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

Chinese handset maker Realme hasn’t been energetic in the British isles for prolonged, but it has manufactured a serious splash. The very first Realme handset I reviewed, the X50 Pro 5G was a serious head-turner — a properly specified phone at a great selling price. Now we have the company’s acquire on extraordinary zooming in the shape of the 6.6-inch Realme X3 SuperZoom. Despite the noticeable emphasis on digicam capability, you will find a large amount additional on supply right here, like a significant-close processor, loads of memory and storage, and spectacular battery life, all for £469 (inc. VAT). 

The X3 SuperZoom has a neat and tidy industrial design. At its internet site, Realme emphasises the glass that’s utilized both entrance and back. But search carefully and you may see that the sides of this phone are manufactured from plastic. It does a great task of looking like metallic, and is not in any way a deal-breaker, but it truly is noteworthy because plastic use is a person of the approaches Realme has saved on manufacturing prices.

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


Photos: Sandra Vogel / ZDNet

My review handset was the Arctic White variant — a sort of creamy white that’s variously rippled with shades of blue, environmentally friendly, orange, mauve and pink as it reflects mild. It is really eye-catching and different, but if you favor, you will find also a Glacier Blue possibility.

The smooth-contact complete is commendably resistant to fingerprints, and also means that the phone feels snug in the hand — even though it was however instead slippery on smooth furnishings.

The quad digicam array sits in a vertical lozenge that protrudes noticeably from the back of the handset. This had the unfortunate result of producing the phone to shift all over — instead noisily — on a desktop when I prodded at the display.

The fingerprint sensor is crafted into the power button on the right facet of the phone. I’m not the best admirer of this site, even though I have developed utilized to it by means of various reviews. Positioning apart, the X3 SuperZoom’s fingerprint reader will work properly.

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The still left edge of the handset residences a pair of quantity buttons, and on the base is the speaker grille, SIM caddy (which accommodates two SIMs), and USB-C charge slot. You will find no three.5mm headset jack, and no formal IP rating for dust and drinking water resistance.

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The X3 SuperZoom has 32MP (extensive) and 8MP (extremely-extensive) entrance cameras, and four rear cameras: 64MP extensive, 8MP extremely-extensive, 8MP periscope telephoto and 2MP macro. The fingerprint reader is included into the power button on the right facet.


Photos: Sandra Vogel / ZDNet  

The exhibit is flat, manufactured from Gorilla Glass five and has a pre-fitted display protector. You will find a sizeable bezel at the base edge, and the other 3 bezels are rarely minimal. Still, the 6.6-inch display fits into a neat chassis that’s 75.8mm extensive by 163.8mm deep by 8.9mm thick and weighs 202g. Realme claims a display-to-overall body ratio of 90.five{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca}, even though we estimate it at 84.8{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca}.

The best still left of the display has a lozenge-formed punch-gap for the dual entrance cameras. This is fairly distracting at very first, but I soon got utilized to visually blanking them, and the display itself has some nice in addition points.

The 6.6-inch display is IPS Lcd instead than AMOLED, but the colors are however pretty sturdy. The resolution of two,400 by 1,080 pixels (399ppi) is perfectly great adequate for online video viewing, e-mail, net browsing and ebook looking at. The display has a flagship-course 120Hz refresh level, which you can manually scale back to 60Hz alternatively, you can allow the handset to find the refresh level mechanically.

It is really a disgrace the mono speaker is a little bit of a permit-down, presented the good quality of the display. You will find loads of quantity — additional, in actuality, than a lot of handsets manage — but it truly is quick on bass tones and is fairly distorted at the highest degree. It is really great adequate for radio listening, but when keeping the phone in landscape method to enjoy online video I had to acquire care not to address the speaker with my palm.

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


Photos: Sandra Vogel / ZDNet   

The X3 SuperZoom has 6 cameras, two at the entrance and a quad-digicam array at the back. The entrance cameras are 32MP f/two.five extensive-angle (80.4°) and 8MP f/two.two extremely-extensive angle (105°). It might audio like overkill to have dual entrance cameras, but the extremely-extensive angle possibility is in fact pretty beneficial for group pictures, or when you want to body a person or additional individuals versus a backdrop.

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The 2MP macro digicam has a 4cm focus length.


Image: Sandra Vogel / ZDNet

The quad-digicam array at the back is as follows: 64MP f/1.8 extensive angle (78.6°) 8MP f/two.three extremely-extensive angle ( 119°) 2MP f/two.four macro (4cm focus length) and 8MP f/three.four periscope telephoto (5x optical zoom).

This is an great specification, but there are limits. The macro lens normally takes a moderately great-good quality shot, but the ideal focal length of 4cm is restricting. You will find no zoom on the macro, so you’re still left with moving the handset toward and away from the issue. Every single small bug I attempted to photograph in my locked-down yard flew away as I approached it. Luckily my cat was additional docile. In the serious earth, I would get pretty annoyed, pretty quickly.

On the zooming entrance, 5x and 10x pictures ended up of fair good quality, but at the time you get earlier the incremental display faucets that acquire you to 10x it truly is a concern of pinching at the display to zoom even more, and frankly the added benefits are not really worth the trouble. What did impress me was the colour fidelity: people flowers are a shiny, shocking pink, and the X3 SuperZoom gets as shut as any phone digicam I have attempted.

I have currently famous that the SIM caddy supports two SIMs. You will find no facility to enhance the inner storage by using MicroSD, but that’s not genuinely essential. You will find 256GB set up, of which 18GB is utilized out of the box, leaving 238GB free of charge. That storage is UFS three., and it truly is quick. This, together with 12GB of RAM and a Snapdragon 855+ chipset means the Realme X3 SuperZoom genuinely zips together. 

The Geekbench five CPU examination documented pretty respectable regular scores of 786 (single core) and 2440 (multi core). Set it versus the OnePlus 8 Pro with its best-close Snapdragon 865 chipset, which obtained 907 and 3375 respectively, and you can see the variation. Nevertheless, the OnePlus handset prices £899 for the identical RAM/storage mix, and I failed to obtain that the £469 X3 SuperZoom ‘s general performance held me back in any way.

Battery life is spectacular way too, with the four,200mAh battery long lasting for seventeen.five hrs underneath the Personal computer Mark Operate two. benchmark. More anecdotally, my mainstream utilization sample normally observed me complete the day with involving 70{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca} and fifty five{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca} of a whole charge remaining. Obtaining to a whole charge isn’t really way too a lot of a trouble, either, as the 30W ‘Dart’ charger really should acquire you from zero to whole in fifty five minutes.

Android 10 arrives with a number of added functions courtesy of the Realme UI overlay. The Clever Sidebar, which is a staple of Realme handsets, delivers a customisable shortcuts bar you can pop out by sliding inwards from the screen’s right edge this element is also on Oppo handsets, where by it truly is known as Speedy Instruments. Realme applications incorporate a audio participant, image viewer, temperature app, compass, file manager, and various other extras. 3rd-social gathering choices, which incorporate Facebook and Opera, can be taken off if you don’t want them.  

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The X3 SuperZoom in Glacier Blue.


Image: Realme

Conclusions 

Realme has sent an spectacular set of technical specs in a sub-£500 handset, with compromises manufactured in all the right destinations. A significant-good quality display with a quick refresh level, loads of RAM and inner storage, great battery life, and a design that appears to be like unique are all in addition points.

In actuality, it truly is a disgrace that Realme puts so a lot store on the camera’s 60x zoom capability, because this simply just does not dwell up to the promise. SuperZooming apart, while, this is however a pretty able smartphone for the revenue.

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