Realme 7 5G Review - First impression of the 5G Smartphone

First impression: Realme 7 5G

Realme adds surprisingly quickly and presents shortly after the launch of the Realme 7 and Realme 7 Pro another smartphone from the 7 series. The focus of the Realme 7 5G is MediaTek's Dimensity 800U chip, which brings fast 5G cellular reception into the smartphone middle class. Here is an overview of all the key points: 

Design and workmanship

 "Why another plastic bomber?" - that's what you might think if you read the data sheet of the Realme 7 5G. Almost the entire housing is made of plastic. If it weren't for the power button on the right, in which the fingerprint scanner is built in. This is made of metal.

However, the Realme 7 5G is a good example of the fact that it doesn't always have to be a "high-quality" case. The workmanship is successful and in the color “Mist Blue” the smartphone also looks great. Alternatively, the smartphone is available in the color “Flash Silver”.

Depending on the incidence of light, there are subtle reflections on the back, which are additionally interrupted by a vertical stripe. In terms of size (162.2 x 75.1 x 9.1mm) and weight (195g), the Realme 7 5G is typical mid-range average. Thanks to the overall round design, the smartphone sits comfortably in the hand and is easy to use.

Display

 General 

For the display, the Realme 7 5G uses a 6.5 inch IPS panel with a 2400 x 1080 pixel resolution. The display-to-housing ratio (screen-to-body) is given by Realme as 90.5 percent. The screen protector is of the Corning Gorilla Glass type. It is not known which generation of Gorilla Glass it is. Information on the maximum display brightness is also not given. We will provide precise measurements of luminance and color accuracy in the final test report.

120 Hz refresh rate and 180 Hz sample rate

The Dimensity 800U chip not only brings 5G into the inexpensive middle class, but also enables a smooth 120 Hz refresh rate, which the Realme 7 5G fortunately makes use of. The advantages of a significantly higher refresh rate are smoother image gradients. This not only benefits gamers, for whom responsive actions are important, but also everyday users who expect an overall smoother user experience. A higher sampling rate, here 180 Hz, means that the touchscreen reacts faster to inputs. An advantage that also benefits gamers.

Of course, a 120 Hz display also has disadvantages. Mention should be made of the higher battery consumption, which results from the increased performance, but also that not every app or mobile game supports a full 120 FPS or the processor reaches its performance limits early on.

Everyday experiences

It is visibly and noticeably fun to savor the 120 Hz of the Realme 7 5G display. The smartphone can be operated very smoothly. Animations take place without trailing effects and when scrolling quickly through the web or the social media feed, the text remains pleasantly in shape. As already indicated, the Dimensity 800U is the bottleneck that limits 120 Hz enjoyment in demanding games.

Performance

General

The heart of the Realme 7 5G is the MediaTek Dimensity 800U system-on-chip. This combines CPU, GPU and 5G modem. Eight processor cores are divided into two fast Cortex-A76 cores with a maximum clock rate of 2.4 GHz and six economical Cortex-A55 cores with a maximum clock frequency of 2 GHz. The GPU is an ARM Mali G57. When it comes to storage, the smartphone uses 6GB LPDDR4X RAM and a 128GB UFS2.1 data memory.

It is possible to expand the memory with a microSD memory card, but then one of the SIM slots (hybrid SIM slot) will be lost. At least that would be the case with our test device. A triple SIM slot with two nano SIM slots and a memory card slot is listed on the manufacturer's product page. That's not the only difference either. Our test device is NFC-capable, even though NFC is not mentioned on the data sheet!

Everyday life and 5G

The Dimensity 800U has enough power. This is also shown by the benchmarks we carried out, in which the Realme 7 5G does well. In the demanding AnTuTu benchmark, an average of 330.000 points are achieved. These high scores are also reflected in everyday performance.

The Realme UI (user interface), based on Android 10, is very well matched to the hardware and enables largely fluid operability. In addition, Realme UI offers an extended range of functions, but is not too far removed from stock Android. With the exception of a few third-party apps (Facebook and WPS Office), the user interface is free of bloatware.

In terms of connectivity, the Realme 7 5G is well positioned. The 5G modem supports the common sub-6 GHz networks on the bands n1 / n3 / n5 / n7 / n8 / n20 / n28 / n38 / n40 / n41 / n77 / n78. Of course, 2G, 3G and 4G are also extensively supported. The smartphone is extremely powerful here.

In addition to the cellular network, dual-AC WiFi and Bluetooth 5.1 are available for wireless connections. The Realme 7 5G uses the navigation satellite systems GPS, AGPS, Glonass, Beidou and Galileo to determine its position.

Camera

We will be testing the camera extensively in the coming days. Therefore, we would like to initially only point out the features. The following sensors are used:

•  48 MP main camera (Samsung Sensor, EIS, f/1.8, 4K30 - 1080p30&60)
•  8 MP wide angle camera (119 ° wide angle, f / 2.3)
•  2 MP B&W camera (f / 2.4)
•  2 MP macro camera (f / 2.4, 4cm recording distance)
•  16 MP front camera (79.3 °, f / 2.1)

Battery

At the end of our short test, a few words about the battery. Running times of 2 1/2 days with are quite realistic. The 0 mAh battery is fully charged (100-5000 percent) in just under 65 minutes.

Note: We will add to the test report in the coming days.