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mindthump · 3 years

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The Realme 8 5G shows the exciting future of cheap 5G phones https://ift.tt/2SJV6MJ

The Realme 8 5G, as the name suggests, has a 5G modem inside ready to connect you to the fastest mobile data connection available, now or in the future. Yet the phone costs just 200 British pounds, or about $280 at today’s currency conversion rate, meaning that 5G is no longer only found on pricey mid- and high-specification phones.

But cheap phones can also be substandard, especially when an “expensive” feature like 5G gets slotted in to grab some headlines. The Realme 8 5G is cheap, but does it feel like it’s cheap?

MediaTek lends a hand

How does Realme offer a phone with 5G for such a low price? One of the reasons is the phone uses a MediaTek Dimensity 700 processor, rather than a Qualcomm chip seen in mid-range smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy A52 5G and the Google Pixel 4a 5G. MediaTek has long been committed to making affordable 5G-capable mobile processors, but the resulting hardware doesn’t always get a wide international release, but that will change with the Realme 8 5G, as it’ll be out in Europe and the U.K. in May.

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

MediaTek isn’t as well-known as Qualcomm, but at the end of 2020 data from Counterpoint Research showed it was the world’s biggest smartphone chip maker, making it a definite sleeping giant. Qualcomm may have been edged out overall, but it still leads the way in 5G chips, an area MediaTek is making progress in to avoid missing the boat like it did with 4G mobile chipsets. The Dimensity 700, just one of its many 5G chips, launched in November 2020 and released in early April 2021, making the Realme 8 5G one of the first phones to use it.

Performance

The MediaTek Dimensity 700 is a 2.2GHz octa-core chip based on ARM Cortex A76 and ARM Cortex A76 cores, and built on a 7nm process. It’s a competitor to chips from Qualcomm like the Snapdragon 730G. In the Realme 8 5G it’s paired with either 4GB or 6GB of RAM, with the 6GB/128GB model priced a little higher at 250 pounds/$354.

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

There are always concerns a cheap phone will be incapable of playing intensive, power-hungry games, but provided your expectations are kept in check the Realme 8 5G copes very well. I played extended sessions of Asphalt 9: Legends and Genshin Impact on the Realme 8 5G, and with Realme’s Game Space gaming mode switched to Pro Gamer mode, which ups the CPU and GPU performance, both games were perfectly playable.

When things get busy in Asphalt 9: Legends there is some slowdown and the frame rate is definitely affected, but it doesn’t happen all the time, and will be dependent on how fast your car of choice is. In Genshin Impact there’s noticeable slowdown when panning around your surroundings, and in some of the cut scenes, but in normal small-scale fights and exploration, it’s fine.

Neither game looks nor plays with the same level of smoothness, polish, or speed they do on flagship phones, but that’s to be expected. But this doesn’t mean you can’t play them at all. The Dimensity 700 chip proves to be a very capable chip for casual gamers who don’t want to spend thousands on a new phone.

Does it feel cheap?

The Dimensity 700 chip helps the Realme 8 5G play two of the more intensive mobile games available, and adds 5G into the mix to provide the fastest mobile connection right now for not a lot of money, or to future proof the phone. But how does the rest of the phone stack up? It’s one of the cheapest phones I’ve used in a while, and because the last was the Nokia 5.4, a phone I wasn’t impressed with at all, my expectations were fairly low.

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

Happily, it’s much, much better than the Nokia 5.4 in most areas, and my low expectations were unfounded. The 6.5-inch screen has a 2400 x 1080 pixel resolution, a 90Hz refresh rate, and 180Hz touch sampling, plus a maximum 600 nits brightness. At full brightness, I can see it outdoors in moderate sunlight and the viewing angles are decent, so I can still see the viewfinder when taking photos.

Watching video is pleasant. Carfection’s review of the BMW 128ti is sharp, but the screen lacks the super contrast and detail in the shadows you get with a top AMOLED screen. It’s let down more by the sound, which is delivered through a single speaker on the bottom of the phone and is easily covered by your hand. It’s not very bassy, and sounds harsh at high volume.

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

The design is ordinary, but not ugly. It’s made of plastic and weighs 186 grams, and at 8.5mm thick it’s sized sensibly enough to still be pocketable. The three-camera module’s look has cleverly been balanced out with a fourth circle that says “AI,” and there’s none of the crazy “Dare to Leap” branding splashed across it like the Realme 8 Pro, giving it a more mature, understated style. It does remind me of some recent Vivo phones though, something that’s not surprising seeing as both brands are part of the BBK Electronics family along with Oppo and to a lesser extent, OnePlus.

Is the camera cheap?

