Realme is now a different company. Now Realme 2 Pro has been launched about which Realme 2 ,Review) was told during the launch of Realme 2 Pro. The use of the name ‘Pro’ in the Realme 2 Pro smartphone itself indicates the powerful hardware of this smartphone. Through this phone, the company wants to attract students and youth. On paper, the handset seems very powerful. How is its performance in the real world? Let’s find out…
Realme 2 Pro Design
Realme 2 Pro feels big in the hand. We had trouble using this phone with one hand, but it is not very heavy. The thickness of 8.5 mm is considered to be wide, but the curved polycarbonate edges provide good grip. There are several layers of lamination on the back of the phone, which gives the feel of a glass panel. In Realme’s language, it has a “crystal-like dewdrop” effect. Fingerprints are easily visible on it.
The phone comes with a 6.3-inch full-HD+ display with Gorilla Glass 3 protection. The bezels are very slim all around. The edges feel a little rough when touched, especially with the pre-applied screen protector. The ‘dewdrop’ notch design is slowly becoming popular. It consumes very little space and looks good too. Despite the small space, there is space for the front camera. There is no notification LED. The earpiece is just above the front camera. The sensors are on the right side.
The power and volume buttons are on different sides of the phone. Fingers don’t have any problem in reaching them. The SIM tray has separate slots for two nano-SIMs and a microSD card (up to 256GB). The phone supports dual 4G VoLTE. But it could not be tested as we received a Vietnamese unit for review. Dual 4G worked when we used two Airtel SIMs. But there was no toggle for VoLTE. Realme says that the retail unit will have support for dual 4G VoLTE.
There is a speaker grill, micro-USB port and 3.5mm headphone socket at the bottom. There is a high chance of the speaker getting blocked when you hold the phone in landscape mode. You can avoid this by flipping the phone to the other side. The fingerprint sensor is on the back. It works quickly. The dual camera module at the back protrudes out of the surface. But there were no scratches on its glass during use. The retail box contains a 10 watt charger, micro-USB cable, SIM ejector tool, silicone cover and instruction manual.
Realme 2 Pro specifications and software
The specifications of Realme 2 Pro are very strong. All variants use Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor which is a powerful octa-core chipset. This chipset is available in the price range of less than Rs 20,000 Xiaomi Mi A2 ,Review) And Vivo V9 Pro It is available in. Benchmark scores also justify its powerful specifications.
There are three variants of the phone based on RAM and storage – 64 GB storage with 4 GB RAM, 64 GB storage with 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage with 8 GB RAM. There is no FM radio or NFC support. The top variant of Realme 2 Pro is the first phone to come with 8 GB RAM in this price range. Other specifications include Bluetooth 5, dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac, USB-OTG, gyroscope, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, compass and accelerometer. There is no FM radio or NFC support.
Realme 2 Pro runs on ColorOS 5.2 based on Android 8.1 Oreo. The phone also had the September security patch. The latest version of ColorOS also has a two-step process to dismiss notifications, which is annoying. Apart from this, the OS is quite polished and the user gets many customization options with gestures. Our review unit was the Vietnamese model. It had many Vietnamese apps pre-installed. These apps will not be present in the retail units sold in India, but nothing can be said about whether any other apps will be pre-installed or not.
Apart from the fingerprint sensor, the phone also has face unlock. It identifies you quickly. It works only when the eyes are open, which means it is very secure. The screen lights up to help in low light. If you want, you can also use face recognition to lock apps and private spaces. This will definitely unlock the phone.
Realme 2 Pro performance, camera and battery life
We used the Realme 2 Pro for several days. To be honest, we have no complaints. Apart from a few quirks of ColorOS, the UI is generally smooth. We never noticed any slowdowns while multitasking or loading games with powerful graphics. The phone doesn’t heat up too much. The area around the fingerprint sensor gets a little warm, that too after playing games or using the camera for a long time. Call quality is good and call recording is also built into the dialer app.
The Realme 2 Pro has a 16-megapixel primary camera on the back with an f/1.7 aperture. It captures detailed photos in daylight. We got good dynamic range in landscape shots. Even small objects came with a lot of detail and accurate colors. The wide aperture brings a good bokeh effect in close-up shots. We had trouble getting clear shots of moving objects, but apart from that the autofocus was working fast.
Tap to see full-size Realme 2 Pro camera samples
The secondary 2-megapixel sensor does not play any role in the image capture process. Its job is to estimate the depth. Photos in portrait mode are good. Edge detection is clear. Sharpness of the object is clear even in artificial lightning. You have several lightning modes to choose from which give a good effect. Photos come out a bit grainy in low light. Details are also reduced, especially in landscape shots. Sharpness is less in close-up shots. But overall the photos are usable.
Videos at 1080p are of good quality. There is electronic image stabilization which works fine. There is also support for 4K recording. The quality is very average and there is no stabilization. Videos shot in low light are grainy.
Realme has also provided a 16-megapixel front camera. It comes with bokeh effect, HDR and screen flash. The image quality is decent. Details could have been a little better. The screen flash is very effective. But it messes up your skin tone. There is also a stickers shooting mode with the help of which you will be able to put different AR stickers on selfies or other people’s faces.
The 3500mAh battery easily lasted a full day. In our video loop test, it lasted for 10 hours and 22 minutes, which is slightly better than average. The phone does not support fast charging. But the charger provided with the phone charged the battery to 64 percent in an hour. It took about 2 hours and 20 minutes to fully charge from zero.
Our verdict
Realme 2 Pro lives up to its claim of being a powerful phone. We think it will attract a lot of people, especially its price. The 8GB RAM and 128GB storage variant of the phone is priced at Rs 18,990. If seen, it seems more appealing than Mi A2 or Vivo V9 Pro. Both these phones come with Snapdragon 660 processor. The starting variant of the phone is priced at Rs 13,990. This Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro ,Review, Samsung Galaxy A52, Motorola One Power, Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 6 GB RAM variant of and Realme 1 ,Review) will challenge the 6 GB RAM variant of.
A sharp and vivid display, good build quality, solid app and gaming performance all work in favour of the Realme 2 Pro. Low-light photography and video performance could be better. We wish Realme (and Oppo) would get rid of the annoying process of dismissing notifications.
Well, if you are looking for an all-rounder phone in the price segment of Rs 20,000 then this is a great option.