shade or set up on a schedule. But after the update, one more function appeared – you can switch the screen to black and white mode.

Also, the screen has such a function as OSIE (Object & Semantic Images & Eye-tracking). This is an AI-based technology, when a smartphone, showing an image, tries to track and guess where the user is looking, what attracts his attention, and tint the image. This is such a small bun, the inclusion of which you, in general, will hardly notice until, having got used to it, you turn it off.

The smartphone has one speaker at the bottom, but when playing music, the speaker is also used, which takes over the high and medium frequencies. For my taste, everything is fine with the playback of music on the smartphone, but then let everyone evaluate it for themselves. I can only note that the smartphone is loud enough. The ringtone volume is 85 dB. This is slightly above the average for all smartphones.

Battery life

Remember the times when the manufacturer put huge batteries of 100 million thousand mAh in smartphones of this price category and such ancient and poorly optimized hardware that the charge was still not enough until the evening? The owners of such devices often looked at the site and left comments that you are all lying, your Galaxy S6 with a 2 mAh battery cannot play video for 500 hours, when my high-quality Chinese with an 12-pysch battery has only 8 hours of screen.

Those times have sunk into oblivion, and now such people can enjoy quality devices at affordable prices. And their life became better. But, according to observations, they still prefer not to wash their hands after using the toilet, believing that they will do it anyway.

The realme 5 Pro is equipped with a purebred Snapdragon 712 using the 10 nm process technology (in a test copy of the Snapdragon 710). The device runs on the current version of Android 10. And its battery is 4 mAh. Thanks to this, the smartphone can play videos or open websites for almost 000 hours. In Call of Duty game mode (a rather demanding 15D game) with the screen at full brightness, the smartphone will last about 3 hours.

The smartphone comes with 20W VOOC fast charging. In 30 minutes it will charge the smartphone from 0 to 50%. A full charge takes about 1.5 hours. Overall, a standard result. If you forget about fast charging, know that a typical charge will take 2 hours and 20 minutes to charge from 1% to 99%.

Камеры

Realme 5 pro cameras have become one of the main discoveries for me. The smartphone has 4 main photo modules:

1. 48 MP, f / 1.8, (wide), 1 / 2.0 ″, 0.8µm, PDAF
2. 8 MP, f / 2.2, 13mm (ultra wide angle)
3. 2 MP, f / 2.4, (macro), 1 / 5.0 ″, 1.75µm
4. 2 MP, f / 2.4, (depth sensor)

The camera interface is laconic. Almost all settings are displayed on the screen so that you don’t have to go into the menu. In the menu from the useful there is an opportunity to turn off the shutter sound, there is a function of shooting by touching the fingerprint scanner. AI is enabled by default, and to disable it, you have to fall into the settings.

Looking at the specs, I laughed at first. Well, what cameras are in the phone for 13 thousand? I understand, if there were 1-2 cameras, and here there are as many as 4, and even a 48 MP module. I decided that the fool was being caught. He will come to the salon, see a whole bunch of cameras and immediately buy it. And for once will not be disappointed!

The fact that the smartphone shoots well, I noticed almost immediately. No wonder they stuck a good screen. The very first photo of the cathedral turned out to be very good, and I even reached for my Galaxy Note 9 to compare.

This is an example of just a 48MP shot.

The cathedral in the background is clearly visible, and the greenery in the foreground, despite the strong wind, was generally a success.

But the usual 12 MP.

And for comparison, my Galaxy Note 9. No longer a flagship, but it’s too early to write off the accounts.

Left – Samsung, right – realme 5 pro.

The smartphone has 2x and 5x zoom. 5x zoom – as I was immediately pointed out when I shared the photos in one of the articles – is, of course, just a crop, but a slightly combed AI.

I think you will agree that this quality even 2 years ago could not have been expected from a smartphone that is on the border with the economy segment.

However, in clear weather, taking good pictures is a simple matter. Let’s take a look at challenging conditions. You should definitely go to Sagrada Familia on a clear day. The cathedral has many stained-glass windows that fill the room with light. I spent almost 5 hours in the cathedral. I walked around everything several times and just sat for a long time on a bench against the wall, admiring. This is an ordeal for a smartphone. For my taste, the Galaxy Note 9 could do better, but the X is surprisingly good! Sure, the Note 9 shoots better, but the difference is not so great between the devices, given their price. First realme 5 Pro, then Samsung.

Once again. First realme 5 Pro, then Samsung. Here Samsung did a very good job with stained glass windows.

Another photo of the realme 5 pro smartphone.

And here are the night photos. First realme 5 pro, then Samsung. And the third photo is an example of a night portrait without blur.

Surprisingly, the realme 5 pro stands up to the Samsung Galaxy Note 9. And on Instagram, the difference is generally invisible. The smartphone has a good front camera.

