March 28, 2024

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Realme X3 SuperZoom review: 120Hz screen, 6 cameras, good performance and battery life Review

Chinese handset maker Realme has not been energetic in the British isles for extended, but it has made a serious splash. The first Realme handset I reviewed, the X50 Pro 5G was a serious head-turner — a effectively specified mobile phone at a very good selling price. Now we have the company’s consider on extreme zooming in the form of the 6.6-inch Realme X3 SuperZoom. Despite the apparent emphasis on digital camera functionality, you can find a great deal a lot more on give right here, including a high-end processor, plenty of memory and storage, and extraordinary battery lifetime, all for £469 (inc. VAT). 

The X3 SuperZoom has a neat and tidy industrial style. At its internet site, Realme emphasises the glass that is utilised both of those front and back again. But look thoroughly and you will see that the sides of this mobile phone are made from plastic. It does a very good work of seeking like metallic, and is not in any way a offer-breaker, but it’s noteworthy because plastic use is a single of the methods Realme has saved on manufacturing charges.

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The 6.6-inch X3 SuperZoom has a 120Hz IPS display screen and runs on a Snapdragon 855+ chipset with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of (non-expandable) internal storage. It is run by a 4,200mAh battery.


Pictures: Sandra Vogel / ZDNet

My evaluate handset was the Arctic White variant — a form of creamy white that is variously rippled with shades of blue, inexperienced, orange, mauve and pink as it displays light. It is eye-catching and distinctive, but if you desire, you can find also a Glacier Blue choice.

The comfortable-touch end is commendably resistant to fingerprints, and also suggests that the mobile phone feels relaxed in the hand — whilst it was however rather slippery on comfortable furnishings.

The quad digital camera array sits in a vertical lozenge that protrudes substantially from the back again of the handset. This had the regrettable outcome of triggering the mobile phone to shift about — rather noisily — on a desktop when I prodded at the display screen.

The fingerprint sensor is developed into the energy button on the ideal facet of the mobile phone. I’m not the best lover of this location, whilst I’ve grown utilised to it through different evaluations. Positioning apart, the X3 SuperZoom’s fingerprint reader operates effectively.

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The left edge of the handset houses a pair of quantity buttons, and on the bottom is the speaker grille, SIM caddy (which accommodates two SIMs), and USB-C charge slot. There is certainly no 3.5mm headset jack, and no official IP score for dust and h2o resistance.

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The X3 SuperZoom has 32MP (extensive) and 8MP (ultra-extensive) front cameras, and four rear cameras: 64MP extensive, 8MP ultra-extensive, 8MP periscope telephoto and 2MP macro. The fingerprint reader is integrated into the energy button on the ideal facet.


Pictures: Sandra Vogel / ZDNet  

The show is flat, made from Gorilla Glass 5 and has a pre-fitted display screen protector. There is certainly a sizeable bezel at the bottom edge, and the other 3 bezels are hardly negligible. Even now, the 6.6-inch display screen fits into a neat chassis that is seventy five.8mm extensive by 163.8mm deep by 8.9mm thick and weighs 202g. Realme claims a display screen-to-physique ratio of 90.5%, whilst we calculate it at 84.8%.

The prime left of the display screen has a lozenge-shaped punch-gap for the dual front cameras. This is to some degree distracting at first, but I before long obtained utilised to visually blanking them, and the display screen itself has some awesome as well as factors.

SEE: 5G smartphones: A cheat sheet (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

The 6.6-inch display screen is IPS Liquid crystal display rather than AMOLED, but the colors are however rather strong. The resolution of two,four hundred by one,080 pixels (399ppi) is perfectly very good sufficient for video viewing, electronic mail, world wide web browsing and book reading through. The display screen has a flagship-course 120Hz refresh amount, which you can manually scale back again to 60Hz alternatively, you can make it possible for the handset to decide on the refresh amount routinely.

It is a disgrace the mono speaker is a little bit of a let-down, supplied the top quality of the display screen. There is certainly plenty of quantity — a lot more, in reality, than numerous handsets deal with — but it’s quick on bass tones and is to some degree distorted at the optimum stage. It is very good sufficient for radio listening, but when holding the mobile phone in landscape method to watch video I had to consider care not to include the speaker with my palm.