The main camera has 48-megapixels and it’s accompanied by a monochrome camera and a macro camera. You can’t use the monochrome camera on its own, but you can take macro shots at about 4-centimeter distances if you want. You won’t feel the need, as, like all cameras of its type, the results are disappointing.

That leaves the main camera. It’s decent and takes well-balanced, shareable photos with plenty of color and good dynamic range. The HDR effect means you won’t need to edit them before sharing either. However, Realme doesn’t do itself any favors by adding a 2x and a 5x zoom option to the camera app, which suggests functionality the camera doesn’t actually have, and these modes just crop the shot and produce poor photos.

Added to all this is a 5,000mAh battery, a MicroSD card slot, a fingerprint sensor in the power button, and realme UI 2.0 software over Android 11. That’s a good all-round specification that doesn’t scream “money saving,” and as I’ve found, still delivers the goods. The Realme 8 5G is cheap, but very rarely during my time using it did it feel cheap, and that’s a very good position to be in. If this is the future of affordable 5G phones, then Realme has set the bar pretty high by mixing desirable specs with solid usability in most situations, and for the most part, avoiding pointless gimmicks.

Realme doesn’t sell its phones in the U.S., but once launched in the U.K. an import wouldn’t be difficult. The Realme 8 5G will be released in May for 200 British pounds/$283, but an early offer could see you grab one for 180 pounds/$255, making it even more tempting. It’s not often a cheap phone comes out with minimal compromises, but with help from MediaTek the Realme 8 5G comes close to achieving that goal, and it’s an exciting start to the era of really cheap 5G phones.

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abangtech · 4 years

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Oppo A52 Review

Over the course of a year, Oppo launches a lot of phones. Even with the state of matters in 2020, the brand has been relentless. As such, we have a new budget phone christened Oppo A52. It is a stylish cuboid which prides of its display and battery mileage. Specifically, there is an FHD+ punch hole panel and a 5000mAh cell with 18W fast charging support.

But, these are some conventional hardware found on almost every other phone in this price range. “So, what else does it bring to the table, and more importantly, is it worth my money?” you may ask. Well, we are about to find out just that.

This is the Smartprix review of Oppo A52 and here’s everything covered henceforth.

Oppo A52 Specs and Price in India

Phone OPPO A52 Display 1080P Neo-Display| 6.5 inches; 90.5% Screen-to-body ratio | 2400 × 1080 Pixels screen with 405 PPI pixel density Battery 5000 mAh, 18W Fast Charge Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 Memory 6GB LPDDR4x RAM + 128GB UFS 2.1 storage; 4+128GB and 8+128GB models incoming Rear Camera 12MP main camera + 8 MP Ultra Wide-Angle Lens + 2 MP Mono Lens + 2 MP Portrait Lens Front Camera 16MP within a punch hole Weight and Thickness 192g; 8.9mm Software ColorOS 7.1 based on Android 10 Card Slot Dual SIM and Micro-SD card slot (up to 256 GB) Color Twilight Black and Stream White Price ₹16,990

Oppo A52 Unboxing

The screen comes with a pre-applied screen protector.

Here are the box contents:

1 Handset

1 Charger

1 Earphone

1 USB data cable

1 SIM ejector tool

1 Protective Case

Support and safety papers

Oppo A52 Review: Design and Display

Our review unit sports a glossy Twilight Black color with a “Constellation” design. Wiping the smudge and dirt aside, you would notice how light rays shimmer on its surface. It seems as if light beams are either converging or radiating from within the camera island. I must say, Oppo knows how to design its phones and this one’s a looker.

The back houses the phone’s quad-camera setup inside a vertical rectangle field, similar to several other 2020 phones. As for the front, you’ve got a punch-hole camera, again something that’s trendy. I personally prefer the hole to be centered as its visually harmonious. But, for each their own. Now, in case you’re wondering, the front camera does facilitate face unlock, which works reliably well in good lighting conditions.

The frontier stretches to 6.5 inches diagonally and ousts FHD+ resolution with 405 PPI pixel density. Thanks to pretty petite bezels all three sides (except the bottom), you get a 90.5% screen to body ratio. This is a decent LCD screen for the price conferring pleasing colors, nice viewing angles, with the only exception being outdoor legibility.

Rest, the phone has a decently functioning and easily reachable capacitive fingerprint reader cum power button, volume rockers and USB-C socket, dual speakers, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

So, using the face or finger, you enter the phone and further, here’s how it goes —

Oppo A52 brings Android 10 based ColorOS 7.1 software onto the table. It has come a long way from its previous generation and is way more usable. But still, there are things that are rough around the edges.

The good things constitute everything from the enhanced screenshot feature to Dark mode. There is plenty of clever privacy props buried within the settings menu. In the meantime, there are things like the 15+ junkware (some of which are removable) and the squarish quick settings icons too, which leave a sour taste. So, it’s a mixed bag.