The camera is great at blurring the background. The algorithm can distinguish quite clearly. In the photo below, I just couldn’t cope with the hood. By the way, an interesting fact. A regular selfie on the front camera weighs 4-5 MB, while with portrait blur it is only 1.7 MB.

Among other delights – the camera is able to shoot time-lapses, and there is also a dedicated macro camera with a resolution of 2 MP. It can focus on objects 4-5 cm away from the lens. Photos weigh 500-700 KB. Apparently, such a module was added, just to be.

A few more examples of photos.

Performance

Let’s frankly, from a smartphone for 12 rubles before, you could get only one thing – either performance, or cameras, or just outwardly pretty. Asus Zenfone Max (M990 or M1) immediately comes to mind. Great devices in terms of performance, but the camera was their weak point. Realme is surprisingly balanced. He has good cameras, but the hardware did not disappoint. The Snapdragon 2 is a great mid-range processor released in 712.

I can say that the device works great, allowing you to play any modern games and run any programs. Further, there will be test results, but here it is important to note that I received an engineering sample powered by Snapdragon 710 for review. This is a chipset released in 2018. And the Snapdragon 712 is essentially the next version, but internally the chipsets are almost identical. However, the 712 has slightly overclocked frequencies, so it is formally 10% faster in performance and graphics than the test sample.

Separately, I would like to note the work of both realme and Qualcomm engineers. The device is practically not subject to throttling.

Test results.

Communication capabilities

Give realme its due. The smartphone is equipped with the latest version of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth – ac, 2.4 GHz + 5.0 GHz, Bluetooth 5.0. And the chipset from Qualcomm means AptX HD support. The smartphone has a good GPS and has a built-in compass, so the map shows the direction in which direction the smartphone is turned.

There are no complaints about voice transmission. The smartphone does not have Wi-Fi Calling function. Also, the smartphone does not have NFC. This is a shame, considering that the younger version (realme 5) has this function. The recently introduced realme C3 budget employee even has it. But in C3, the NFC function was made exclusively for our market. Indian smartphones don’t have it. When they launched realme 5 pro, they apparently did not yet figure out how important it is in Russia to be able to pay for milk and bread from a smartphone.

Software features

Read about the realme shell and its differences from ColorOS in a separate article.

For now, I’ll just note that realme UI 1.0 is a user-friendly user interface that supports gesture control. It can be seen that realme tried to make a product pleasant to the eye. For example, with the update, a lot of beautiful “live” wallpapers have appeared.

However, it is important to note that in terms of shell functionality, Oppo, Vivo, realme are still somewhat lagging behind competitors. For example, in realme 5 pro there is no way to hide the screen cutout. But there is an opportunity to independently designate what one or another gesture will perform on the screen. Or there are options where the percentage of charge will be displayed: inside the battery icon, outside, or not at all (why is it needed?).

Impressions and competitors

I have been using this smartphone since February as the second device. Formally, I was studying the phone for review, but in fact it had all the necessary applications and I was just too lazy to reinstall the SIM card. I have already mentioned in other articles that I do not like BBK brands copied from each other, like a carbon copy – everything is for the young, daring, etc. However, if the smartphone sells for a good price and has excellent features, then don’t care about marketing. While everywhere I was carrying the device with me, I managed to “sell” it to two acquaintances. One girl bought it for her 17-year-old brother (in theory, just the target audience), and he was pleased. Another friend, having familiarized himself with the device, bought one for his father. And, too, everything seems to be fine. Now they communicate via video on WhatsApp (the previous phone did not have a front camera).

Realme 5 pro can be recommended for purchase. For 12 rubles, this is a good device. Solid product. However, before buying, I highly recommend either exploring the shell yourself, or reading our review, which will be released this week. Also a link will be added to this article.

Let’s think about the competition.

Xiaomi Redmi 8T. This is a device released in November 2019. It is now being sold for a similar price. It has a Snapdragon 665 chipset and 4/64 GB of memory, it is inferior to realme, which has a Snapdragon 712 and 128 GB. In terms of cameras, they have an approximate parity, since both there and there are 48 MP modules. I like the results of realme a little more, but here the fact is that in realme, artificial intelligence, as I understand it, constantly twists the pictures a little. Read the review by Roman Belykh.

Competitors can be Huawei / Honor smartphones – Honor 20 Lite and Huawei P40 Lite. They have a weaker chipset, a smaller battery, similar cameras, but I will not offer them, since they are without Google services. Still, I don’t want to recommend devices with problems.

Samsung Galaxy A40. A very balanced device from Samsung. The strong point is NFC and One UI shell. Everything else is a little worse. For example, it runs on Exynos 7904 (14 nm versus 10 nm, 12-15% slower), 16 MP camera, 3 mAh battery. I would also like to note that the smartphone was released a year ago. I pointed it out, since there are no competitors from the current line of Samsung at the price. There is A000S, but this is a 20/3 GB device with Wi-Fi b / g / n 32 GHz. In fact, by the way, the A2.4s is a smartphone that should be for 20 rubles.

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