Realme 2 Pro review: Great quality low price

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The Realme 2 Pro derives hot on the heels of the Realme 2, which itself came just a few months after the Realme 1.  However, the Realme 2 was a bit of odd repetition. It added a fingerprint scanner and a double lens camera — both absent from the first — but really shrunk the determination and demoted the SoC. This was likely because Realme newly broke away from Amazon and Oppo to form its own separate object and desired to make a name for itself.

Rather than an accurate next-gen upgrade, the Realme 2 was more a “rethink” of the Realme 1 with dissimilar priorities.

Realme 2 Pro Standing Up

 RealMe2 Pro


Is this Realme 2 Pro the honest upgrade the Realme 2 might have been? Let’s discover out in this Realme 2 Pro review.


Hardware and design


This device is an enormous upgrade in a whole gathering of dissimilar ways. It has a Snapdragon 660 AIE SoC, which is an enormous step up from the Snapdragon 450 we proverb last time. It drives with up to 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storing capacity. It has a 3,500mAh battery, 16MP double rear camera with a f/1.7 aperture, and 16MP around the forward-facing as well (f/2.0). It’s running Android 8.1 through ColorOS 5.2 on top.

Realme 2 Pro Color OS


That 3,500mAh battery is the only reduce from the base model Realme 2, which packed an enormous 4,230mAh cell.

This thing doesn’t have the irrational performance by any bounce, but it’s certainly a big step up and more than sufficient for most games on the Play Store.


Realme 2 Pro Benchmarks


The display is a 6.3-inch TFT LCD 1080 x 2340 screen. It has a notch, but it’s a small “dewdrop” notch which is actually attractive nice and gives the phone an unresolved screen-to-body ratio of 90.8 percent. The design is really one of the superior selling points at this price range.


Realme 2 Pro Design


It’s even a great step up in the looks section. Gone is the plastic diamond-patterned back, substituted with what Realme calls a “Dewdrop back cover.” I have no idea what this income, but it’s polycarbonate, it looks nice, and seems to have a second transparent layer. There’s no IP rating or wireless accusing, but that’s normal for the price. The three colors accessible are ice lake, blue ocean, and the black sea. Mine is the ice lake variant.

There’s also a fingerprint sensor yet again, combined with blazing-fast facial gratitude, and a headphone jack. Camera-based face unlock is really fast cheers to some AI smarts. It all seems like an actual upgrade, except for the inexplicable choice of a micro USB port for charging.

Realme 2 Pro MicroUSB

D’oh!

This is not a great deal by any stretch. You can surely live with marginally sluggish transfer speeds and irregularly needing to make sure your plug is the correct way around (USB Type-C: it’s reversible!). However, it is becoming gradually difficult to find well-matched chargers and devices for that old format. Since most of us retain our smartphones for a good few years, that will only get inferior. This is poor future-proofing. Other producers have shown you can contain a USB-Type C at a budget price, so I’m not definite why it’s absent here. It’s a blight.


Daily use and camera


The Realme 2 Pro is fast and consistent, its battery performance is good, and ColorOS is annoying. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s maybe the foulest skin in town these days, with irritations like the fact that announcements that can’t be dismissed (why??). I’m also not a fan of how the lock screen works — you require to make an additional swipe after you’ve listed a fingerprint or a face, which often results in me gazing blankly at the screen for a few minutes before understanding I can get in. These are not deal waves, though. ColorOS also has a couple of extra features thrown in.
Camera Features

Realme 2 Pro Camera


The general knowledge of using this phone is absolutely fine and what you would imagine for that fairly decent spec-sheet. I’ve been using it for a few days and haven’t run into slight problems.

The camera is slightly better than I predicted. I was ready to hate it, but it really performed quite well. Photos have good capacity and contrast, and the low-light presentation was surprisingly impressive. I tried tripping it up a few times and it reliably bested me. This, of course, is thanks to that f/1.7 aperture, which is also what lets for some good natural depth effects.

Camera Sample
Sample from the Realme 2 Pro Camera

The bokeh “portrait mode” also makes an appearance on both sides, and does the hit-and-miss job, which is usual at this price point. There are also a bunch of loveliness mode effects for those absorbed, including the option to beautify multiple people in a single shot. It’s great if you have a lot of horrible friends.

Realme 2 Pro portrait modeThe selfie camera

The main drawbacks in the camera department are the comparatively low detail when you zoom in on distant objects and the all-over-the-place experience. This significantly neuters the benefit of the 16MP selfie camera, which would have otherwise remained ideal for vlogging and such.

Exposure is all over the place.

The camera app is also somewhat irritating, in particular demanding to enter a “video mode” to record video, rather than just hitting a record button. Apparently, there’s some AI scene-detection going on, but I didn’t sign it much myself other than the phone infrequently pointing out the lighting was good.
Realme 2 Pro low light performance
Realme 2 Pro low light performance

This clearly isn’t going to be the camera phone of choice if you employ a lot of time on social media, but it’s also not horrifying. It will be a good friend when chronicling meals out with friends and all the funny things your dog does.

Price, value, and competition


How persuasive an offer this is will be contingent on the price. That comes in at 13,990 rupees (~$193) for the base model and 17,990 rupees (~$248) for the higher specs.

If you’re going for the more luxurious model, you could become a Pocophone F1 for just $50 more, which has a meaningfully better SoC and a larger battery. The lower priced phone is rival with phones like the Xiaomi Mi A2, which comes with justly similar specs.

Pocophone F1
Pocophone F1

The Pocophone F1 — not that much more expensive


I was kind of hoping this strength be to the budget market what the Pocophone F1 is to the mid-range — it’s not. However, it’s a firmly built device with good-looking looks and strong performance. It’s good value and it’s yet an additional example of how these days you can become a very appealing smartphone without expenditure a small fortune.
Best in This Budget




It’s positively a big step in the right way for Realme. (That’s a callback to my assessment of the Realme 2 for those that missed it. It was very clever. In other news: I’m actually tired.)

I give this phone a “fantastic, Realme.”

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