Realme has been within the Indian marketplace for over two years. What began off because the finances sub-brand of Oppo, has now turn out to be a mom model unto itself, diversified into different product classes resembling fitness bands, true wireless earbuds and even a smart TV. Naturally, the smartphones have additionally moved up the worth chain, into the higher-end section.
Within the final 12 months, Realme has launched a few firsts – a 64 MP camera sporting smartphone – the Realme XT, a 5G chipset-sporting smartphone – the Realme X50 Professional 5G (though 5G is pointless within the Indian marketplace for now). Persevering with that development, Realme has now launched a periscope telephoto digicam module within the Realme X3 SuperZoom smartphone. Whereas periscope zoom cameras have been round for some time now, none promote beneath Rs 30,000. That is slowly turning into a distinct segment development in flagships. Now we have seen periscope zooms within the Huawei P30 Professional and extra just lately, Oppo Reno 10X Zoom, Samsung Galaxy S20 Extremely and a clutch of different gadgets.
Realme has launched a periscope telephoto digicam module within the Realme X3 SuperZoom smartphone.
The Realme X3 SuperZoom is priced at Rs 27,999 for the 8/128 GB variant and Rs 32,999 for the 12/256 GB variant. It’s one step beneath the flagship Realme X50 Professional 5G. It should compete with Xiaomi’s Redmi Ok20 Professional and Realme’s personal X2 Professional on the value entrance. It’s, nevertheless, distinctive in that there isn’t a periscope-zoom digicam in sight beneath Rs 30,000.
Because the digicam is the spotlight of this telephone, let’s first have a look at the cameras earlier than the rest. Is the periscope zoom price all of the hype?
Digicam takes nice daylight pictures, however struggles in low gentle
The spotlight of the Realme X3 SuperZoom is the periscope zoom digicam module alongside the 64 MP major digicam. The periscope telephoto digicam is an Eight MP sensor with a most aperture of f/3.4. This instantly places it at an obstacle in low gentle eventualities, as the quantity of sunshine coming in is low in comparison with the f/1.Eight aperture of the first digicam. These two cameras are surrounded by an Eight MP Ultrawide digicam and a 2 MP macro digicam. On the entrance, you get a twin selfie digicam: a 32 MP with f/2.5 aperture and an Eight MP Ultrawide with f/2.2 aperture.
The periscope telephoto digicam does a terrific job at 5x zoom, providing you with a pointy picture in comparison with that very same composition cropped from the 64 MP picture of the first digicam. In daylight and simply because the solar is concerning the set, you get good high quality photographs, however from nightfall onwards, noise begins to turn out to be fairly obvious within the photographs. The 10x zoom choice is current on the digicam interface, however that’s actually not pure optical zoom, so that you get noisy photographs even through the daytime. And sure, you do get a 60x digital zoom choice, however the output is an unusable, noisy mess. It’s objectively dangerous, and getting a gradual body is a complete different problem.
Right here’s one thing to notice: Solely the Ultrawide angle (Eight MP), Major (16 MP binned) and 5x zoom (Eight MP) markers are true decision photographs. The 2x and 10x markers are hybrid zooms and it’s fairly evident within the remaining photographs ― they seem like work. In daylight photographs, the first digicam does present some purple fringing when photographs are noticed at precise decision. There’s a noticeable shift in color temperatures between the ultrawide angle digicam and the first digicam. Whereas the first digicam produces good photographs filled with particulars and textures, I wasn’t too happy with the ultrawide angle digicam photographs. They got here throughout as too gentle no matter the lighting circumstances. With the first digicam, the centre and edge sharpness had been on level.
Ultrawide:
5X Periscope Zoom:
There are twin selfie cameras on the Realme X3 SuperZoom, which take nice portrait photographs throughout daytime. Whereas the primary 32 MP digicam produces detailed photographs, the 8MP ultrawide digicam tends to overlook the right publicity. The low-light and indoor photographs are overly shiny, whereas the noise discount algorithms have a tendency to enter overdrive.
