Introduction
Realme X7 surprised me with its offering in terms of design, display, and overall performance. It has one of the combinations of specifications that you would get at this price tag that makes this future-ready 5G smartphone a must to consider. With all bells and whistles, it becomes imperative that you know exactly how the phone actually fares when tested practically rather than depending on specifications on paper.
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Here’s a detailed hands-on review on Realme X7 5G in India after I tested the unit for more than a week.
Prices in India, Variants, Availability
Realme X7 5G is available in India in Space Silver and Nebula colour variants. Realme X7 5G is available in two storage variants i.e. 6GB+128GB is available at Rs 17,999/- while the higher 8GB+128GB variant is available at Rs 19,999/-. You can get it from the Realme India website and Flipkart among other avenues. You get up to Rs 14,600/- off on the exchange offer on Flipkart. You can get your hands on a 10 per cent discount using Citi CC/DC cards up to Rs 1,000/-.
Specs at a glance
Before we talk in detail about the Realme X7 5G let’s see what the on-paper specs look like?
- Display: 16.33 cm (6.43-inch) Full HD+ Super AMOLED Display
- Processor: MediaTek Dimensity 800U
- Storage: 6GB/8GB, 128GB
- Software: Realme UI v1.0 (Based on Android 10)
- Rear cameras: 64MP + 8MP + 2MP
- Selfie Camera: 16MP
- Battery: 4310 mAh, 50W SuperDart Charge
- Weight: 176g
- Dimensions: 160.90 x 74.40 x 8.30 mm
Design and Build
If you have held a Realme smartphone before, you will know that Realme pays a lot of attention to the design part. Luckily, Realme X7 is no different. It has a super lustrous and polished polycarbonate back design that you brag about. Realme X7 has an AG shower coating on the back that gives it a pleasing appearance. At 176 grams, you won’t feel a thing. Plus, the narrow frame, properly-balanced weight distribution, and sloping edges all make up for an easy grip on a device that has a grandeur form factor.
You can choose between Space Silver and Nebula colour variants and trust me, both look dope. It is essentially the iridescent light effect on the matte back panel that throws you a spectrum of light when held against the light. This is something Realme calls a “Non-spectral gradient”. But something that bugged me a lot is the “Dare To Leap ” insignia. It is spread across the height of the back panel on the left edge so that’s annoying for some if not all.
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Anyways, a triple camera setup sits on the top-left corner housed in a rectangular-shaped camera bump. Since it is positioned on a side and raised a bit above the back panel, it introduces some degree of wobble but that’s completely normal. There’s a power button on the right, a volume rocker on the left, and both are highly tactile.
There’s a Type-C port, a Dual-SIM slot, and a bottom-firing loudspeaker that make up the I/O ports at the bottom. Apparently, the device lacks a stereo speaker setup and a Hi-res audio certification, unlike the Realme X7 Pro.
Realme X7 is a perfect specimen of craftsmanship and you won’t be disappointed with the mesmerizing design that X7 embodies.
Display
The Indian variant of Realme X7 is a bit different from its Chinese variant. The device uses a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 1080×2400 pixels. The device has a 20:9 aspect ratio and reaches 430 nits of typical and 600 nits of peak brightness.
No Doubt a display is the centre of everything you will see and feel. With a massive 6.4-inch Super AMOLED panel on board, you are destined to get the best colour reproduction with deep blacks, brighter whites, and overall vibrant and vivid colours. If you are upgrading from an LCD panel, you will see a massive jump in terms of quality and colours that you will fall in love with.
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The reduced bezels on the edges make the display look larger than it is. There’s a considerable chin but that’s something you will get your head around pretty soon. The display has a 60Hz refresh rate which is in line with the standard RR that smartphones in this price range follow. There’s also a 180Hz touch sampling rate which makes the display highly responsive.
I used the phone as a daily driver for more than a week and guess what? I never felt it has some shortcomings for its price tag since the display is huge, it’s AMOLED and has high colour reproduction and overall, the colour shift in the viewing angles is almost non-existential which is a pro in its senses.
Realme X7 comes with OSIE visual optimization for enhanced colour and options for better eye care. There’s no HDR certification but with Widevine L1 support, you can view HD content on popular OTT platforms without any hassle. Being an AMOLED, the brightness is out of the box with 600 nits at the peak which is bright even when you are viewing it in direct sunlight.
Performance
Realme X7 is powered by a Dimensity 800U 5G chipset that gives the phone the ability to connect to a whole lot faster 5G network. The chipset is clocked at 2.4GHz max frequency where two cores are high powered while six cores clocked at 2.0GHz are power-efficient cores. There’s a Mali-G57 MC3 GPU taking care of the graphics requirements on the device. Plus, the device has a UFS 2.1 storage with 128GB and 256GB options as well as 6GB and 8GB RAM options. However, the Indian variant does have 256GB storage.
Realme X7 5G looks good on paper but how does it perform in real life. In short, it is amazing. I have been using Realme X7 for a while now and I didn’t see any lags or stutter when switching between apps. Tap on an app and it will open in a jiffy but it’s something almost all smartphones in this price tag are capable of doing.
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Realme X7 is power-efficient and doesn’t let heavy apps like Google Chrome consume all the juice from the battery pack even if you are browsing or downloading video files and so on. The phone’s temperature does raise a bit but it just gets around a bit warm and doesn’t convert into a hot frying pan for that matter.
When it comes to games that take GPU as a lead, it lets you play graphic-intensive titles like Call of Duty: Mobile or Asphalt 9: Legends with smooth gameplay but on medium settings. Yep, you can’t dial in high settings which is something Realme 7 Pro’s Snapdragon 720G is very well capable of. Also, there are some jitters and lags whilst the gaming rest assured that the chipset is capable of handling more things than you can throw at it.
