Monday, May 3, 2021

realme 8 Pro Hands-On: Dare to Leap!

Mid-range devices are awesome. They tend to have a great balance between excellent hardware specs for a relatively affordable price tag. With that being said, realme has always done a great job in this category, consistently coming out with respectable, bang-for-buck devices. And now we get to check out their latest one yet, the realme 8 Pro.

They’ve taken a few things up a notch compared to its predecessor, specifically in the camera department. And now that we have it in our hands, we’ll share with you guys our initial thoughts.

If you look at the back of the realme 8 Pro, there should be two things that will automatically catch your attention. The first is obviously that 108MP large quad-camera module, and the second is this flashy “Dare to Leap” tagline found on the opposite side. The large reflective text uses a special fluorescent material that absorbs light and emits this magical glow, which is nothing short of cool to see. And you know what? It looks good on this phone, especially in this Infinite Black colorway, but this will be available in Infinite Blue as well.

The rear panel is constructed out of a polycarbonate matte-like material, although it doesn’t seem like it at all because of how premium it looks. It has this rather rough texture to it, meaning you only have to worry about smudges and fingerprints on the front (phew). But it doesn’t hurt to have extra protection, so the included jelly case is always welcome. It also has a super slim and light design, with a thickness of just 8.1 mm, and a weight of about 176g, making it not only easy to slip in and out of your pocket but as well as give better grip and less hand fatigue when using for extended periods.

Wrapped around the phone’s sides is a matte metallic-like finish, complimenting the back of the phone pretty well. You’ll find the volume rocker keys along with the power/sleep button on the right.

On the left is a dual SIM tray slot with a dedicated MicroSD card slot capable of up to 1TB of expandable storage.

There is a secondary noise-canceling microphone at the top of the phone. Finally, at the bottom, we are greeted with your USB Type-C port, single bottom-firing speakers, the primary microphone, and the ever so reliable 3.5mm jack.

Checking out the front, we’re getting a 6.4-inch FHD+ (1080 x 2400) Super AMOLED panel and is protected by a pre-installed screen protector. In addition, it has a peak brightness of up to 1000 nits, which means using this phone shouldn’t be a problem even under harsh lighting conditions. And with a touch sampling rate of 180Hz, it’s also quite a responsive device, perfect for things like gaming or if you generally want a snappier phone.

The front camera has a punch-hole design on the upper left, and on top, of course, is the earpiece. Audio-wise, since we’re only getting one audio output source, quality is alright, but dual speakers would have been better to see (or hear, rather).

Underneath the hood, the realme 8 Pro is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G CPU with an Adreno 618 GPU and comes with 8GB of RAM. There also seems to be a 6GB variant, but we’re not sure if these will be available in the local market here in the Philippines. Nevertheless, we’re happy to be getting this version since the extra 2GB should help a lot when it comes to daily use and multitasking. We’ll get more into this, along with some benchmarks, in our full review.

For software, we’re getting Android 11 skinned with realme UI 2.0. Apart from being snappy, it’s also relatively clean and easy to navigate around with one hand. There will be some bloatware, though, so out of 128GB, you’ll be getting 110GB out of the box, but it’s a good thing you can still uninstall them if you don’t want them around. Keeping your phone secure is an in-display fingerprint scanner, as well as face unlock; All powered by a 4,500 mAh battery with 50W SuperDart Charge, all of which we’ll be going more in-depth in our full review.

With four evenly spaced circles all around the square-shaped module, it doesn’t take long to realize that the realme 8 Pro comes in a quad shooter setup even from afar. The main camera packs a 108MP f/1.9 shooter, followed by an 8MP f/2.3 wide lens, a 2MP f/2.4 Macro, and another 2MP f/2.4 for depth-sensing. Below that is the LED flash.

We’re pretty excited about this, as the main shooter uses Samsung’s HM2 camera sensor, which realme touts can produce images as good as a photo taken using a Mirrorless Camera. Apart from that, it has 3x Ultra Zoom & Optical Zoom, which lets you take distant shots without sacrificing picture quality. And, if we’re correct, it’s also the world’s first smartphone to feature a Tilt-Shift Time-Lapse Video Lens, and that’s going to be great for things like miniature-like shots or getting photos into the right perspective. We’ll get deeper into this in our full review, but for now, check out these shots we took using the realme 8 Pro.

To wrap things up, if you’re looking for a phone with a high camera pixel count, a very responsive display, and boasts a bold design that is slim and light, then the realme 8 pro is a good option to add to your list. And if you know realme, we won’t be surprised if this comes with a relatively affordable price tag given all the features you’ll be getting.

If you want to catch Realme’s Facebook Livestream launch event for the realme 8 and 8 Pro, Don’t miss out on the live stream launch on May 11, 2021 – 6 PM on realme’s official Facebook Page and YouTube Channel.

realme 8 Pro specs:
6.4-inch FHD+ (1080 x 2400) super AMOLED
180Hz touch sampling rate
Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G
Adreno 618
6GB, 8GB LPDDR4X
128GB UFS 2.1 storage
Quad-rear cameras
• 108MP F1.88 (main)
• 8MP F2.25 (ultrawide)
• 2MP F2.4 (macro)
• 2MP F2.4 (b&w)
16MP front camera
4G LTE
Dual-SIM (nano)
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth 5.1
Fingerprint scanner (in-display)
realme UI 2.0 (Android 11)
USB Type-C
4,500mAh batter w/ 50W superdart charge
160.6 x 73.9 x 8.1mm
176g
Infinite Black, Infinite Blue