Large Angle:
60x hybrid zoom:
Low gentle photographs had been strictly common. When you can extract particulars from the first digicam within the ‘Nightscape’ mode, the opposite cameras wrestle to supply a noise-free picture. The periscope telephoto digicam takes poor photographs in low gentle, and right here your only option can be to take a 64 MP picture and crop, in the event you completely need to. Low gentle pictures is actually not a powerful level of the X3. There’s a ‘Starry’ mode as properly to seize stars within the sky, supplied your telephone is mounted on a tripod. Because of the lockdown and Mumbai’s epic gentle air pollution, you’ll be able to’t see something on this mode.
Low gentle picture:
The video efficiency was good throughout daylight, with good element and fewer jitter when the ‘UltraSteady’ mode is activated (solely works on 1080p 60fps and decrease decision). However the second the sunshine ranges dropped ― round nightfall or early mornings ― the main focus searching and softness in video high quality elevated. The one stabilisation you get is digital picture stabilisation, which tends to indicate as you might be panning the digicam or capturing whereas strolling. Capturing with the ultrawide digicam ends in utterly washed out footage. There may be an HDR video capturing mode, however actually, I didn’t discover a lot distinction between common footage and HDR footage. Plus, HDR footage comes at the price of ‘UltraSteady’ mode. The 4K video capturing choice is advisable solely if you’re capturing utilizing a gimbal or a tripod, else be ready for jittery footage the second you pan.
Daytime video footage:
Whereas the periscope telephoto works superb, it’s a little bit of a wrestle to stabilise the video whereas recording. Strolling and capturing at 5x zoom will lead to a really shaky video, at the same time as you attempt to get secure footage. Furthermore, it seems like it is a digital zoom reasonably than an optically zoomed video.
Video at 5x zoom:
The entrance digicam output is sweet and due to the wide-angle lens, you will get much more of the scene. However as in comparison with the 32 MP major selfie digicam, the secondary Eight MP broad angle selfie digicam tends to explode the lit-up areas. Probably the most attention-grabbing bit whereas capturing from the entrance digicam is the flexibility to shoot portrait mode movies, which blur out the background. you’ll be able to even modify the extent of the bokeh, which is a particular worth addition.
Specs
Show: 6.6-inch IPS LCD show with 1080 x 2400 pixels
Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+
Graphics: Adreno 640 GPU
RAM + Storage in GB: 8/128, 12/256 with LPDDR4x RAM and UFS 3.Zero storage
(Machine beneath check: 12/256)
Expandable storage: No
Major Digicam: 64 MP with f/1.Eight aperture with sensor measurement 1/1.72-inch
Secondary cameras: Eight MP Ultrawide with f/2.Three aperture + Eight MP Periscope Telephoto digicam with f/3.4 + 2 MP macro digicam with f/2.Four aperture
Selfie Digicam: 32 MP with f/2.5 aperture + Eight MP Ultrawide with f/2.2 aperture
Battery: 4,200 mAh
Software program: Android 10 (5 June 2020 safety patch) with Realme UI 1.0
Colors: Glacial Inexperienced (beneath check), Ultramarine Blue, Onyx Black
120 Hz show is responsive, however brightness ranges are an issue
The Realme X3 SuperZoom makes use of an IPS LCD show with an FHD+ decision of 1080 x 2400 pixels, providing you with a pixel density of 399 PPI. There’s a noticeable chin on the base, however in any other case, there are skinny bezels throughout. Even the earpiece speaker has been shifted on the prime edge to have a clear face.
The Realme X3 SuperZoom makes use of an IPS LCD show with an FHD+ decision of 1080 x 2400 pixels, providing you with a pixel density of 399 PPI.
The spotlight of the show is that it helps a 120 Hz refresh charge. It’s a terrific expertise. It seems to be like greater refresh charge shows are going to turn out to be the norm this 12 months, and we should always see the value boundaries for them going even decrease. The Poco X2 already started that development earlier this 12 months. For somebody coming from a daily 60 Hz show, the sleek scrolling on a 120 Hz is a revelation, and also you’ll by no means return.
