In the last article, we gave a brief picture of the Realme 8 and Realme 8 Pro. In this article, we will compare these two models and tell you what exactly makes the Pro model worthy of its PRO title, and also if the Realme 8 can defeat the Pro in some areas.
Realme 8 vs Realme 8 Pro: Design
We hardly found any differences in their appearances. These twin models share the same 90Hz 1080P AMOLED display and a similar rear design. The only detail that helps us to distinguish one from the other is their rear processing.
For Realme 8 Pro, there are 3 color options, which are Infinite Blue, Infinite Black, Illuminating Yellow; while for Realme 8, there are only two options: Cyber silver and cyber black. Since we introduced their appearance in the last article, today we won’t go through their design in detail.
Realme 8 vs Realme 8 Pro: Benchmarks & Gaming
Let’s shift our attention to their performance department, which is where the two models differ. The Realme 8 comes with an MTK Helio G95 chipset, while the Pro is equipped with a Snapdragon 720G chipset. Both of them are popular mid-range chipsets.
But does the Pro achieve better performance and provide a better gaming experience?
Well, the answer is quite complicated.
Let’s see the benchmark results first. In Geekbench 5, their results are pretty close. The standard 8 got a slightly better score in the multi-core test, while the 8 Pro got a score over the 8 Pro in the single-core test. But overall their CPU performance is almost at the same level.
In 3Dmark which mainly tests models’ graphic processing, however, the standard 8 won the race with an obvious lead in the overall score, which shows a performance gap of nearly 40% between them.
But how about actual gaming?
Well in PUBG Mobile, there is no way to unleash the best performance from each of the models, because the game only supports a balanced graphic setting with a framerate limit of 40fps. So both of them run the game extremely stably at 40fps.
Eventually, under the same testing conditions, the average framerate remained at 39.6fps for the 8 Pro and 39.8fps for the standard 8.
So we turned to another game, Genshin Impact, which mainly relies on the CPU performance. In this game, the results are pretty close to what we got in Geekbench 5. Their performance in the game is pretty close. Specifically, the Pro version achieved a slightly higher framerate at 48.8fps, while the standard 8 was also not bad at 46.7fps. It looks like there is no solid evidence that shows a remarkable gap between the standard 8 and 8 Pro’s CPU performance.
The last game we tested was the Nimian Legend, which mainly assesses the best performance from a phone’s GPU. In this game, the standard model staged a comeback with a small lead. The Standard 8 got a result of 24.6fps while the 8 Pro ran it at 22.6fps.
To conclude, we have to say there is no obvious performance gap simply looking at their gaming results. But if we look deeper at their power consumption and heat management, the Pro seems to have a more efficient performance output.
In most games, although their performance was pretty close to each other, the Pro was always able to maintain a lower power consumption.
However, we also have to add that the standard 8 model comes with a larger 5000mAh battery. So eventually we still are not able to judge which one has got a longer battery life since they are too close in our power consumption test.
Now let’s look at the area where they differ the most — the cameras.
Realme 8 vs Realme 8 Pro: Camera Performance
The main camera on the Realme 8 comes with 64MP resolution, while the main camera on the Realme 8 Pro is a 108MP HM2 sensor. The other three lenses are the same on both phones, including an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens, a 2MP macro one, and another black&white lens.
But before we start to show you all the samples, we have to remind you that the software on both these models is likely a non-commercial version, which means that some issues that we encountered in this review will be fixed in the near future updates.
Okay, let’s start it with their main cameras.
Main Camera
The HDR mode is easily activated on the standard 8 model, so sometimes the standard model has better presentation of colors than the Pro.
But the Realme 8 Pro is able to deliver better saturation and higher contrast on most occasions.
At the same time, the Realme 8 Pro tends to present purer images with better noise control, while the processing on the standard 8 seems to more focus on shape detail, which makes the whole images look noisier and jaggier. Another problem shared by both is the fringing effect when shooting high-contrast scenes.
Night Camera Performance
When we moved to the night scene, the 8 Pro shows great progress in brightness and its ability to capture rich detail, but it doesn’t significantly improve the quality of the sample in the dark areas.
While the standard 8’s night shots are not as good as what we had on the 8 Pro especially in the dark regions, the difference is not so significant. In addition, although the standard model’s night mode can slightly improve the sharpness of the images, the edges sometimes would turn out to be reddish. But it should probably be fixed in the next few updates.
Wide Angle Cameras
As for the wide-angle cameras, the Pro’s samples have higher saturation and continue to be less noisy, while the samples shot on the Standard model are not that great with less noise control. However, at the same time, Realme 8’s sharper image presents more details.
For their wide-angle cameras, sometimes the auto mode of both the models look better than with the night mode turned on. The auto mode samples doesn’t just have better colors but also has better exposure for brightness.
The 8 Pro’s low-light images sometimes turn out to be a bit greenish, and its image quality may not compare to the samples shot on the standard model’s wide-angle camera.
108MP vs 64MP modes
Thanks to the 108MP super high-resolution sensor, the 8 Pro is dominant in the zoom race. That’s because both of their digital zoom capacity was based on the high resolution of their main cameras.
Therefore, it’s no surprise that the 8 Pro has the much better zoom capacity.
Macro Cameras
Recently we have seen even some budget phones featuring a similar macro camera found on the Realme 8 series. In fact, we don’t think it’s a smart move to reserve such low-resolution macro lens on 2021 smartphones, since most of them have proved to be useless with poor image quality. And the Realme 8 series is no exception.
Realme 8 vs Realme 8 Pro: Battery
As for battery, we think Realme is pretty smart to choose the right solutions for both the models. A 5000mAh battery for the Realme 8 powered by the Helio G95 with slightly higher power consumption; and another 4500mAh battery for the Realme 8 Pro running the Snapdragon 720G. To give you a basic idea of their battery life, we played Genshin Impact, shot photos and videos, and watched online videos, and performed each activity for 30 minutes. Then we recorded the power consumption for each activity. Their results were very close to each other, which also confirm excellent battery performance at their price.
In our full-charge test, it took us 66 mins to fully charge the Realme 8, while on the Pro model, it took 17 mins less than this figure to charge it to 100%.
So this was our comparison between the Realme 8 and Realme 8 Pro. To be honest, these two models both have fairly great value for money and there were no obvious issues during our daily use.
Note that the Pro model’s cameras, especially the main camera is better than its twin brother. But apart from that, both the models perform similar to each other.
So which model do you prefer? Please leave your comments down below and let us know what else we can review for you.
There are a lot of new models coming in the next few days! So stay tuned!
Also, don’t forget to participate in our Realme 8 Giveaway from here!
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