Realme… indeed you read it right. What started as a spin-off brand of OPPO, Realme is now operating as an independent venture after its separation from OPPO back in July 2018. Targeting the youth, Realme has already created quite a fan-following in India and has now entered the local market. We get our hands on their flagship mid-range device 'Realme2 Pro'. After using it for several months, this is our take on Realme 2 Pro: 

Aesthetically, Realme 2 Pro is a delightful device for your day to day use. Narrow bezels, a dewdrop notch on the front, polycarbonate back panel, rounded edge- it bears all the hallmark of the classy OPPO F9. In fact, this phone is a slightly bulkier and thicker version of the OPPO F9. As a spin-off brand of OPPO it did try to keep the design DNA of OPPO intact. Even the accessories (USB Cable and Wall-socket) of the device comes with OPPO branding.

With a display to body ratio of ratio nearly 91%, the 6.3-inch TFT LCD 1080 x 2340 display renders colours quite beautifully. The colour rendition and saturation was good. The touch mechanism was responsive. We liked the dewdrop notch as it doesn't cover up a significant portion like most other notch-display phones. Strangely, there isn't any notification LED on the front, so be prepared to check your phone every few minutes if you are expecting IMs or emails.

The phone packs a really good set of hardware: Qualcomm SDM660 Snapdragon 660 System-on-Chip processor coupled with 8GB RAM and Adreno 512 GPU. Most of the phones that you get at this price-range will deliver similar or higher processing power (Pocophone F1 for instance). We didn't notice any hiccup while playing PUBG in medium resolution and thanks to the ginormous RAM, running multiple apps simultaneously wasn't an issue.

Guess what? OPPO's peculiar ColorOS is yet back again in the Realme. Based on Android Oreo 8.1, ColorOS 5.2 has toned down a lot. But some of the annoying quirks (i.e. notifications that you can't hide) aren't going to make your journey the smoothest. Not a deal breaker, but we would sure love to see some improvements in this department in the upcoming iteration of Realme devices.

The camera is probably the biggest surprise of the phone. The 16MP f/1.7 AI dual rear camera with the Sony IMX398 sensor takes impressive photos in the dark. The colour saturation and contrast level were great. However, photos in day-light and night were a bit over-exposed. The 16MP selfie camera could take decent selfies. We tried taking videos in 4K 30fps and the footage looked decent.

This phone comes with a 3500 mAh battery with some sort of AI efficiency mechanism. Once fully charged, the phone would last an entire day with regular usage. However, if you are into gaming, especially GPU-intensive games like PUBG or the Asphalt Series, then you would be needing to recharge the phone by mid-day.

VERDICT

Realme is definitely a contender in the mid-range market. The price might seem a bit steep in the beginning but the phone's Snapdragon processor delivers smooth performance and the camera offers above average performance even in low light, thus justifying the price. The only true let down of the phone is probably the missing USB-C jack and fast charging.

SPECS

Display: 6.3" FHD+ 1080 x 2340 pixels

OS:  Colour OS, Android 8.1 (Oreo)

CPU:  Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 Octa Core 2.0GHz AIE Processor

RAM: 8 GB

ROM: 128 GB

Camera: Rear- 16 MP and 2 MP, Front- 16 MP

Battery: 3500 mAh Li-ion Battery

Price: Tk. 32,990/-