realme 7 Full Review
We are now officially in the BER months! With the increasing demand for power, large-capacity battery, clearer cameras and even fast-charging speed, realme Philippines has just launched a new smartphone line that is simply perfect for the Filipinos’ tech needs for work, school, gaming or even business -- the realme 7 series!
Included in the line-up is the realme 7 -- a competitive midrange champ that packs the world’s first MediaTek Helio G95 processor, making the device one of the most powerful smartphones in gaming and entertainment at its price point. It also has a 5000mAh battery with a 30W Dart Charge, a 2nd gen Sony IMX682 Sensor and a 90Hz Ultra-smooth display.
Since we are already done with the unboxing and first impression of the device, this review might help you decide even further, whether this smartphone is the one you are looking for.
Design
Inspired by the space in nature, the realme 7 series features a mirror space design and reveals some interesting and holographic patterns when the light is being reflected at its surface. The AG (Anti-Glare) finished with classic CD (Contemporary Design) textures also makes the phone premium-looking. As for the color, the realme 7 comes in two colors options, namely - Mist White and Mist Blue. My unit comes in Mist White color.
On the front, realme 7 contains the large 6.5-inch IPS LCD panel. There’s also a punch-hole camera located at the upper left and the earpiece is quite thin and discretely etched within the screen enclosure. While on the back, there’s a camera hump that houses the vertical quad camera set-up along with the single LED flash.
Found on the left side are your standard volume rocker buttons and card tray with a 3-card slots for two Nano SIM cards and one microSD card.
On the right is the realme 7 side fingerprint scanner which ingeniously fuses the power button and fingerprint recognition modules.
The top is clean with the secondary noise-canceling microphone missing.
While at the bottom you can find the USB Type-C charging port, a single downward-firing speaker, primary microphone and a 3.5mm audio jack.
Even though the realme 7 still uses polycarbonate plastic for the frame and back panel, the phone feels solidly built, sturdy and has a hefty weight, maybe due to the large battery. All of the phone's ports are also tightly waterproofed through protective sealing silicone to effectively prevent splashing.
Display and Multimedia
realme 7 contains a 6.5-inch big display, same as the realme 6. The display uses an IPS LCD panel with a Corning Gorilla Glass protection and comes with 20:9 ratio, 2400x1080 FHD+ resolution, 90.5% screen-to-body ratio and 480nits brightness. The colors are accurate, viewing angles are good, but the screen is not as bright as I would have preferred.
What makes this device stand out is the 90Hz ultra smooth display with 90Hz refresh rate and 120Hz sampling rate. The display is capable of producing 90 frames per second, the 90Hz display has a 50% higher refresh rate when compared to a conventional 60Hz display, resulting in a seamless and visually pleasing experience when you’re navigating the UI or scrolling through articles or social media feed.
For the loudspeaker, audio quality is like your typical smartphone. It can get loud but no bass. There’s also some distortion when you max the volume. I recommend using headphones or an external speaker for better audio quality.
Camera
Rear Cameras
realme 7 boasts a quad camera set-up composed of a 64MP main camera with a 2nd gen Sony IMX682 Sensor, 8MP 119° F2.3 ultra wide-angle, 2MP macro lens with a 4cm shooting distance and 2MP B&W portrait lens. This setup is handy and versatile as it has ultrawide and macro cameras, both of which have proven to be useful. Quality from the rear cameras under bright lighting conditions is pretty great as you get vibrant colors and sharp detail, though dynamic range can be better.
For low light, it performs well with the Night Mode feature in certain situations, but without it turned on, it’s generally a poor performer in low light.
64MP Mode, Special Night Filters, Starry Mode
Thanks to the newly upgraded Sony IMX682 sensor, realme developed a new ultra-high definition algorithm for the 64MP mode. The new 64MP Mode can also switch between AI mode and Pro mode. In Pro mode, users can manually adjust camera parameters to shoot and take advantage of the full 64MP resolution.
 |
| realme 7 64MP Mode - Pro Mode and AI Mode |
The realme 7 camera has three built-in special night filters: Cyberpunk, Flamingo and Modern Gold. realme has developed the Starry Mode to utilize an AI algorithm combined with ultra-long exposure and multi-frame synthesis that enhance the sharpness and brightness of the stars, giving users professional starry photos.
Front Selfie Camera
For the front camera, realme 7 uses a 16MP in-display front camera with F2.0 aperture and supports different features such as smart beauty and bokeh mode. The realme 7’s front camera is average, while details appear sharp, it fails to deliver accurate colors, especially for skin tones.
Video
For video, realme 7’s front and rear cameras support many trendy and fun video features as following for the front camera: 120fps slo-mo video recording; for the rear camera: UIS Video Stabilization, 4K/30fps video recording, 1080P/120fps and 720p/240fps slo-mo video recording.
OS, UI and Apps
Realme 7 runs on realme UI, based on Android 10. It is designed and built for an enhanced and closer to stock Android experience; the realme UI is seamless, clean and pretty UI that is easy-to-navigate. It has the latest features such as Soloop, System Themes, Icon Customization, Dual Mode Music Share, Smart Sidebar, Riding Mode, Game Space, Screen-Off Display, Fraud Prevention, Private Space and Dark Mode, to name a few. Also, pre-installed are the standard Google suite of apps, as well as some bloatware apps.
