The Realme 7i is the latest mobile to land in the large catalog of the Chinese manufacturer, and it is also one of the cheapest. With its sights set on the quality/price ratio, Realme achieves a phone that excels in many respects. And not only metaphorically, that the Realme 7i is great as it is alone.
The Realme 7 family is completed with the most accessible model of all, the Realme 7i. Given its characteristics, the protagonist of our analysis promises to offer a pleasant smartphone experience for very little money. Will he get it? It’s time to analyze it to find out: the Realme 7i gives a lot of itself for its costs.
Heavy, thick, and generous in size
Realme 7i
The plastic on the back face has a slight linear engraving that makes it much easier to grip
We will not surprise anyone if we say that the Realme 7i is big and heavy; both characteristics are almost a constant in smartphones. Our protagonist accuses its general dimensions: something annoying can be done to the hand if used during long gaming sessions, for example. It is built in plastic except for the screen, said plastic is not appreciated of poor quality (the back does give off a certain ‘cheap’ feeling), it does not slip at all and offers the buttons at the right height of the fingers.
Realme keeps the USB C, and the headphone connector in the lower part moves the fingerprint reader to the back face (capacitive and with good response), includes a triple tray to use two SIMs and SD at the same time, and maintains a good use of the front thanks to the waterdrop cutout for the front camera. The brand assures that the utilization ratio is 88.7%.
The Realme 7i Review
The screen is in line with the price:
- Generous dimensions, IPS LCD panel with correct viewing angles, Realme maintains the balance of color and temperature (the settings offer some level of customization).
- The tactile response is on par.
- By default, it is necessary to highlight the HD + resolution.
It is the price to pay for the affordable category of the Realme 7i; without appreciating excessive loss of sharpness: on a day-to-day basis, we have not found any major inconvenience. We did run into a lack of maximum brightness: very fair outdoors.
Gone are the times when cheap phones sounded bad: the Realme 7i offers great audio quality for the range to which it belongs. With headphones, it is most appreciated, especially with cable: apart from having the always welcome 3.5 mm jack, the phone offers audio enhancements (real HD Sound) that enhance listening by enhancing nuances. The sound is balanced, and it has just enough bass reinforcement and a lot of volumes. The external speaker also has a high volume, although the quality leaves more desired: distortion at high levels is annoying.
Good performance, even in games with high graphics load
Realme 7i
Genshin Impact works great on the Realme 7i
Being a more or less cheap mobile is not synonymous with its power being low: the Realme 7i can handle all current games. Even at medium quality in titles such as Genshin Impact or PUBG: the response is immediate; we have not seen an excessive delay in the jump between applications (there is some ‘lag’ when the mobile is very busy) not heat up or play intensive way. It does not offer high-end performance, but it is more than enough for the cost of the phone.
As usual, we have carried out some performance or benchmark tests. Here are the results:
There are no big surprises when it comes to software: Realme UI as a custom layer (1.0), Android 10 as an operating system version, October 2020 security patch (somewhat outdated), and a slight amount of bloatware that can be uninstalled on your most (Facebook, WPS Office …). The layer’s appearance bears a certain resemblance to Android ‘stock’ even though Realme reloads functions: the amount of added options is enormous, and installing apps for the most basic functions is unnecessary. The Realme 7i has its gallery, video player, music player, games area, and file manager. It comes complete, for the good and the not-so-good.
Although the general experience is positive, always within an ‘accessible range,’ there is an element where the Realme 7i exerts a power beyond any doubt: autonomy. The hardware does not consume excessively, the expense with the screen off is minimal, and the autonomy is gigantic: its 6,000 mAh battery
It lasts for more than three days of moderate use without the slightest fear of going through the plug.
The graphs above correspond to a load with intensive use, and the Realme 7i is inexhaustible, even squeezing its power. Of course, the load suffers from respect to his superior brothers: our protagonist is limited to a fast charge of 18 W. With the following times:
5-minute charge: 5% battery.
10-minute charge: 9% battery.
20-minute charge: 18% battery.
30-minute charge: 27% battery.
50-minute charge: 42% battery.
Total: 2 hours and 33 minutes.
Photography without fanfare, in line with the mobile category
Realme 7i
One of the most delicate moments arrives multimedia capture. A priori, we could not expect splendid results since the cost of the phone is what it is. Still, the Realme 7i doesn’t take bad photos on the whole, even when dealing with the gloom. Night performance plummets, of course, but night mode can save more than one shot at the cost of the drastic loss of detail and some saturation.
The 48-megapixel main camera offers shots with sufficient detail in great light conditions. Auto HDR does not have a bad dynamic range, and colors are natural. In contrast, the included wide-angle (8 megapixels) does not offer such good results: during the day, it has certain difficulties when it comes to getting shots with enough detail; at night, it is better not to use it. And as for the macro camera … well, it’s more of a filler than anything else.
Realme 7i
The Realme 7i’s camera app remains at a good level. It offers fast shots with sufficiently fast processing, includes portrait mode and night mode, the AI can recognize the scenes, the usual photographic parameters can be adjusted, and many beauty filters are also included. Video recording is not difficult: the shots are sufficient without being penalized excessively if the light environment is abundant. The Realme 7i records at a maximum of 1080p and 60fps.