Realme 3 Pro Review; An All-Out Smartphone

INTRODUCTION:

Realme – a young Chinese mobile brand – is busy cementing its name in the industry. In the Philippines, the company has become more popular when it dropped its powerful smartphone with a reasonable price tag – the Realme 3 Pro.

Realme 3 Pro Review; An All-Out Smartphone

As it continues to steal the spotlight in the market, our team played around with the Realme 3 Pro for numbers of months to see if it can really deliver its promises. And frankly, the phone didn’t disappoint us.

If you’re still not convinced whether you should give it a try or not, then, read this long-term review to know why it currently leads the list of our favorite smartphones. Let’s begin!

PHYSICAL:

Realme opted to elevate its offerings from its physique down to its specs. With this, the Realme 3 Pro now has a unique S-back design, which reminds us of OPPO smartphones. Available in three color options, our team got the modest variant – Carbon Grey – which we prefer because it looks minimalist. However, as it reduces reflection, this model also tends to hide its back panel's S-design. In fact, one will not easily notice it at first glance.

Carbon Grey

The device could sit comfortably on our hands but we still chose to use its protective case because of its slippery body. It can easily attract fingerprints and smudges, too.

There’s nothing much to talk about its design. Just like other smartphones available in the market, Realme also mounted a tiny notch on top of its screen to house its front camera, and to give off more screen area. Speaking of, the handset features a 6.3-inch panel – which we will discuss more later.

Its keys are thoughtfully placed somewhere we can easily reach it, as well. Its power/lock button is located on the right, while its volume rockers and SIM card tray are sited on the left. On the other hand, its microUSB port, headphone jack and loudspeaker are at the bottom.

DISPLAY:

6.3-inch IPS LCD FHD+ (2340 x 1080) display

The Realme 3 Pro flaunts an immersive 6.3-inch IPS LCD panel with FHD+ 2340 x 1080 resolution. It is also topped with Gorilla Glass 5 for some additional protection. Meanwhile, as it features a dewdrop notch, the handset allows us to take advantage of its large screen area. With this, our team enjoyed playing games and watching videos using the phone.

Its display flashes accurate colors with nice details and sharpness, too. Moreover, it comes with good brightness level, as we could still seamlessly navigate the device even when we used it under direct sunlight.

SOFTWARE:

Software

Realme loaded the device with Color OS 6 based on Android 9 Pie. Its interface is youthful and lively, but of course, if you prefer a simpler and minimalist skin, then, you might have a hard time loving it. Nevertheless, we can guarantee you that its clean and easy to navigate.

The Realme 3 Pro also sports an app drawer that houses your mobile apps. With that being said, the handset comes with numbers of pre-installed apps, including Google native apps, Facebook, Lazada, Opera, and more. These won’t eat too much space on your 128GB storage, but in case you didn’t like it, you can still uninstall these apps if you want to.

PERFORMANCE:

Under the hood, the Realme 3 Pro is packed with Snapdragon 710 octa-core processor paired with Adreno 616 GPU. It can be coupled with up to 6GB RAM and up to 128GB storage, which is expandable up to 256GB via microSD. Having these offerings, we know that the device can deliver a “Pro” overall performance, but we still ran it on various benchmark apps to give us a preview about its actual speed.

Here are the results:

Benchmark Scores

Geared with powerful specs, we’re not surprised that the device can deliver smooth gaming performance. We played Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, PUBG Mobile, and Mortal Kombat, and impressively, it never had a serious lag moment. Our team could smoothly play Mobile Legends and Mortal Kombat at its highest graphic level, on the other hand, we had to adjust its settings when playing PUBG. To be honest, we could still enjoy PUBG at its highest graphics, but there were times when it had glitches – it usually occurs when we’re heavily using it.

We also never had serious issues like lagging and heating up when we used it as our main driver. Our daily mobile tasks include basic communications, continuous social media browsing, and casual gaming. The device could easily switch from one app to another, as well.

See Also: Honor 8S versus Realme C2

CAMERA:

16MP f/1.7 + 5MP dual rear cameras

Realme mounted the device with dual rear cameras composed of a 16-megapixel f/1.7 Sony IMX519 sensor and 5-megapixel f/2.4 secondary shooter. This features a flagship-like Nightscape mode, Panorama, Expert, Time-lapse, Portrait, 960fps super slow motion, 4K video recording, and Ultra HD.