The show is sweet, with nice viewing angles. The distinction ranges aren’t as nice as an AMOLED show, however backlight bleeding wasn’t a problem. You gained’t get pitch blacks for darkish scenes, however I wouldn’t maintain it towards the Realme X3 SuperZoom. One factor that’s regarding is the brightness ranges of the show. It’s not dangerous, however doesn’t actually make issues pop while you’re out and about. I maxed out the brightness whereas watching some Netflix exhibits and it didn’t actually go that top on the brightness ranges. I don’t know if it’s a software program glitch, as I didn’t see any new updates to repair it, if it had been.
Underneath the ‘Show’ part within the Settings menu, you get an OSIE (Object and Semantic Pictures and Eye-tracking) which claims to make movies and supported apps look much more punchy and color wealthy. I couldn’t determine which apps help OSIE, and actually, couldn’t actually see any distinction as I toggled between OSIE on/off. Possibly Realme might give a greater clarification of what it does than a wierd GIF animation, which doesn’t inform us something.
Efficiency is prime notch; Realme UI brings minor worth additions but additionally numerous bloat
The Realme X3 SuperZoom sports activities an overclocked model of final 12 months’s flagship chipset ― the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ ― which ensures that issues run nice. You’ve 12 GB of RAM, which helps you to preserve many apps open at a time, and switching between apps is fast. Video games, productiveness apps,video streaming – all work properly. The benchmark scores are according to Snapdragon 855+ and are second solely to the Snapdragon 865 and Apple’s A13 Bionic processor. Lengthy story brief, in actual life utilization, the telephone runs fairly quick and also you gained’t face any lag or random shutting down of apps.
3D Mark
Name high quality was nice, and I confronted no problem with the earpiece, which was fairly loud. You solely get the underside firing speaker although, so speaker output is nearly common. Sure, it does get loud if you’re in a quiet room and you may watch your movies with out the necessity for headphones. However when enjoying video games, your palm blocks the speaker and the sound is muffled. There’s no 3.5 mm audio jack and Realme doesn’t present any USB Sort C to three.5mm audio jack adapter, so you will have to get one your self. The dearth of a 3.5 mm audio jack is shocking on a telephone with a profile as thick because the X3 SuperZoom. Plus, the dearth of stereo audio system is certain to irk many patrons.
Geekbench Multi core
Gaming on the Realme X3 SuperZoom is sort of easy as properly. I performed PUBG Cellular, Asphalt 9, Alto’s Odyssey with none points. It will possibly play all these video games on the highest element ranges. Sure, the telephone does get heat on contact in the event you play greater than 20 minutes of PUBG Cellular, but it surely by no means overheats or shuts down any apps within the course of. I additionally noticed the telephone getting heat to the contact after capturing round 5-6 movies, adopted by nonetheless picture capturing. Realme advertises liquid cooling on the telephone.
Geekbench Single Core
The Realme X3 SuperZoom comes with Android 10 with the realmeUI pores and skin atop it. That is only a minor replace to the ColorOS, with some Realme-specific options resembling Realme share, Realme Lab in addition to some ColorOS options resembling App Cloner (letting you might have two cases of WhatsApp, for example), Recreation House (game-focused system-wide controls) and so forth. The telephone comes preloaded with a boatload of bloatware ― I counted round 18 preloaded apps, of which solely perhaps 3-Four had been truly of any worth to me. There’s nothing that stands out from the Realme UI price speaking about. You get your customary set of comfort instruments resembling navigation buttons, gestures, good slider, assistive ball, there’s a system-wide darkish increasingly. The interface labored superb and there weren’t any undesirable glitches noticed through the testing section.
PC Mark
Battery life is sweet, and also you get numerous settings to tinker with
The Realme X3 SuperZoom comes with a 4200 mAh battery together with a 30 W Dart Charger together with it. The telephone simply lasts a day and half on common utilization and round a day on heavy utilization, which incorporates numerous gaming.
