Realme X50 Pro 5G: Make Space for the Stellar

Last year saw the onset of smartphones with 5G support around the globe. It took almost a year, but the first 5G phone to launch in India is here. The Realme X50 Pro 5G is technically a beast with 5G wireless network support available at half the cost of a flagship 4G smartphone in India, let alone 5G phones. Realme X50 Pro 5G takes a few cues from the X2 Pro – Realme’s first flagship phone and takes it to the next level fussing the new cutting-edge technologies available today.

From a blazing-fast 65W charger to superfast 90Hz refresh rate display and, of course, 5G, Realme X50 Pro is an ultimate flagship device to buy in India. We got the opportunity to check out the phone where we did use it a lot to find out where it shines and where it doesn’t. Here’s a detailed review on Realme X50 Pro 5G reading which, there won’t be any doubt in deciding to go through with it or not, so read along.

Realme X50 Pro 5G is now available in India, where you can grab the chance to try the flagship smartphone from Realme. The device is available in Moss Green and Rust Red color variants and comes in three storage variants. The cheapest among the trio is the 6+128GB variant available at just Rs 37,999/- in India while the mid 8GB+128GB variant comes with a price tag of Rs 39,999/- and finally, the 12+256GB storage variant is available at Rs 44,999/-. There’s more to it.

Realme India is offering Realme X50 Pro with an Exchange offer where you can exchange your old phone for getting discounts while there are other benefits with the purchase as well. Realme X50 Pro will be available for sale on March 5th at noon on the Realme India website. 

If you plan to upgrade your existing smartphone, do try Cashify to get the best quote for your old device.

With competition getting fierce by the day, smartphone manufacturers don’t just put the phone and charger in the retail box, but there’s a lot of things that are stuffed now. Realme is no different as it packs a lot of stuff into its retail box, which includes:

• the phone (of course), 
• a USB Type-C Cable
• 65W SuperDart Charger
•  SIM Card ejector tool
• Protective film
• TPU case
• warranty card and the user manual

That sums up pretty much everything you’ll get in the box.

• Display: 6.44 inch (1080×2400 pixels) Super AMOLED Display
• CPU and GPU: Qualcomm SDM865 Processor coupled with Adreno 650 GPU
• RAM and Storage 6/8/12GB RAM, 128/256GB ROM 
• Rear Camera: 64MP + 12MP + 8MP + 2MP 
• Selfie Camera:  32MP Front Camera
• Battery: 4,200 mAh Li-Polymer 
• Security: Under the display Fingerprint Scanner, Face Unlock

What’s the first thing you’ll notice about a phone? It’s probably the design, right? To be honest, Realme did something that might discourage a few people since it uses the same old proven design that we have seen a countless number of times. At the front, we have a large display paired along with a dual punch-hole camera and tiny bezels around the edges. This, of course, gives users relief from notches that are almost on every Android smartphone nowadays.

On the back, there’s this big quad-camera setup which, opposed to what was earlier believed, doesn’t add up a lot in terms of thickness as it’s bump is barely protruding. The rear camera setup is edged by a single LED flash. There’s a Realme branding on the bottom along with a few lines on the right side, and that’s it.

Apparently, the colour is something we think you will love when it comes to Realme X50 Pro 5G. It isn’t like any other Realme device but rather has a low-key Rusty Red and Moss Green colour variant that has been treated and processed to refract light as low as possible. 

The back panel looks fantastic clad with the processed gradient, which reflects less light and shines up based on the amount of light it receives. The colours are reportedly inspired by outer space, so that’s another add-on for space lovers as well.

The phone is grippy to hold, has a glass sandwich design with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on both front and back along with a metal frame that binds the two halves together. The phone isn’t water-resistant, although Realme has kept the internals secured with i2p rating water-proofing, we wouldn’t recommend relying on it and just to avoid dipping your phone in water altogether.

Speaking about the buttons, the power button with a yellow accent (on the Rusty Red variant) is to the right with volume rockers to the left. On top, we have a speaker grille, and finally, the bottom has the USB-C port, primary speaker, and a dual-SIM slot.

