Realme X50 Pro 5G Review: The 5G era is closer than you think
Realme X50 Pro is a flagship smartphone that checks a lot of boxes. But should you go out and buy this future proof smartphone right now? Let's find out
Realme as a brand is popular in the budget segment and most of its smartphones compete against Redmi devices. By the end of 2019, the company came up with its first flagship smartphone in India, the Realme X2 Pro. While the phone went head to head against the OnePlus 7T, it had its fair share of issues.
During my review, the two things that disappointed me the most were the software and the build quality. The Chinese manufacturer seems to have fixed both the issues and gone a step further with the Realme X50 Pro 5G. Is it now a true OnePlus competitor? Or does it still need more attention? Let’s find out in our full review
Realme X50 Pro Review: Specifications
Realme X50 Pro features a 6.44-inch Super AMOLED display with 90Hz high refresh rate. The smartphone is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor. The dual-SIM handset packs in 8GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage. It runs on realme UI based on Google’s Android 10 operating system out of the box. Under the hood, the handset packs in a 4200mAh battery with 65W SuperDart fast charging support.
On the optics front, the Realme X50 Pro sports a quad-camera setup at the back consisting of a 64-megapixel primary camera coupled with an 8-megapixel ultra-wide lens, a 12-megapixel telephoto lens and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. Upfront, there is a dual-camera setup for selfies, which consists of a 32-megapixel main camera and an 8-megapixel secondary lens.
Realme X50 Pro Review: Design and Display
In terms of design, it is a mixed bag of premium aesthetics and budget phone like design elements. The smartphone comes with a matte finish glass back design, which forced me to use it without a case. Matte finish not only makes the phone less of a fingerprint magnet but also enhances the in-hand feel. However, where the company lost the opportunity to stand out is the way cameras are placed. It makes the phone look similar to the Realme X2 or the recently launched budget-oriented Realme 6 smartphone.
As far as the build quality is concerned, the company has significantly improved it over the Realme X2 Pro. The phone now actually feels as premium as the OnePlus 7T and the iQOO 3. On the front, the phone gets an in-display camera design. While the Samsung Galaxy S10 and Poco X2 get it on the right side of the panel, Realme placed it on the left.
The display itself gets an AMOLED treatment allowing it to deliver punchy colours and deeper blacks. The panel gets bright enough for outdoor usage and the 90Hz refresh rate makes it feel super smooth. Not only gaming but also regular day to day use of swiping here and there feels snappy.
Realme X50 Pro Review: Performance, Software and UI
In terms of software and UI, the Realme UI makes the experience much better when compared to ColorOS. After Realme C3, the X50 Pro is the second Realme device to run on Android 10 based realme UI out of the box. The new user interface not only brings more useful features but also reduces the amount of bloatware. Realme UI also offers more mature looking icons throughout the user interface along with a better dark mode experience. It now has fewer bugs and offers a much better experience overall.
As far as the performance is concerned, the phone performs exactly what you would come to expect from a flagship. However, due to minor bugs in the software, I did witness a few UI crashes. Apart from that, the user experience was smooth. I even ran games like PUBG: Mobile, COD: Mobile and Asphalt 9: Legends, all of which ran smoothly.
Realme X50 Pro Review: Camera
Realme X50 Pro sports a quad-camera setup at the back consisting of a 64-megapixel primary camera paired with an 8-megapixel ultra-wide lens, a 12-megapixel telephoto lens and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. The smartphone managed to capture some impressive shots in good lighting condition. The images came out well detailed and had a good amount of colour accuracy.
Upfront, the X50 Pro features a 32MP+8MP camera setup that also clicked some good looking selfies. The camera app had some sort of beauty filter turned on by default, which I manually had to toggle off in order to get more natural-looking selfies.
Realme X50 Pro Review: Battery
Realme X50 Pro is backed by a 4,200mAh battery under the hood. During my review period, the smartphone managed to last for a full working day filled with a ton of phone calls, social media scrolling and a few minutes of gaming. All this time, the phone was connected to 4G and had Bluetooth turned on. By the end of the day, the X50 Pro had approximately 20 percent in the bank. When I needed to top up the battery percentage, the 65W Super Dart came to the rescue as the phone went from a complete discharge to 100 percent in less than 45 minutes.
Realme X50 Pro Review: Verdict
Realme X50 Pro is a significant improvement over the company's last flagship model, the Realme X2 Pro. In terms of the build quality, the phone now offers a much better in-hand feel. It also comes with improved software and a better set of cameras. However, where the phone takes the hit is the similar-looking design. While the Realme 6 costs 1/3rd of the X50 Pro, it sports a similar camera array at the back. Apart from that, the Realme X50 Pro makes for a great package with and also comes with future proof WiFi 6 as well as 5G support.
In a nutshell, the Realme X50 Pro is a great handset overall but the market is really confusing right now. One can also get the feature-packed Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Lite for a similar price or wait for some time for the OnePlus 8 to arrive in India.
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