Moving deeper, you have the Snapdragon 665 engining the processes aided by 6 gigs of LPDDR4x RAM. The chip is dated and you can’t turn a blind eye to the fact that it is running alongside better runners from Snapdragon 700 series. Having said that, from an offline perspective, the chipset is among the better available options.

As for real-world usage, it runs almost everything albeit with some expected drag and (frame) drops. Speaking of which, the AAA mobile titles like PUBG (30 FPS in Smooth|High settings and 25 FPS in Balanced|Medium settings), PES (60 FPS in low settings and 40 FPS in high settings), and Asphalt 9 run fine.

Want more stats, here have a look —

Geekbench Single-core: 308

Geekbench Multi-core: 1160

PCMark Work 2.0 Performance Score: 6140

3DMark Slingshot Extreme OpenGL: 1104

3DMark Slingshot Extreme Vulkan: 1112

Antutu: 152697

Androbench Sequential R/W: 483.76/182.89 MB/s

Androbench Random R/W: 121.6/126.61 MB/s

This model has 128GB UFS 2.1 onboard storage which can be further expanded up to 256GB using a micro-SD card slot (hybrid). Also, note that two more variants of Oppo A52 are slated to launch down the line with 4 and 8 gigs of RAM.

So that’s that. Anyway, let’s move on…

The rear stack comprises a 12MP main shooter, accompanied by an 8 MP ultra-wide-angle lens, a 2MP mono lens, and a 2MP portrait lens. Now, don’t mistake these last two sensors for bringing anything worthwhile like depth effect. Rather, they merely superpose monochrome and vintage filters. Anyway, flipping to the front, you will see the phone’s 16MP sensor (within a punch hole) that handles the selfies.

Let’s now glance at the clicks themselves —

In proper daylight, I like the clicks I got out of the A52. If you turn on the Dazzle mode, the photos will gain some saturation and life. But it compromises the details and highlights a bit.

You can slide between ultrawide (119°) and digital zoom up to 5x. The broad-angle shots do look more vibrant at the cost of missing details. In some shots, you would notice the fish-eye bent too. Despite all that, I do like the wide perspective they beckon. The same can’t be said about digitally cropped outputs though. So, go closer instead.

Some shots came underexposed because it was an overcast day. Still, the dynamic range isn’t particularly good here.

The human subjects are sufficiently detailed and the edge detection works for the most part. Well, it isn’t accurate in the selfie (above, right). The overall color composition and skin tones differ from the rear snap. Also, the AI beauty tweaks are on by default. So, in case you don’t want ’em, you may turn them off.

Night Mode off

Night Mode on

Night Mode off (Ultrawide)

Night Mode on (Ultrawide)

The dedicated night mode does even out most of the noise and brightens up the after-dark frames. And it takes about 7 seconds to complete this capture. But, don’t expect any magic.

You can shoot up to 4K resolution from the rear camera and FHD from the front shooter, both at 30 frames per second. The results are passable. As for the rest of the camera features is concerned, you get macro functionality when the primary lens is brought closer to an object. Lastly, the rest of the camera tricks are bundled separately.

Oppo A52 packs a 5000mAh battery that can easily last more than a day. This has been the case in our benchmark testing (involving work profile tasks) too, as the phone clocked 18 h 2 min. To refill it back, you could use the 18W fast charger, which is satisfyingly fast (flat to full in about 2 hours).

The audio out of the dual speaker is stereo but isn’t as loud I wished it to be. Gladly, you have the 3.5mm jack and Bluetooth 5.0 for better sound over wired or wireless earphones. Speaking of which, it ticks all the boxes in a usual connectivity checklist such as WiFi, USB-C, GPS, etc.

So, finally, let’s get to the…

Oppo A52 Review Verdict: Should you buy it?

Oppo A52 is made in India

If taken in isolation, Oppo A52 would seem like a decent phone for a regular user. Design-wise, it’s a beauty. And inside, it bears some conventional nuts and bolts such as the feature-rich ColoOS based off Android 10, a huge 5000mAh battery backed by a fairly fast charger, and all the little things a buyer would appreciate viz. the 3.5mm jack, earphones, protective case, and an on-screen film. These advantages make it a decent option for less demanding users who prefer purchasing from offline retail stores.

But then, it also hauls the not-so-powerful Snapdragon 665 which can at max run modest to moderate performance – which is why we can’t recommend it to power users. The camera isn’t very confidence-inspiring or truly versatile, but that’s to be expected for almost all phones under 20K.

Pros

Stylish design

Satisfactory battery life

Feature-filled software

Cons

So-so camera

Moderate chipset