Realme 3 Pro Review

Last year, Oppo’s sub-brand Realme entered the smartphone industry to directly compete with the Redmi devices. The Shenzhen-based company started introducing budget smartphones with highly aggressive pricing in order to beat the other budget leaders. 

Realme has now added another product to its portfolio dubbed Realme 3 Pro. As expected, the device directly competes with the likes of Redmi Note 7 Pro. In fact, Realme 3 Pro is the first in the series to introduce the Snapdragon 710 chipset. On top of this, the device is known for its camera sensor that can also be found on the high-end OnePlus 6T.

Realme has also added the super-fast charging feature at the budget price tag.

Realme 3 Pro seems like an enticing option on paper but is it really the device you should go for? let’s find that out in our comprehensive review.

Realme 3 Pro is available in three different storage variants – 4GB RAM+64GB storage, 6GB RAM+64GB storage, and 6GB RAM+128GB onboard memory. The base variant with 4GB RAM is up for grabs for INR 13,999 while the one with 6GB RAM is going to set you back INR 15,999. On the other hand, the top-end variant with 128GB storage is priced at INR 16,999. 

There are three different color options namely Lightning Purple, Carbon Grey and Nitro Blue. The smartphone is exclusively available on the Flipkart and the company’s official website.

The box of Realme 3 Pro looks very premium with a light grey colour on all the side except the base which is yellow. There is a smartphone branding on the front with the number 3 written in large font and the text ‘Pro’ written right underneath it. 

Right inside the box, you’ll see some reading manuals with a transparent back case and a SIM ejector tool. Keeping it aside, you’ll now be greeted by the device itself which by the way feels very solid in the hand. 

Here is a quick overview of what you’ll be getting in the box:

– Realme 3 Pro Handset

– Silicon transparent back case

– Super VOOC fast charger adapter

– Micro USB cable

– Sim ejector tool

– Reading manuals and other documentation

Here is a quick overview of what Realme 3 Pro is offering in each aspect: 

– Display: 6.3-inch IPS LCD, Gorilla Glass 5

– CPU & GPU: Snapdragon 710, Adreno 616

– RAM & Storage: up to 6GB RAM, up to 128GB storage

– Rear Cameras: 16MP+5MP, UltraHD Mode

– Selfie Camera: 25MP

– Battery: 4,050mAh capacity, 20W VOOC 3.0 charging

Right from the beginning, Realme is known for experimenting with its design for the Pro-series lineup. This time the brand has gone for dual-tone gradient design at the back instead of the earlier diamond-cut patterns. To make things a little more flashy, the brand has added an S-shaped pattern at the back which apparently is a tribute to a Grand Prix circuit called Le Mans.

Since we’re talking about the back, there is a dual-camera setup which is vertically aligned accompanied with an LED flash and a fingerprint sensor at the center. There is a Realme branding on the bottom left side in a vertical position. To provide a tighter and comfortable grip, the edges are gently curved reducing the thickness on the sides. Speaking of thickness, the device is actually very thin which is surprising since it packs a massive 4,045mAh battery.

Even though the device feels premium, it actually is not that strong since the back is made up of injection-molded plastic. It should withstand a few drops but I would still recommend using the bundled back case for an added protection.

On the front, there is a large screen with a tiny dewdrop notch and tiny bezels on the sides. In fact, the screen-to-body-ratio of the device is almost equivalent to its predecessors. Yet again, Realme went with the Micro USB charging port that is placed at the bottom with a single speaker and a 3.5-mm headphone jack.

Realme 3 Pro is equipped with a 6.3-inch IPS LCD display having a resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels, an aspect ratio of 19.5:9 and a pixel density of 409 ppi. Thanks to the nearly bezel-less design, the brand is able to provide a screen-to-body-ratio of 83.7 percent. Like its competitor, Realme 3 Pro also comes with a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 5 for protection. 

With the tiny dewdrop notch on the front, the phone has now more display to flaunt. The status bar can now fit more icons due to the addition of tiny notch. Further, we notice that the display is leaning more towards the colder white-balance which you might not like. Although you can tweak some settings, the perfect white-balance is still far from achievable. 

We loved watching Netflix or YouTube videos on this phone thanks to the bright screen, good color reproduction, and a large viewable area. The ambient sensor works pretty well on this phone and I rarely had to tweak the brightness settings manually. 

Overall, the screen on the Realme 3 Pro is pretty decent and is perfect for those who love to have a large display at the disposal. At the same price tag, Samsung is offering Super AMOLED display which of course is certainly much better than the IPS LCD.

As mentioned earlier, Realme 3 Pro is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 chipset paired with up to 6GB RAM, up to 128GB onboard memory, and Adreno 616 GPU. The Snapdragon 710 sits right in the middle of mid-range and high-end processors.

It is fabricated with the 10nm manufacturing process and is equipped with 2x high-performance Kryo 360 Gold cores clocked at 2.2GHz and 6x Kryo 360 Silver cores clocked at 1.7GHz for less power consuming tasks. 