Sourced from Samsung, Realme X50 Pro 5G sports a 6.44-inch FHD+ Super AMOLED panel with a refresh rate of 90Hz. Since the software itself is optimized for 90Hz, the scrolling and transitions on the screen are impeccably smooth and buttery. Bid goodbye to any jitters on a 60Hz as X50 Pro 5G has a great display with 90Hz at a competitive cost of a 4G flagship smartphone such as OnePlus 7T Pro or Asus ROG Phone II.

The display is brightly lit and looks pretty vibrant at all times; the colours are punchy and stand out thanks to the sAMOLED panel. The camera cut-out is to the left, which gives users a widescreen real estate to enjoy that binge-watching session or play games and whatnot. Despite being tiny, the cut-out is there and we wouldn’t shy away from stating that it will annoy people using their phone in a landscape mode.

The display is HDR10+, so the colours are brilliant along with a 180Hz touch-sensing rate, so whatever you click on display will be done even before you blink your eyes.

The phone has the fastest Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 under the hood alongside a Snapdragon X55 modem for 5G connectivity. The processor is built on a 7nm node similar to its predecessor. The phone has an octa-core configuration with 1×2.84GHz Kryo 585 Gold, 3×2.42 GHz Kryo 585 Gold, and 4×1.8GHz Kryo 585 Silver power-efficient cores lined-up along with the faster Adreno 650 that should give the phone a superior performance at all time.

The chipset produces 25% greater performance than its predecessor, and the same goes for power efficiency, which is 25% better now. The GPU can render graphics at a 20% faster rate while being 35% more efficient than Adreno 640. Technically, the Snapdragon 865 is way faster than the Snapdragon 855 while the gap between SDM865 and SDM855+ is pretty slim, and we doubt if users would even be able to gauge the difference.

Realme X50 Pro 5G does handle all games without a glitch thanks to the powerful CPU and GPU on-board flanked with LPDDR5 RAM, which is 20% faster than its previous iteration. The device has three storage variants i.e. 6GB LPDDR5 + 128GB UFS 3.0, 8GB LPDDR5 + 128GB UFS 3.0, 12GB LPDDR5 + 256GB UFS 3.0. The device lacks an expandable memory slot so that could be a turn off.

The phone tends to heat at times, especially when charging at an enormous speed, although Realme has managed to put the design and the system at work to pacify the heating situation faster than others.

Talking about the software, Realme X50 Pro 5G arrives with Android 10-based Realme UI 1.0 that gives you benefits of both a stock Android along with a bunch of customizations that Realme has made on its new Realme UI 1.0. Opposed to ColorOS, we feel like Realme UI is pretty polished, looks fantastic, and has a good vibe to it. The interface looks clutter-free and has a lot of features to check out.

To be honest, Realme UI has a smooth interface with a simple and minimalistic home screen and app drawer with a few icon packs available for you. You can choose from the list, or there’s a fully customizable feature to tweak the icons as well.

Next up, the Settings app is pretty much jam-packed with features ranging from 3-fingers screenshot, raise to wake, draw to open, and more. The Realme UI is also optimized to tap into the obvious 90Hz refresh rate that the phone possesses, so scrolling, animations, and transitions are buttery soft.

There’s a Smart Sidebar that will help you put app shortcuts that you can single tap to launch without the hassle of pulling up the app drawer and finding the required app. The File Manager has received a major UI/UX update; it is now minimalist with hollow icons that look and work pretty solid.

Next up, the phone supports Wi-Fi 6, dual-band GPS, NFC, Bluetooth 5.1, and a bunch of other features that wouldn’t let you down no matter what. 

Talking about the specifications, Realme X50 Pro 5G sports dual punch-hole sensors at the front. It includes a 32MP primary wide-angle sensor with f/2.5, 0.8micron pixel size, and 26mm focal length paired alongside an 8MP secondary ultrawide sensor with f/2.2. The photos came out really good when we tried it, although both the sensors lack autofocus. The primary cam is a Sony IM616 sensor that can grab pretty awesome photos on-point with details and sharpness. The secondary ultra-wide sensor can take a 105° wide shot so you can include a lot of people in your selfie without a hitch.

