Realme 10 Pro Review – Not A Worthy Successor?

India has seen a fair amount of interest in Realme’s classic number series of low-cost and mid-range smartphones. That is why Realme has returned with an all-new number series, the Realme 10 Pro lineup, which offers nice features with reasonable specifications.

Realme has tweaked the design and offered a better camera on the 10 Pro and wrapped it in a box with a tempting starting price of Rs 17,999. The device has additional features that make it an appealing option, which we will talk about later in this review.

I have the phone with me and I have been using it as my daily driver. Today I will be sharing my in-depth views on the performance, design, display, battery, cameras and much more in this Realme 10 Pro review. So let’s get started without any further ado.

The Realme 10 Pro is available in two variants in India. The 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage variant costs Rs. 18,999 while the 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage variant costs Rs. 19,999.

The phone is available to buy in three colour options. You can buy the phone online from Realme’s official website or Flipkart.

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The Realme 10 Pro packs the following items inside the box:

• Handset
• 33W Adapter
• USB Type-C Cable
• Sim Card Tool
• Screen Protect Film
• TPU Case
• Important Info Booklet with Warranty Card
• Quick Guide

Before we talk in detail about the Realme 10 Pro, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like:

• Display: 6.72 inches IPS LCD
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 695
• RAM & ROM: 8GB RAM 128GB Storage, 6GB RAM 128GB Storage
• Software: Android v13
• Rear camera: 108MP + 2MP
• Selfie camera: 16MP
• Battery: 5000 mAh
• Weight: 190 grams
• Dimensions: 163.7 x 74.2 x 8.1 mm

The Realme 10 Pro looks stunning right out of the box, with a flat design that provides more space. The plastic body of the phone contributes greatly to its light weight and portability. The back of the phone has an eye-catching design.

The phone is available in three colours: Dark Matter, Nebula Blue and an intriguing Hyperspace Gold with a reflective finish. Despite having a large display, the 10 Pro is slightly shorter and slimmer (8.1mm). Weight has also decreased by a few grams, bringing the total to 190 grams, which is quite impressive by itself.

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In any case, the back panel has a textured, matte finish that can’t be mistaken for anything other than plastic. Even so, it still has a pleasant feel to it, and the back of the Nebula Blue variant I received has a unique colour pattern. The Realme 10 Pro feels somewhat premium in the hand despite its plastic construction.

The cameras have no separate island, and they do protrude significantly. However, there is no extreme wobbling when the device is placed on its back. The frame of the phone is also flat, giving it a very boxy and symmetrical feel in the hands.

Talking about ports and buttons, the right side has the power button along with volume rockers. The left side has the SIM card slot while the top has the secondary mic. The bottom side houses the primary mic, 3.5mm audio jack, Type-C port and primary speaker.

Let’s now talk about the camera performance of the Realme 10 Pro as the company has made a big improvement in the main lens. The phone features a dual camera setup on the back which includes a 108MP primary camera and a 2MP depth sensor. The punch-hole cutout on the front houses a 16MP camera for taking selfies and video calling.

While the main camera has been upgraded, there are no macro lens or ultra-wide lens to be seen. To be honest, I am not very disappointed to see the lack of those secondary lenses as they don’t really perform so well in this price range.

The main camera took some really nice shots in the daylight. The detail level was good with a wide dynamic range. The colours looked pretty natural to me and the sharpness in the images could be seen clearly. There was little to no noise in the shots I took.

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With the dedicated 108MP mode, the details are somewhat more clear, and when focusing on one subject, the camera itself naturally adds some depth. Photos taken in low light are also good. The night mode is efficient, but it takes some time to process the photo.

The portrait shots were just decent. The edge detection was done well and the photos had a good background blur. There were times when the lens did not properly blur out the edges of the subject.

Coming to the front, the 16MP camera takes good selfies in daylight conditions. The selfies were detailed and sharp with good dynamic range. I found the skin tones to look very close to being natural. The portrait selfies were also good with nice background separation.

The Realme 10 Pro can only record 1080p videos at 30fps from both the main and front cameras. I really feel it’s a big negative side of the chipset that it restricts the video recording capability of the phone even after having a 108MP camera. Nonetheless, the footage comes out to be just fine with details but shaky due to the lack of OIS.

The Realme 10 Pro packs a big 5000 mAh battery inside which delivers a good battery backup. You can easily get one and a half days of battery backup if you are a light user like me. A heavy user can still use the phone for a full day without worrying about the charger.

