Realme announced its camera-centric upper mid-range smartphone, the Realme X3 SuperZoom this week in Europe. The phone’s biggest highlight is its 60x zoom camera, rivaling the likes of Huawei in terms of its maximum zooming capability. While the focus is on its camera department, the Realme X3 SuperZoom is also a pretty good smartphone in terms of other hardware. It comes with a year-old Snapdragon 855+ processor, which by the way, is still quite powerful for a 2020 smartphone and up to 12GB RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.0 storage. In case you are wondering, given the older chipset, the Realme X3 SuperZoom DOES NOT support 5G. So the company has made it clear that this phone is for people looking for high value for money, instead of the latest technology.
In terms of design, the Realme X3 SuperZoom is very similar to the Realme X50 Pro 5G that was announced a few months back in China. This includes a matte finish back and a vertically arranged rear camera setup. Upfront, you also get a dual-camera selfie setup, similar to the X50 Pro 5G.
The Realme X3 SuperZoom comes with a dense plastic frame with a glass back. We’ve got the Arctic White with us today and the silverish-color gives the phone a very elegant look. The matte-like finish also ensures that the back is not a fingerprint magnet.
It is also worth adding that the phone has a 120Hz IPS LCD display and NOT AMOLED. So there’s no in-screen fingerprint sensor. However, you get a super-fast fingerprint sensor on the right side – which also doubles as the power button. Coming to the bottom of the phone, you have a Type-C port at the center, a single speaker on one side, and a dual nano-SIM slot on the other.
The rear camera, which protrudes a bit from the body, consists of four cameras – in line with other Realme higher-end devices. But what makes the Realme X3 SuperZoom special is its 8MP f/3.4 telephoto camera with OIS that supports 5x optical zoom and up to 60x digital zoom. There’s a 64MP high-resolution primary camera in this setup along with another 8MP ultra-wide-angle shooter and a 2MP macro camera. As for the front camera, you get a large 32MP primary shooter paired with an 8MP wide-angle shooter for selfies.
The Realme X3 SuperZoom comes with the same 4200mAh battery size as the X50 Pro 5G, however, it only supports 30W fast charging.
The 6.6-inch 120Hz IPS LCD looked pretty bright and responsive in our first impressions. The UI and animations were superfluid, thanks to the high refresh rate, and overall, the phone was as quick as any other smartphone launched this year. The 9mm body and 200+ gram weight did make it a bit bulky to use. But the size is very similar to most top-end flagships available in 2020.
Overall, the Realme X3 SuperZoom feels like a strong option in its €499 price segment. We’ll be checking out the X3 SuperZoom’s camera in detail in our upcoming article. So stay tuned for that.