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Pictures taken with 1x, 20x and 60x zoom.


Pictures: Sandra Vogel / ZDNet   

The X3 SuperZoom has 6 cameras, two at the front and a quad-digital camera array at the back again. The front cameras are 32MP f/two.5 extensive-angle (eighty.4°) and 8MP f/two.two ultra-extensive angle (105°). It may audio like overkill to have dual front cameras, but the ultra-extensive angle choice is basically rather valuable for group shots, or when you want to body a single or a lot more folks in opposition to a backdrop.

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The 2MP macro digital camera has a 4cm concentrate length.


Image: Sandra Vogel / ZDNet

The quad-digital camera array at the back again is as follows: 64MP f/one.8 extensive angle (seventy eight.6°) 8MP f/two.3 ultra-extensive angle ( 119°) 2MP f/two.4 macro (4cm concentrate length) and 8MP f/3.4 periscope telephoto (5x optical zoom).

This is an fantastic specification, but there are constraints. The macro lens requires a fairly very good-top quality shot, but the optimum focal length of 4cm is restricting. There is certainly no zoom on the macro, so you happen to be left with relocating the handset to and absent from the matter. Every small bug I tried out to photograph in my locked-down backyard flew absent as I approached it. Fortunately my cat was a lot more docile. In the serious planet, I might get rather pissed off, rather quickly.

On the zooming front, 5x and 10x shots have been of fair top quality, but at the time you get previous the incremental display screen taps that consider you to 10x it’s a problem of pinching at the display screen to zoom further, and frankly the advantages are not worth the headache. What did impress me was the colour fidelity: people bouquets are a vivid, stunning pink, and the X3 SuperZoom gets as near as any mobile phone digital camera I’ve tried out.

I’ve already famous that the SIM caddy supports two SIMs. There is certainly no facility to boost the internal storage by way of MicroSD, but that is not seriously necessary. There is certainly 256GB mounted, of which 18GB is utilised out of the box, leaving 238GB free. That storage is UFS 3., and it’s rapid. This, alongside with 12GB of RAM and a Snapdragon 855+ chipset, suggests the Realme X3 SuperZoom seriously zips alongside. 

The Geekbench 5 CPU exam documented pretty respectable average scores of 786 (one core) and 2440 (multi core). Set it in opposition to the OnePlus 8 Pro with its prime-end Snapdragon 865 chipset, which achieved 907 and 3375 respectively, and you can see the big difference. Having said that, the OnePlus handset charges £899 for the very same RAM/storage mixture, and I failed to obtain that the £469 X3 SuperZoom ‘s performance held me back again in any way.

Battery lifetime is extraordinary also, with the 4,200mAh battery lasting for seventeen.5 hrs less than the Pc Mark Get the job done two. benchmark. Additional anecdotally, my mainstream usage pattern typically observed me end the working day with in between 70% and fifty five% of a full charge remaining. Acquiring to a full charge just isn’t also a lot of a headache, either, as the 30W ‘Dart’ charger should consider you from zero to full in fifty five minutes.

Android 10 comes with a several included functions courtesy of the Realme UI overlay. The Smart Sidebar, which is a staple of Realme handsets, offers a customisable shortcuts bar you can pop out by sliding inwards from the screen’s ideal edge this attribute is also on Oppo handsets, in which it’s known as Fast Tools. Realme apps contain a music participant, photo viewer, weather app, compass, file supervisor, and different other extras. Third-get together choices, which contain Facebook and Opera, can be eradicated if you will not want them.  

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The X3 SuperZoom in Glacier Blue.


Image: Realme

Conclusions 

Realme has sent an extraordinary set of technical specs in a sub-£500 handset, with compromises made in all the ideal destinations. A high-top quality display screen with a rapid refresh amount, plenty of RAM and internal storage, very good battery lifetime, and a style that seems to be distinctive are all as well as factors.

In reality, it’s a disgrace that Realme places so a lot retailer on the camera’s 60x zoom functionality, because this simply just doesn’t live up to the assure. SuperZooming apart, nevertheless, this is however a pretty capable smartphone for the funds.

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