Review of Realme 7i: perseverer available

This time, a Realme 7i smartphone landed on the imaginary reviewer’s desk, which is an interesting choice for everyone who doesn’t want to spend much, but at the same time requires good battery life. However, for smartphones in the price category of around CZK 4,000, we must necessarily count on certain concessions. In what respects must those interested in the phone tested today be reassured and are these concessions acceptable?

Content of the review Realme 7i

You will not find anything extra in the package

Realme 7i is sold in, almost typically for this manufacturer, a bright yellow box with a large inscription “7i”. Inside this box is the phone itself, USB-C cable and power supply 18W adapter. There is also a tool for pulling out the card drawer, the necessary manuals and all that. However, don’t expect the bonus in the form of a package here. One little thing, however, is the foil applied to the display.

Plastic but high quality construction

The construction of Realme 7i is mostly plastic, which is not uncommon even with phones with more than double the price. In addition, the phone gives a solid impression and at first glance we did not find any downturn in the quality of its workmanship. However, we could have a little reproach sharper edges around the display and a button mechanism that has a relatively rigid and loud motion. However, these are rather just little things that we will be happy to forgive the phone for 4 thousand crowns. The basic “building block” of the structure is a plastic tub with fine texture on the back. Thanks to this, the backs of the Realme 7i can boast an interesting “glare” effect, even though their surface is made of matt plastic. We also like the square module with cameras, which protrudes only slightly above the back surface.

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Overall, we must evaluate the design of the Realme 7i as successful. Even though the phone doesn’t come with any big design creations, it looks nice and its appearance is not very easily interchangeable. At least as far as the back is concerned. From the front, it is a dozen phones with relatively thin edges, a teardrop-shaped cutout and a wider chin. The phone is currently sold on our market in two color variants, namely the light blue and silver tested (and nice) by us. Due to the 6,000 mAh battery it is necessary to take into account slightly larger dimensions and weight on the phone. The dimensions of the Realme 7i are 164.5 x 75.9 x 9.8 mm, while the weight has stabilized at 208 grams. Not only thanks to the already mentioned texture, but especially thanks to the significantly rounded edges on the back, the phone holds comfortably despite its larger dimensions.

The fingerprint reader works great

Realme 7i also offers a fingerprint reader. For obvious reasons, it did not hide under the display, but on the back of the phone. The manufacturer decided to do so even though the other models from the Realme 7 series use a reader built into the power button on the side of the phone. So if the solution with a reader on your back does not suit you, you will not be very satisfied with the Realme 7i. On the other hand, the reader is well placed on the back, so when you hold the phone, the index finger intuitively rests on the reader. We must also praise the functionality of the reader itself. It recognizes the fingerprint quickly and accurately, so you won’t have to put your finger up repeatedly.

The picture and sound will not impress

One of the areas where savings has been made is the display. It is about 6.5 ″ IPS panel with HD + resolution only. This means an image fineness of only 270 ppi, which is definitely not a dazzling value. In practice, this means that on closer inspection you may notice, for example, blurred edges of the text, or on a uniform white background and a pixel grid. However, in normal use, you will not perceive these negatives too much (or rather not at all). On the contrary, you can appreciate, for example, sufficient maximum brightness, thanks to which it is display readable even on a sunny day. We have no reservations about the viewing angles. The color rendering is also at a very decent level, the colors are rich in the proportions of IPS displays, only black is weaker due to the chosen technology.

There is only one loud speaker on the bottom edge of the phone. Its output is one of the worst on the current market. The maximum volume is sufficient, but the sound absolutely lacks at least a hint of lower tones and there is a lot of “tin” effect. Not only when listening to music, you will appreciate the presence of a 3.5 mm jack. Headphone output, with or without wires, is quite sufficient for ordinary listeners. There is also a system equalizer, but it – at least for now – only works in conjunction with the output through a 3.5 mm jack. This “Real Sensaround” function can also be used with connected wireless headphones. This is a function to automatically improve the audio output, but it didn’t get us much. In combination with a music player, a slight improvement in sound can be heard, but it is definitely not essential. On the contrary, when playing videos from YouTube, this function caused an unpleasant distortion, especially of spoken speech, when there was an unnatural emphasis on pitches.