The Adreno 616 GPU is very well famous for churning out smooth gaming experience. We witnessed the same during our extensive heavy usage of the device. We tried playing Pubg Mobile on the device on high graphics settings and surprisingly, the device was able to handle it all without any lags or slow down which is very impressive. 

It seems like Realme has optimized the device better for gaming performance. To improve your gaming experience, the smartphone maker has added a Game Space software which makes sure that your phone is getting enough resources during the tense gaming session. 

As expected, Realme 3 Pro manages to handle all the tasks be it heavy or moderate during our daily usage. Thanks to the UI optimizations to some extent, the overall experience was quite speedy and lag-free.

Realme 3 Pro runs on the latest version of Android operating system i.e. Android 9.0 Pie with the custom ColorOS 6 skin on top. One thing which used to turns out in disfavour of Realme was its software. The ColorOS on previous Realme devices used to be a big turn off. 

The smartphone maker has now introduced some major changes in the software. For one, the software is now much more polished. With app drawer being the part of UI, polished icons and smoother experience, the overall user experience on Realme 3 Pro is very decent. 

Realme has added a minus-1 screen which consists of your essential information and it changes as per your usage. The good thing about ColorOS 6 is the fact that there are no unwanted ads whatsoever. Unlike Xiaomi, Realme hasn’t monetized its own software in order to continue giving the finest experience. 

There are some small things in the software which is worth sharing such as the fact that the gestures now works even when the screen is off. You’ll now be able to see some useful features like App Lock, Clone Phone and Phone Manager. The software is filled with some bloatware apps which fortunately can easily be installed.

Coming to the optics, Realme 3 Pro comes with a dual camera setup at the back with a 16MP primary sensor and a secondary 5MP depth sensor. The very same 16MP Sony IMX519 sensor can also be found on the high-end OnePlus 6T device. Although Realme 3 Pro doesn’t have a 48MP sensor like its rival, it does have Ultra HD mode to keep things a little interesting. 

For those who’re not aware, Realme’s Ultra HD mode basically combines four 16MP images to create a single 64MP photo which sounds pretty interesting. Sadly, the feature is available only in pro mode. Another interesting feature is Nightscape that can improve your low-light photos. This feature will take multiple shots at different exposures and then combine them to create one decent low-light photos. 

In both day- and low-light conditions, the rear camera was able to take some decent shots. Thanks to the AI and Chroma Boost, we were able to receive some of the best results in photography. Keeping these two settings on, you will get photos with plenty of details and limited noise. Personally, it took me a couple of days to get used to the Realme 3 Pro’s camera app interface.

Coming to the low-light again, we did notice some noise when the photos were clicked using the Nightscape feature. The regular low-light is as good as the Nightscape. We were able to click some decent shots with good detailing, exposure, and fairly less noise. 

Since there is a dedicated depth sensor at the back, the device is capable to click some decent portrait shots by easily differentiating the background from the foreground. Sometimes the portrait mode doesn’t work as expected and ends up blurring some edges and parts. 

For selfies, Realme has added a single 25MP snapper on the front. The selfies came out to be sharp and well-detailed. There are tons of useless features like skin smoothing, face thinner and what not. There’s not much to talk about the selfie cameras of this phone. Overall, it will do the job perfectly fine.

Realme 3 Pro is fueled by a massive 4,045mAh battery packed inside which supports the 20W VOOC 3.0 charging technology. The device has enough battery backup that can last you for an entire day even though you are a heavy user. Not only that, the chipset used in this phone is very power efficient. The thing that bugs me the most is the fact there is no USB Type-C port. 

Coming to the charging time, you can charge your device to up to 50% within an hour thanks to the VOOC 3.0 technology. Just so you know, Realme 3 Pro takes 1 hour 20 minutes to completely charge. The fact that the device can charge with this much speed will overshadow the MicroUSB port. Just so you know, the VOOC 3.0 charging feature is generally found in the mid-range and high-end Oppo’s smartphones.

In terms of security, Realme 3 Pro comes with two options which include a fingerprint sensor at the back and the popular Face Unlock. Both the biometric works with somewhat similar accuracy and equally speed. 

Coming to the audio department, the phone comes with a single speaker at the bottom. Surprisingly, the speaker exceeded our expectations with its loud and distortion-free output. You can enjoy some casual video watching without having to use the earphones. There is a 3.5-mm headphone jack which also delivers fairly decent sound experience.  

For connectivity, Realme 3 Pro comes with the latest Bluetooth v5.0, dual-band WiFi and dual-SIM support with 4G VoLTE. For memory expansions, the brand has added a dedicated slot which is very thoughtful. In our daily usage, we did miss the IR Blaster sensor.

Pros

– Sturdy design

– Impressive display

– Exceptional gaming performance

– VOOC 3.0 charging

– A long-lasting battery

– Balanced cameras

Cons

– No USB Type-C

– No DRM L1 certifications as of now