Realme 10 Pro review: Exemplary performance

Realme 10 Pro review summary

Editor’s rating: 3.8/5

Despite launching the Realme 9 Pro lineup early this year, Realme is back with a new number series, Realme 10 Pro lineup, that offers impressive features with decent specifications. The lineup consists of 2 smartphones, including the Realme 10 Pro and Realme 10 Pro Plus. I got to review the Realme 10 Pro and used it for a period of a week. Comparing its design to the high-end variant from the series, I can say that the smartphone has a completely different rear panel with a matt finish. Apart from that, it has flat edges and a thicker body with different placement of SIM Tray, volume rockers, etc.

One of the major highlights of the device is that it runs on a Snapdragon processor, which is not the latest and greatest Qualcomm has to offer. Here in this Realme 10 Pro review, I will talk about the phone’s day-to-day performance, design, cameras, and more based on my user experience..

Realme 10 Pro review: Unboxing

The Realme 10 Pro ships in a yellow-colored box with the name of the brand and device on the top and other details at the back. The retail box includes the following:

• Realme 10 Pro
• USB Type-C data cable
• Safety Guide
• Protective Case
• Quick Guide
• Adapter
• SIM Ejector Tool

Realme 10 Pro review: Design

I am happy to see that Realme has not produced a cheap replica of the high-end variant from the lineup, as it did in previous number series devices, and went for a complete makeover of the Realme 10 Pro. The device ships with flat edges and a matt-inspired design that offers a premium look. It would not be an understatement to say that a lot of people will find the Pro variant better in terms of rear panel design as compared to Pro Plus.

The Realme 10 Pro has two circular camera bumps and the flash placed next to them at the top left corner. The realme branding can be seen at the bottom left, the rest of the phone is kept clean. When exposed to light, the Realme 10 Pro Plus has a sparkly texture at the back which looks pretty cool. As for the front, we get to see a large display with thin bezels all around. The chin of the phone is slightly thicker, and the punch-hole cutout takes a bit more space than the one I saw in the Pro+ variant.

The power button and the volume rockers are placed on the right spine of the smartphone. The fingerprint scanner is integrated with the power button itself. You can spot the SIM Tray near the upper edge of the left spine. At the bottom, the handset gets a speaker grille, a USB Type-C port, and a 3.5mm audio jack. It measures 163.7 x 74.2 x 8.1 mm, which is not that different from what we saw in the high-end variant. The Realme 10 Pro weighs around 193 grams which is heavier as compared to other smartphones available with similar specs.

Realme has decided to go for a completely new solution in the Realme 10 Pro for attaching the display to the body, and it has been named Razr technology. Based on the same, the display of the device is attached using a push-fit mechanism which keeps it packed from the inside. However, a question that arises as soon as I shift my focus to this Razr tech is what will happen if the phone gets dropped on a rough surface from height? Will the display fall apart, or will it break into pieces?

Realme 10 Pro review: Display

The Realme 10 Pro features a 6.72-inch IPS LCD display coupled with a 120Hz refresh rate and 600 nits of peak brightness. It is one of the better displays that one gets to see under Rs 20,000. The streaming experience on the device was good thanks to punchy colors and good contrasts. However, it can not matches the blacks of an AMOLED display. The thin bezels make sure that the content on the screen looks large enough while watching videos or playing games.

One thing which you need to look out for is not to use the phone under direct sunlight as it will put an ample amount of strain on your eyes. The high refresh rate that helps in playing animations and games that require a high frame rate smoothly makes tries to compensate for the absence of an AMOLED display.

The video colour enhancer feature offered in the display makes colour a little more puncher which makes content appear more appealing on screen. You make turn it off if you prefer more natural colors while bingeing on Netflix.

You can also customize the screen size that the apps are going to take while being used. The smartphone has three dark modes, including Enhanced, Medium, and Gentle, to choose from. You can also opt for reduced contrast in low light conditions that will help reduce the strain on your eyes.

Realme 10 Pro review: Performance

The Realme 10 Pro ships with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 processor paired with up to 8GB RAM and 128GB UFS 2.2 internal storage. The unit that we tested had 8GB RAM onboard. While using the Realme 10 Pro as my daily driver, I faced no serious heating or lagging issues while doing casual gaming or multitasking. Not only this, but the smartphone also has virtual RAM of up to 8GB, similar to the high-end variant of the series.

I also ran a few tests on the smartphone, and it scored 691 in the Geekbench single-core tests and around 2015 in the multicore tests. On AnTuTu, the smartphone was able to score 4,15,060. Then came the turn to play the games, and I downloaded two of my favorite ones – Asphalt 9 Legends and Marvel Contest of Champions. Both the games were running smoothly until I put the graphics settings at high. At the maxed-out settings, the games showed a couple of lagging instances. Furthermore, the device also got a bit heated up while running the games for long hours.

One thing that caught my attention while using Realme 10 Pro was its software. The phone comes out of the box running on Realme UI 4.0 based on the Android 13 operating system. The operating system was more or less bug-free as I didn’t face any glitches or function breakdowns. Only nightmare that tags along with the phone is the bloatware and the irrelevant notifications. However, you can stop them by disabling the applications that are not required.

The side-mounted fingerprint scanner of the device is pretty responsive and unlocks the device almost instantaneously. The audio output quality of the handset is pretty decent considering its price point. Unlike the high-end variant, the Realme 10 Pro also offers a 3.5mm audio jack which allows you to use wired earphones too.

Realme 10 Pro review: Camera

The camera of Realme 10 Pro is something that surprised me the most in this smartphone. The device rocks a dual rear camera setup consisting of a 108Mp primary shooter and a 2MP secondary shooter. To my surprise, the camera performance of the smartphone was much better than the Realme 10 Pro+, thanks to the image processing capability of the Snapdragon processor. It manages to offer decent photographs in both daylight and low-light conditions.

In addition, it gets special modes, namely night and street photography, for the photographs in different environments. Not only this, but the device also has features like Group Portraits, Dual View Video, Time Lapse, Pano, Pro, SloMo, Text Scanner, Film, and more. On the front, the smartphone gets a 16MP snapper for selfies and video calls. The front sensor manages to deliver decent selfies with clear capturing of the details.

Realme 10 Pro review: Battery

The Realme 10 Pro is backed by a 5000mAh battery that keeps you away from the charger once it is fully fueled up. The charging capacity of the device disappoints a little bit as it only has 33W fast charging support. At the time of practical testing, it lost 10% battery in an hour when playing YouTube videos.

The battery consumption while playing games on the smartphone was up to 15% per hour. While using the device for a day full of scrolling through social media applications, playing games for a couple of hours, making a dozen calls, and performing other stuff, the phone lasted for around 16 to 17 hours. Talking about the charging time, the smartphone takes somewhere around 2 hours to get completely charged from zero to 100%.

Realme 10 Pro review: Should you buy it or not?

Realme 10 Pro is one of the best mid-rangers available under a budget of Rs 20,000. If you are not fond of AMOLED displays and can manage with mid-level performance, then the smartphone is definitely for you. Nonetheless, if you really have a thing for AMOLED displays and are more into streaming, then this handset will disappoint you big time. Apart from that, the device’s camera capabilities remain unquestioned, and the processing is also not that bad.