For selfies, the Realme 3 Pro boasts a 25-megapixel f/2.0 snapper that supports AI Beautification to enhance your photos.

Here are some of our sample photos:

Outdoor

Outdoor (HDR)

Outdoor (Lowlight)

Nightscape Mode

Indoor

Food

Macro

Portrait

Selfie (Outdoor)

Selfie (Indoor)

Selfie (Portrait)

The Realme 3 Pro gave us a lot of reasons to become one of our favorite smartphones, and one of these is its camera capabilities. When we first met the phone, we could not deny that we’re really impressed how it produces great images as if it was captured by a flagship device. In fact, some people might think that its photos were taken by a premium handset.

Since the first time we played around with the Realme 3 Pro, its Nightscape mode never disappoints us. Through this feature, users can capture great lowlight photos even without having to score an expensive camera-centric smartphone. Noises were not too visible during night shots, as well.

Second, it has studio-like Portrait mode with good bokeh effect. It can also enhance your facial features, while managing to deliver a natural-looking portrait.

25MP f/2.0 front camera

Meanwhile, we’re not too happy about its selfie camera. We noticed that photos were too warm in well-lit places including outdoors. Ironically, images were clean and natural in lowlight settings. Another thing we didn’t like about its front camera is its aggressive bokeh effect. As a result, some parts of the subject were removed.

Aggressive Bokeh Effect

Its AI Beautification did its job, as it could really remove blemishes, dark circles, and some facial flaws when taking selfies. However, we noticed that even when we turned this option off, the device still enhanced our facial features. Hence, this might be a thumbs down for consumers who prefer natural-looking images.

CONNECTIVITY:

The Realme 3 Pro is a dual SIM device that supports basic connectivity features, including WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. All of these worked well during our tests, considering that we have good signal reception. We never had a problem connecting to WiFi and data, as well, while its GPS is always accurate.

The device also comes with 3.5mm audio jack, and a microUSB 2.0 port.

Related: Realme X with SD 710 and 16MP Pop-up Camera Now Official

BATTERY:

The Realme 3 Pro is juiced with a large 4,045mAh battery, but it’s noticeable that it's slightly smaller than the Realme 3’s 4,230mAh stamina. Fortunately, the pro variant supports VOOC 3.0 fast charging, which can charge the device from 15% to 100% for only an hour.

The handset can also last for almost 10 hours and 45 minutes even if we’re actively using it.

VERDICT:

Personally, the Realme 3 Pro is one of the most hard-to-beat smartphones this year. Considering that it has low asking price, the device can offer jam-packed features and specs that are hard to find in its segment.

Realme 3 Pro

Through the phone, Realme was able to drop a great overall handset that can satisfy your mobile needs. It’s also a proof that consumers didn’t have to go after an expensive device just to enjoy this kind of mobile superiority.  Price might be deceiving, and the Realme 3 Pro is successful proving that.

For Php12,990, consumers can get its 4GB/64GB model, while the more powerful 6GB/128GB variant sells for Php14,990.

Overall, we should end this one by saying, you will never regret choosing this smartphone than its rivals.

Do you agree with us? Let us know what you think in the comment section below!

Realme 3 Pro Specs (Philippines):

• Dual SIM, supports LTE connectivity
• 6.3-inch FHD+ (2340 x 1080) capacitive touchscreen, 19.5:9 aspect ratio
• Dimensions: 156.8 x 74.2 x 8.3mm
• Weight: 172 grams
• Android 9.0 Pie with ColorOS 6
• 2.2GHz octa-core CPU, 10nm Snapdragon 710 chipset, Adreno 616 GPU
• Hyperboost 2.0
• 4GB/6GB RAM
• 64GB/128GB internal storage, expandable up to 256GB via microSD card
• 16MP f/1.7 Sony IMX519 + 5MP f/2.4 depth sensor, 2160p video recording at 30fps
• 25MP f/2.0 front camera
• Multimedia Player
• FM Radio
• 3.5mm audio jack
• WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
• Bluetooth 5.0
• GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS
• MicroUSB 2.0
• Sensors: accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
• Others: Fingeprint scanner (rear-mounted), Face Unlock
• Battery: 4045mAh non-removable Li-Ion, 20W VOOC 3.0 Flash Charging
• Price: Php12,990/Php14,990