Underneath the Settings > Battery part there are a lot of totally different choices you’ll be able to select between to extract essentially the most out of the battery. There may be an ‘Clever Energy Saver’ choice which makes use of AI to avoid wasting energy within the background. You get a battery share, and if there are any duties sipping battery within the background, you’ll be able to click on on the ‘Save Energy’ button. This takes you to a different display screen, which has extra particulars on what’s utilizing energy. The ‘Efficiency’ mode has three sub-sections as properly – ‘Excessive Efficiency Mode’, ‘Sensible Efficiency Mode’ and ‘No Efficiency Enchancment’. ‘App Fast Freeze’ permits you to freeze sure idle apps, which places them in a type of ‘locked’ mode, in order that they’ll now not use any energy or obtain and ship notifications within the background. You possibly can tinker round with these settings to extract extra utilization from the telephone.
As for charging the gadget, it’s fast. It took round 60 minutes to go from no cost to 100 p.c. So even if you’re in a rush, you simply want a fast 15-minute cost to get you sufficient juice to see you thru just a few hours of a piece day. General, battery life is one division the place the telephone presents no points in any respect.
Construct and Design: Fairly bland
I saved this portion for final, as a result of actually, Realme has completed nothing modern right here. They locked on to at least one design for the rear for the reason that Realme 6, and so it continues. Blame it on their prolific launches. Solely the COVID-19 lockdown might decelerate Realme’s launch cycle. The Realme X3 SuperZoom makes do with a ― by now ― mature design language. Having seen so many Realme gadgets with this design, I’d say it’s turning into boring to take a look at. The quad-camera setup is housed inside a vertical digicam module positioned on the highest left-hand nook of the rear. The module does jut out a bit, but it surely isn’t too sharp to the touch. The shiny design on the again displays gentle in a method that exhibits the darkish to gentle gradation. It does accumulate fingerprint smudges. The glacier blue color I acquired for testing seems to be fairly good. Whereas there may be Gorilla Glass 5 on the entrance, the glass model on the again isn’t identified.
Having seen so many Realme gadgets with this design, I’d say it’s turning into boring to take a look at.
There’s a plastic body sandwiched between the glass coverings. The sides are rounded off on either side, however there’s a flat portion on the precise hand facet which homes the facility/standby button, which additionally homes the bodily fingerprint scanner. This can be a design that’s intuitive and was first used on Sony Xperia gadgets. The quantity rocker is positioned on the left-hand facet. The highest and backside edges of the gadget have a barely depressed aspect, which feels good. The twin SIM card tray is on the base (there is no such thing as a microSD card slot), as is a USB Sort C port and a speaker grille. The dearth of three.5 mm audio jack on a thick gadget as X3 SuperZoom begs clarification.
The telephone weighs in a hefty 202 g. There isn’t any IP score for water or mud resistance. While you snap on the bundled clear case, the telephone turns into fairly thick, however the show is protected, because the case protrudes a bit across the show. The twin front-facing cameras are positioned on the prime right-hand nook. There may be nothing to complain about within the construct and design, besides perhaps the plastic body. For a Rs 30,000 plus telephone, a metallic construct is a no brainer.
Verdict and Value in India
The Realme X3 SuperZoom is an effective smartphone total. Its main energy is the 5x periscope zoom digicam and the twin front-facing cameras, which allow you to shoot portrait-mode movies. If the periscope zoom is one thing that you simply need, then the X3 SuperZoom is the one providing on this worth section.
There are issues with the cameras as properly, particularly the ultrawide angle digicam which takes some not-so-great photographs. The video high quality of the X3 SuperZoom can be one thing not price writing paeans about. It’s purposeful and gives the choice to zoom in, however that comes at a price. The show is nice, however I’m involved about its brightness ranges. The battery is long-lasting, which is helped by a fast charger. The general efficiency of the Realme X3 SuperZoom can be spectacular.
As you might have famous, there are a lot of compromises you’ll have to make if you’re planning to get this smartphone. Alternatively, if the 5x zoom is one thing that you are able to do with out, you’ll be able to think about the Realme X2 Pro (Review) which gives a 90 Hz AMOLED show, or the Redmi K20 Pro (Review) which gives a a lot better total digicam high quality, and has just lately seen a worth drop. The OnePlus NORD is anticipated to launch in just a few weeks, and whereas it doesn’t provide a periscope zoom, it’s positive so as to add extra competitors to this house.
Bottomline: Go for the Realme X3 SuperZoom solely if you need that periscope zoom.
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