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The Realme 7i hardware is surprisingly solid

Nobody probably expects powerful components from a smartphone with a price of just over 4 thousand crowns, but Realme 7i was able to pleasantly surprise us in this respect. There is a chipset inside the phone MediaTek Helio G85 using 12nm production technology. It is based on a processor using a set of 6 energy-saving Cortex-A55 cores and two powerful Cortex-A75 cores operating at a frequency of up to 2 GHz. The graphics here are handled by the Mali-G52 MC2 chip. The operational memory is completely adequate in this case 4 GB. This combination is then in the benchmark AnTuTu gained a very solid 205 thousand points. In terms of games, the phone can handle any compatible game from Google Play. For example, the popular Call of Duty: Mobile runs completely smoothly here, and you can also play the great-looking RPG Genshin Impact at a lower graphic setting. However, the smooth gaming experience was certainly helped not only by the hardware used, but paradoxically also by the lower display resolution criticized above.

Not only games can you save to 64GB storage, and after the first run it is free slightly over 52 GB. If this portion would not be enough, you can equip your Realme 7i with a microSDXC memory card. Many users will certainly appreciate that they will not have to choose between installing a second SIM card or a microSD card. One of the advantages of Realme 7i is that it offers 3 separate slots – one for each of these cards. As for connectivity, it could be described today as a necessary basis. There is a USB-C connector with a USB 2.0 controller and Wi-Fi 802.11ac together with Bluetooth 5.0 ensures wireless connectivity.

NFC has been forgotten

5G connectivity has not yet arrived in such cheap phones and it cannot be blamed on the piece tested today. However, what we can blame Realme 7i for and definitely will be absence of NFC. Although there are not many phones offering NFCs at this price, its absence and thus the impossibility of paying with a phone at contactless terminals can be a decisive factor for some buyers. At the end of this chapter, we will praise Realme 7i for that top reception of Wi-Fi and mobile signal – even in less covered areas. We were also satisfied with the accuracy of positioning. Although the first fix was sometimes a bit slower than we were used to, the Realme 7i was confident when navigating in the car.

The 6,000 mAh battery does its job

One of the biggest trumps of the Realme 7i is undoubtedly used battery with a capacity of 6,000 mAh. It can lend the phone more than above-standard endurance on a single charge. We are with the phone they got to a two-day endurance without any problems. Everyday use included making phone calls, communicating via mail, SMS and instant messengers, streaming music to headphones or tens of minutes of playing and watching videos on YouTube. The average time of daily active use stopped just under 5 hours and Realme 7i clearly deserves a thumbs up from us in this respect. After all, the vast majority of tested phones can handle a similar team for a maximum of one day without a charger. The 18W original then takes the energy replenishment from 15 to 100% for approximately 1 hour 45 minutes.

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However, if you need to last a little longer without a socket, Realme UI offers two more power saving modes that restrict the phone’s functionality. However, you can find a third way in the settings to reduce the consumption of your phone. It’s called “Performance Mode,” and if you turn off performance enhancements, you should see a little better endurance on a single charge, at the cost of reducing the overall performance of the device. After choosing this option, we subjectively realized that the application starts a bit slower and the lower performance was a bit noticeable in games. However, we did not see a measurable improvement in endurance.

Realme UI will pleasantly surprise you

Realme 7i currently relies on the Android 10 operating system with a graphical extension Realme UI 1.0. Although this environment covers most of the pure Android, compared to the previously used ColorOS extension from the related brand Oppo or other extensions from the workshops of Chinese manufacturers (such as MIUI or EMUI), Realme UI has a much “lighter” impression at first glance. With a bit of exaggeration, we wouldn’t even be afraid to put Realme somewhere between the superstructure in Oppo phones and the devices of another “concern” brand – OnePlus. In addition, Realme has succeeded in optimizing the system to number one, and you don’t have to worry about anything in this regard. On phone everything runs smoothly and without noticeable slowdowns, the launch of applications is fast and we did not experience any crashes. The Realme 7i is such clear proof that even a cheap phone can work great in practice.