realme 7 design
The Realme 7 sports a split mirror design that creates interesting patterns when light hits it. We had the Mist Blue color option of the phone, but the phone also comes in white. Overall, the Realme 7 feels different from behind than the previous model, which the company desperately needed since the rest of the phone didn’t change much.
Rest of the design, Realme 7 is very similar to Realme 6. The fingerprint sensor, SIM tray and all the ports are located at the bottom of both phones. The Realme 7 is actually thicker (9.4mm) and heavier (196.5g) than the 6. The merit of this is its large battery. Texting or shooting with one hand is not so easy due to the extra weight.
Realme 7 feels sturdy. It still comes with plastic on the frame and back panel. The SIM tray houses three slots for two Nano-SIMs and a microSD card. It comes with a 6.5-inch Full-HD+ LCD panel with a perforated cutout and Gorilla Glass 3 protection to guard against scratches. Like the Realme 6, it gets a 90Hz refresh rate. The screen can get very bright and colors appear well saturated. We did notice off-axis vignette at the edges of the screen when there’s a light background, but it’s not a noticeable issue.
Overall, the Realme 7 feels solidly built for a budget phone. Though we’re not too happy with the weight gain, which definitely makes it feel heavy in everyday use.
Realme 7 performance and software
Realme 7 is the first phone to come with MediaTek Helio G95 processor. It’s an updated version of the Helio G90T seen on the Realme 6, but it’s not a major upgrade. The only change is that the clock speed of the included Mali-G76 GPU has been increased from 800Mhz to 900Mhz. The rest of the chipset specs seem to be the same. It’s still a 12nm octa-core chip.
The base variant of Reality 7 has 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage which costs Rs 14,999 and its 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage costs Rs 16,999. As before, it comes with LPDDR4X RAM and UFS 2.1 flash storage.
The performance of the phone is good. Realme 7 runs on Realme UI based on Android 10. It recognizes faces quickly and accurately and its side-mounted fingerprint sensor is fast too. The interface is fluid, which feels fast given the 8GB of RAM. Apps generally loaded quickly and scrolling through menus felt smooth thanks to the 90Hz refresh rate. Features like live wallpaper and smart sidebar, built-in screen recorder, and many gestures and shortcuts are good additions.
Realme 7 is also good at gaming. Battle Prime looked great on the highest graphics settings and the gameplay was smooth. Racing games like CarX Drift Racing 2 are also a great experience. The Game Space app helps you organize all your games in one place and gives you easy access to things like screen recordings and WhatsApp messages while you play.
realme 7 battery life
The Realme 7 packs a 5000mAh battery, which is much larger than the Realme 6’s 4300mAh battery. Even with moderate to heavy use, I easily got a full day and a half out of a single charge. The Realme 7 lasted just over 24 hours on our HD video battery loop test, which is a great performance.
The Realme 7 comes with 30W Dart Charge fast charging support, which charges it from zero to 100 in about 65 minutes. If the realme charger you have isn’t working, you can also use fast charging with 15W USB-C Power Delivery.
Realme 7 cameras
The third major change in Realme 7 compared to Realme 6 is the main rear camera. It still has a 64MP resolution, but Realme has used the Sony IMX682 sensor instead of the Samsung GW1 sensor. Realme also says that the company is using a new “Ultra High Definition” algorithm for the 64-megapixel, which should deliver better clarity and detail than the Realme 6’s sensor.
Here is a comparison of the cameras of the Realme 7 and the Realme 6, which will give you a fair idea of how much has changed in the camera setup. If we zoom in on a part of the buildings, we see that the Realme 6 captured a clearer image with less grain, but the textures were much smoother. Reality 7 takes better textures, but there are some grains in the photo.
However, when shooting in the default photo mode, there is a noticeable improvement in the pixel-binned images captured by the Realme 7. It also comes with better dynamic range and exposure, with better details than the Realme. Low-light images look very clear. Shots captured with Night mode look good. In general, the new sensor is slightly better than the old one and not bad.
Realme 7 also does a good job with close-ups. Details and colors came out great and autofocus works well. The rest of the cameras, however, are very similar to what we’ve already seen on the Realme 6. You’ll largely get the same experience on both phones.
The ultra-wide camera captures a larger area, but details and colors appear weaker than the main camera sensor. This problem is more visible after cropping the photo. Portrait shots generally turn out fine and you have the option to adjust background blur before shooting. The 2-megapixel macro camera isn’t special, and even photos taken in good lighting look pretty poor.
We found the 16-megapixel selfie camera to be just fine. Selfies taken during the day look decent, but we wish the HDR had worked better. Portrait mode is useful as it cuts out the background correctly. You can get usable selfies in the evening or at night, as long as there’s good lighting around. Night mode is available, but selfies appear sharper in our experience.
Verdict
The Realme 7 doesn’t come with huge improvements over the current Realme 6, but it is substantially better with its bigger battery and better main camera sensor. Overall performance is great, battery life is great, and the 90Hz panel performance makes general usage smooth and easy. The Realme 7 looks great, but it’s heavier and thicker than the Realme 6 and the overall video recording quality could be better. At a starting price of Rs 14,999, it offers good value for money.
We believe that Realme 6 users should not worry about the upgrade as they will not feel much difference with Realme 7 compared to their existing smartphone. However, the base variant of the Realme 7 is a good pick for those who want a display with a high refresh rate but are on a tight budget.