We used to complain about the boredom of the budget phone market in early 2019, but now, we have to admit that it’s pretty wrong to draw the conclusion too early. We are not arguing that how the budget phone can challenge flagships in all aspects. We believe that a good budget phone can maintain a good overall balance with certain outgoing features beyond a result of compromise. The new released Realme 5 Pro is absolutely one of them.
The Realme Brand has been quite surprising in the industry this year. They have built up a good reputation in the global market with the Realme 3 and Realme X. But they’re not satisfied yet with the existing product line. At this point, the Realme 5 Pro shoulders a great mission to represent a new step for the brand.
Design & appearance
The front face of the Realme 5 Pro is pretty similar to most phones with water-drop notch display, which can remind you of many other models, such as the Xiaomi A3 and the OnePlus 7. But the rear design is diverse from the others. The vertical 4-camera combination with cutting texture inherits the design gene of realme and brings a richer visual effect.
At first glance, it really brought a more comfortable and elegant visual experience than those phones with the color-gradient rear. The fingerprint reader is in the central area, which is easy to touch. It can also be a shutter button when taking photos, but I really don’t suggest to turn it on as a shutter, because it’s really easy to touch by mistake. Although the camera combination is a bit bump-up, unlike the OnePlus 7, the upright position makes it less intrusive in your hand. Otherwise, its weight of 184g does not cause much discomfort after holding it for a long time.
Display
The Realme 5 Pro has a 6.3-inch LCD display, with 2340×1080 resolution and 450nit brightness. For the front face, thanks to the edge control, the display achieves a high screen-to-body ratio of 90.8%. And it is covered by a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for protection. The Realme 5 Pro doesn’t offer many options on color mode. So, if only judge it with its standard mode, it actually looks nice and detailed. Based on our review experience, it could be a better choice for a budget phone to have a mature LCD display rather than a cheap AMOLED display.
Qual Camera experience
The rear camera combination is one of the most remarkable features of the Realme 5 Pro. Several weeks before, we talked about the Xiaomi CC9, a budget phone with a flagship-level main camera, while now you have another choice and even reach a better photography experience. The Realme has 4 cameras on the rear. It packs a SONY 48-megapixel primary camera with an f/1.7 aperture; a second 8-megapixel wide-angle camera with an f/2.25 aperture, a third macro lens with an f/2.4 aperture and the last portrait lens. The primary camera is the SONY IMX586 camera, which also can be found on a lot of flagships this year, such as Mi9 and the OnePlus 7 Pro.
The 48MP primary camera ensures that the image reaches much detail so that you can have your second creation by cutting the image. Otherwise, the Realme 5 Pro inherits the Chroma Boost feature to further enhances the photographic effect. The AI engine can recognize scene information and then present a final image with delightful colors and real details. Under low light conditions, it supports a ‘4 in 1’ big-pixel feature to help you shoot brighter photos with better detail. The Realme 5 Pro features a Nightscapes mode, which remarkably boosts the night photo shooting. The final image is produced by a multi-frame combination. It achieves a better brightness balance, noise reduction, and excellent dynamic range.
For the wide-angle camera, it’s basically for outdoor photography. The Realme 5 Pro solves the main problem of most wide-angle shooting, the edge distortion. The images with good bright conduction perform well, but when it comes to night scenes, the noise problem and detail blurring are quite obvious.
While for the portrait and macro mode, such kind of features no doubt bring much fun on phone photography. From the samples, it does achieve special effects with good background blurring and subject outstanding. Especially for portrait mode, matching the Realme filter system, it really improves a fine tone with portrait style. But, on the other hand, these two cameras probably are only built for limited scenarios. If you are a special photographer, you probably would like it.
Performance
The Realme 5 Pro runs a snapdragon 712 CPU, which has claimed 10% improvement from the Snapdragon 710. And from the result of Geekbench 4, the single-core score is over 1900, which is even close to the snapdragon 835. So literally it won’t have any problem with system fluency. And let’s see it’s gaming performance, in the PUBG MOBILE test with default settings, it can reach a high refresh rate at 59 fps, which also have some fluctuation at around 30fps-60fps during the test. Compared to the snapdragon 665 on the Xiaomi A3 and the 710 on the Xiaomi CC9, the Realme 5 Pro seems to be more ambitious to build up overall performance besides an ultra-camera step.
As a result, a snapdragon 712 does mean a lot for someone who is searching for a balanced budget phone. Otherwise, on the software level, the Realme 5 Pro supports a feature called Hyperboost 2.0. it improves both the frame performance and the touching response. In actual gaming, it really brings a fluent experience, which in 2019, is more than what a budget phone can give you.
Battery
For the battery, the realme 5 Pro has 4000mAh capacity and a VOOC 3.0 fast charging at 20W. To get a full charging on Realme 5 Pro, it only takes you around 80 mins. It’s pretty common to see the compromise on the fast-charging, while over the Realme 5 Pro, the fast-charging support is much like a bonus.
Conclusion
Otherwise, features like the 3.5mm headphone jack and dual-channel WIFI connection also construct a good image that how Realme concerns user experience. For Vlogger users, the Sony IMX586 with EIS (Electric Image Stabilization) guarantees the video shooting capacity up to 4K/30fps. In conclusion, All these kinds of specs make the Realme 5 Pro stand out from the mid-range crowd.