I got about 5-6 hours of screen on time with 5G connectivity and Wi-Fi on. My usage involved watching some videos on YouTube, playing games, scrolling through my Instagram feed and taking pictures. It’s the same capacity as the 9 Pro with the same charging speeds so not much has changed here.

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You get a 33W fast charger in the box which can charge your phone at good speeds. The 33W charger takes about 1 hour and 35 minutes to fully charge the phone from 0 to 100 per cent. Half an hour of charging time juices the battery to about 50 per cent.

The charging speed is really not impressive, I know that very well, but it’s not so bad either. Since this is a midrange device, there is no sort of wireless charging.

The Realme 10 Pro features a Full HD+ 6.72-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels. The panel supports a 120Hz of refresh rate and a peak brightness of 680 nits. It’s a pretty good display but falls behind when it comes to brightness.

The phone is easily usable indoors but the issue occurs when you step outdoors. I was struggling to see the texts and reply to them under direct sunlight. The best part about the display is the 120Hz refresh rate which makes the scrolling experience buttery smooth. Be it scrolling through the UI or the Instagram feed, you are going to love it.

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Talking about the display quality, you won’t feel left out due to the punchy colours and good viewing angles. The content consumption experience was pretty good. Thanks to super slim bezels all around the display, except for the thick chin.

It also supports Widevine L1, so you can watch high-quality content on OTT platforms like Netflix. You don’t get those deep blacks as you would see on an ALOMED panel but still the overall quality of the IPS panel stands at a good point.

You can choose between natural and vivid colour modes. It also features software-based dimming technology. All in all, it’s definitely not the best display in the price segment but is still a good one. I feel like a 90Hz AMOLED panel would have been a better option.

For some reason, Realme has gone with the same chipset which was there in the 9 Pro. This means that the Realme 10 Pro is also powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 chipset. It is paired with up to 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB of UFS 2.2 internal storage. The same spec sheet as last year also implies that you don’t get much improvement in the performance department.

The Snapdragon 695 chipset is a decent SoC in this price range and performs pretty well in day-to-day activities. You also get a virtual RAM expansion feature which doesn’t really bring any improvement. The phone can easily handle your daily tasks with no issues.

I did some multitasking and the RAM management was good. Switching between apps was also smooth. Thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate, everyday usage was seamless. But to push it further, I tried out some games on it.

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I played Apex Legends Mobile and Call of Duty Mobile. Apex Legends ran well in Normal graphics while the CoD Mobile ran at High graphics at High frame rates. The gameplay was smooth for most of the time but there were many instances of frame drops. I had to lower down the settings to get a better gaming experience.

Realme 10 Pro would not be the phone if gaming is your priority. On top of that, the temperature also rises as the phone runs resource-intensive apps like games. The phone got warm just after one match of TDM.

The Realme 10 Pro runs on Realme UI 4 which is based on Android 13. I am really happy that Realme has offered the latest Android version out of the box. This ensures that you will get one extra major software update in the future.

The new UI has a cleaner appearance and some new features. However, Realme 4.0 appears and feels majorly the same as Realme 3.0. The most noticeable improvement in Realme UI 4.0 is the fresh Aquamorphic theme, which provides a modern along with a clean take on Android.

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Realme UI 4.0 includes the new Media Controls from Android 13, as well as dynamic widgets, improved animations, and optimised notification and control centres. The homescreen is simple with no clutter and you also get an app drawer. You can also choose to disable the app drawer if you want.

You can also minimise an app to its floating window format for better multitasking, which is now referred to as a flexible window.

However, with all this, you also get a bunch of pre-installed bloatware on the phone. These include Moj, ShareChat, Josh, Dailyhunt, Snapchat, PhonePe, Moj Lite+, Spotify, LinkedIn, Amazon and Paytm. Thankfully, you can uninstall these from the settings but there are still some system apps that cannot be uninstalled.

The Realme 10 Pro features a stereo speaker setup, one located at the bottom while the earpiece acts as the second. The audio is good and gets pretty loud. However, one major issue is that most of the sound comes from the down-firing speaker while the earpiece contributes very less.

It comes with 5G connectivity and support of 7 5G bands These include n1, n5, n8, n28A, n41, n77 and n78. Other connectivity options include Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.1 and GPS.

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Talking about biometrics, you get a side-mounted fingerprint scanner on the right side. It unlocks the phone instantly with good accuracy. You can add up to 5 different fingerprints on the phone. You can also use the face unlock feature which worked equally good but is less secure.