The rear quad-camera setup gives stunning images thanks to the primary 64MP wide-angle sensor that has f/1.8 aperture, PDAF, 0.8micron pixel size paired along with 12MP telephoto sensor with 2x optical zoom, an aperture of f/2.5 and focal length of 54mm. The third sensor is an 8MP ultra-wide sensor with PDAF and f/2.3 aperture and, finally, a 2MP B/W depth sensor with an aperture of f/2.4.

The primary shooter is a Samsung ISOCELL Bright GW1 sensor that uses tetra cell or Quad-Bayer technology to capture photos using 4-in-1 pixel technology. This ensures that the shots taken at 16MP are high-detailed, sharp, and vibrant. The photos we captured came out really promising with almost all the detailed retained even after zooming in the images to take a close look post-shot. The AI calibrates images to make them look natural thanks to the various algorithms it uses to detect the shot and process it.

Then, we have an 8MP ultrawide sensor with automatic distortion correction, which relieves the photos from any distortion at the edges. Again, the AI takes charge, making the shots look professional. The telephoto cam with 2x optical zoom takes detailed photos, sharpness, and other characteristics of the subject. You can even stretch it to 5x hybrid and still get quality images while the 20x hybrid zoom is available on-board if you want to try it, but don’t expect anything miraculous here, as photos lose their quality on increased zoom.

The device can capture 1080p videos at 30/120fps with gyro-EIS using its front camera while the rear cameras can stretch it to 2160p at 30fps with gyro-EIS. You guessed it right; the phone doesn’t have an OIS on-board, so you will have to stick to EIS to get the work done. There’s no 8K recording as well.

Also read: Top Camera Smartphones

To intelligently power all these specs, Realme X50 Pro 5G is stuffed with a large 4,200 mAh battery in an 8.9mm thick chassis putting it in a line-up of smartphones with a larger battery and slimmer bodies. What’s catchy here is the 65W SuperDart Charge that the phone supports, which can juice up the battery in just 35 minutes i.e., from 0% to 99%. Give it a few more minutes, and the battery will be completely charged. The phone supports USB-PD and all other VOOC fast chargers, and you’ll still get the fast charging on your phone without the proprietary SuperDart charger.

The phone does have a decent battery backup lasting 4 hours of screen-on-time worth of heavy usage, which is a bit of a downgrade n case if you are looking for longer battery life. Of course, using the phone moderately will help it last longer i.e., at least a day if not more.

Apart from the usual pattern and PIN lock, Realme X50 Pro 5G is equipped with two layers of authentication. The first is the under-the-display fingerprint scanner which works flawlessly. To be honest, keep your finger on the bottom of the display and bingo, the phone will unlock before you know it. The scanners work almost every time, although if your fingers are a bit smudgy after breakfast or a quick snack; we would suggest rinsing the hand before unlocking the phone.

The second layer is Face Unlock that you can use as a standalone to security or rely on the fingerprint scanner since both work flawlessly and accurately.

Getting a stereo speaker setup is something we would love on a smartphone, and Realme X50 Pro 5G is just that phone to have one. It has a primary bottom-firing speaker and the earpiece on the top acts as a secondary speaker. This stereo setup allows the phone to reach loudness that you would love when watching a movie or TV series or when playing games without headphones. The speakers do tend to lack quality bass, but overall, the speakers are loud, crisp, and clean, so you would love it. It’s pretty much like you are getting a lot and losing a bit, which is not a big deal, to be honest.

Pros
1) Good quality sAMOLED panel
2) 65W fast charging is a huge plus
3) Stereo speakers

Cons
1) There’s no 3.5mm headphone jack
2) No expandable storage
3) 5G is not available in India yet
4) No wireless charging
5) No specified water-resistance