Software
Realme X7 5G arrived with Android 10-powered Realme UI 1.0 out-of-the-box. Realme has made quite a heads turn with its timely updates and no doubt X7 5G will get its share of updates too. Depending upon when you are reading this, Realme X7 5G must have been running on Android 11-based Realme UI 2.0 Early Access update or a stable one. In any case, there’s a huge difference in UI, features, and usability between Realme UI 1.0 and 2.0 but you’ll love both.
Cameras
About the optics, the device is strapped with a triple-camera setup. This includes a 64MP primary sensor with an 8MP ultrawide sensor with 119-degree FoV and a 2MP macro sensor. Realme made a cutback on the depth sensor cause otherwise, X7 in India would have a quad-cam setup. There’s a 16MP selfie shooter at the front which is half of what the Chinese variant offers.
The first point of contact that you get to witness when using the cameras is the Camera app. The default Camera app is well-laid and well-equipped with a plethora of shooting modes such as AI Beauty, Ultra Macro, Portrait Mode, Panoramic View, Bokeh Effect, Expert, Super Nightscape, and more.
Primary 64MP cam on X7 5G uses a default 16MP binned resolution for images. This means the details are well-put, close-ups have vivid colours, and more, however, we noticed some oversharpening in post-processing. You can yank it up to 64MP resolution which definitely stretches the primary cam to its limits. The results show washed-out colours although it is of decent quality.
The night mode on the primary camera is decent as it retains more than average details. I found out that the night mode is a little on the aggressive side adding more light to the scene, but at the end of the day, it captures decent nighttime images using the dedicated night mode. Using a tripod would eliminate shakiness and jitter while capturing long exposure shots at nighttime on X7 5G.
Portrait Mode on X7 5G uses computational algorithms to detect subject, separation and add background blur. It is decent enough as well although there are some instances with the edge detection that could go iffy.
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The 8MP ultrawide snapper lets you capture more in a frame than the primary sensor. It does its job of capturing detailed images although it inclines towards a softer side.
The 2MP macro sensor is a small sensor as you can guess with sensor size. It lets you capture images with subjects as close to just 4cm and does capture accurate shots although it lacks intricate details for that matter.
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A 16MP front selfie shooter takes care of selfies and portrait shots. It is decent and you won’t face any problems during video calls or taking selfies for social media and so on at least in the daytime. Nighttime photography is okay as well. I have tested a portrait shot using the front camera and the sensor does work well in detecting the background and adding a blur to it.
But hey, you will get Beautification on the selfie by default and it is aggressive. It is what makes your skin lose all the wrinkles and make it even but artificial in many ways.
Battery
Realme X7 packs in a giant 4,300 mAh battery similar to the OnePlus Nord CE 5G. The battery puts up a good show when it comes to the battery backup although it could have been better. Still, the battery will last for a good one day on a single charge if used from moderate to heavy. You can still extend it further by using the phone sparingly so that’s a relief.
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The battery has been reduced from X7 (China) at 4,500 mAh to 4,310 mAh and another tradeoff with the Indian variant is the 50W fast charge. Despite packing in a 65W charging brick in the retail box, the phone supports 50W only which is still way faster than almost all of its competitors. The 50W charging tech takes just 50 minutes to charge up the battery which is damn fast. Still, a 65W would have made the phone stand firm with its Chinese variant.
Audio, Connectivity, Biometrics
Realme X7 5G is equipped with a single bottom-firing speaker. I was impressed with the sound quality that the single speaker produced including clarity and depth that one would expect. Although having a stereo speaker would make X7 5G a truly desirable smartphone, to be honest. In any case, the Hi-Res Audio Certification makes sure that the audio quality is in point when you plug in earphones or headphones on it.
It is a mid-range smartphone and thus, it has a decent amount of connectivity features on-board. It has dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac support along with A-GPS, Galileo, Glonass, QZSS, and BDS. The phone has Bluetooth v5.1 with LE and A2DP support. There’s no NFC, IR port, or headphone jack. You can use the USB-C 2.0 port for data sharing, music, and charging purposes.
Realme X7 is future-ready with 5G tech but the timeline w.r.t. The next-gen network in India is dubious. I used the phone with a Jio 4G and it works well. The audio quality is loud and good and the network reception is good as well. I didn’t find it stand any different from any other smartphone so chill unless you are using Vi 4G.
Realme X7 is equipped with two comprehensible unlocking mechanisms. The first is the in-display fingerprint scanner which is quick and snappy as always. It has multiple animations in place. There’s a face recognition too that uses the front sensor to unlock the phone. It is snappy too although it did show some signs of hesitation which is alright since Realme X7 5G is a budget mid-range smartphone and works too well for its price.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Superfast charging speed at 50W
- Super AMOLED display
- NFC enabled
- 5G connectivity
Cons
- The gaming experience is average
- There is no wireless charging
- The 3.5 mm headphone jack has been omitted
Now we are at the end of this hands-on review and here’s what I have conferred after testing it out. The phone’s Dimensity 800U chipset can take anything you can throw at it unless it’s a game. You can still play some high-graphics games but the GPU doesn’t seem to be properly optimized for many games and thus, you will see some jitter here and there.
The device is future-proof with a 5G setup as well as faster 50W charging tech. However, if you capture Realme X7 5G in India versus the Chinese variant, the former has made many cutbacks that you can take into account. Overall, X7 5G has a fabulous display, artistic design, better battery life, and power-efficient processing among others to its pros.
Realme X7 5G has too many rivals including Poco X3 which sports an SD732G chipset as well as Xiaomi Mi 10i, Realme 7 Pro, and even Moto G 5G. There are many choices that you have at this price tag so do let us know which one made it in your hands.