Hardware and Performance
There is a global uptick of 35 percent in weekly mobile game downloads in March as people around the world stay safely at home and look for avenues of entertainment. IDC and App Annie also reported that mobile is now the primary driver of growth for digital game consumption. To ascertain that the youth gets to continue to slay their mobile battles, realme designed the realme 7 specifically for mobile gaming enthusiasts.
 |
| realme 7 Gaming - Asphalt 9: Legends (Visual Quality in High) |
Under the phone’s hood is the world’s first MediaTek Helio G95 Gaming Processor, a gaming-centric chipset for the mid-range segment and offers incremental improvements over its predecessor, the Helio G90T. The processor is made using a 12nm process and is equipped with two high-performance Cortex-A76 core up to 2.05GHz and six high-efficiency Cortex-A55 core up to 2GHz, same as the Helio G90T. While, the Mali-G76 MC4 GPU is now clocked at 900MHz instead of 800MHz. realme 7 is also equipped with carbon fiber cooling systems that can cool up to 8.6%.
Performance is buttery smooth, resource-intensive apps are no problem at all, and you can run as many of them as you like with the 8GB RAM model.
realme 7 is available in the Philippines in one storage variant -- 128GB storage, with an 113GB of available storage (15.43GB used out of the box). You can also further expand the storage up to 256GB via its dedicated microSD card slot.
Realme didn’t fail on their promise that the realme 7 brings an overall smooth experience to mobile game lovers in its price point.
Here are the benchmark scores from this device:
- AnTuTu v8.4.3 – 301,599
- Geekbench 5 – 520 (Single-core), 1,660 (Multi-core), 2,208 (OpenCL), 2,173 (Vulcan)
- PCMark – 9753 (Work 2.0)
- 3DMark – 2,583 (OpenGL), 2,778 (Vulkan)
- AndroBench – 523.15 MB/s (Seq. Read), 203.58 MB/s (Seq. Write)
30W Dart Charger, Battery Life and Connectivity
Quarantines have also regulated the forms of entertainment the youth usually enjoys outside of their homes, like going to the movies, partying in clubs and dining in restaurants. This led the youth to pivot even further to digital forms of connection and entertainment – be it virtual call with friends or movie streaming – as these are not bound by physical borders.
With the newly upgraded 30W Dart Charge, 5,000mAh battery can be charged to 100% in 65 mins and nearly 50% in only 26 mins. realme 7 also supports 15W PD charge, making it even more versatile. The charging algorithm developed for the realme 7 includes five layers of security protection and provides hardware-level security protection for the entire charging process.
The bigger 5000mAh battery (700mAh bigger than the realme 6) can easily last you a whole day of moderate usage that includes multiple sessions of gaming, watching YouTube and scrolling through social media feeds. In the PCMark Work 2.0 Battery Life Test, the unit yielded a score of 12 hours and 3 minutes. The Super Power Saving mode feature that was introduced with the realme C15 is available here too.
Also, realme 7 has your usual connectivity features, including 4G LTE, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.1, GPS, a 3.5mm audio jack and USB Type-C.
TÜV Rheinland Reliability Verified
realme has upgraded the quality of tests to further improve the reliability of its smartphones. The realme 7 and 7 Pro are the first smartphones in the world to receive this verification. The TÜV Rheinland Smartphone Reliability Verification contains 22 major and 38 minor tests, covering many common usage scenarios of daily use, components reliability and extreme environment.
realme 7 Specifications:
6.5-inch Full HD+ (1080 x 2400) IPS display, 405ppi, 90Hz refresh rate, 120Hz touch sampling rate, Corning Gorilla Glass 3
MediaTek Helio G95 octa-core processor, 12nm
Mali-G76 MC4 (900MHz) GPU
8GB LPDDR4x RAM
128GB of internal storage (UFS 2.1)
microSD slot (dedicated) up to 256GB
Quad-rear cameras: 64MP Sony IMX682 F1.8 (primary sensor) + 8MP F2.3 (ultra wide-angle) + 2MP F2.4 (B&W portrait) + 2MP F2.4 (macro lens)
16MP Sony IMX471 F2.1 selfie front camera
realme UI 1.0 (Android 10 based)
Dual-SIM (Nano) / 4G LTE
Wi-Fi 5/ Bluetooth 5.1 / GPS, A-GPS, BDS, GLONASS
USB Type-C port / Fingerprint scanner (side)
Li-Po 5,000mAh battery w/ 30W Dart charge
162.3 x 75.4 x 9.4 mm (dimension)
196.5 g (weight)
Colors: Mist White and Mist Blue
Price and Availability
The realme 7 8GB + 128GB storage variant is now available in the Philippines for just Php14,990.
In celebration of the longest holiday season in the world, realme Philippines is launching the realme 7 with a ton of promos available in multiple channels.
- Starting September 30, the realme 7 can be availed with 0% interest installment plans for either six or nine months. Home Credit also has special promos for lucky purchasers of the midrange champ in select stores nationwide. The first 10 purchasers of a realme 7 will get free Buds Classic worth Php590. The participating kiosks for this promo are located at SM North EDSA, SM Megamall, SM Fairview, SM Mall of Asia, SM Calamba, SM Dasmariñas, SM Sta. Rosa, SM Manila, SM Pampanga and SM Bicutan.
- Customers with major credit cards can also avail the realme 7 via flexible 6 or 12-month installment plans with 0% interest.
- Customers who prefer shopping in the comfort of their homes can also avail of the realme 7 with a Php500 voucher through the official realme store on LazMall.
Verdict
For Php14,990 for the 8GB + 128GB storage variant, is this the smartphone you are looking for? If you already have a realme 6 series it's a “NO”. But, if you're looking for a great gaming and entertainment midrange smartphone at this price range, the answer is “YES”. You’ll not get disappointed once you get a hold of it!
Edited and with additional inputs by Michelle Villa
No comments: