SUPERZOOM AT SUPER VALUE, realme TAKES A SHOT AT THE FLAGSHIP MARKET

In the first half of the year, realme Philippines released six smartphones, a smartwatch, fitness band, TWS earphones and a couple of other AIoT devices. It also pioneered livestream selling during the enhanced community quarantine, built a solid community through its Squadcast and regular livestreams, became one of the top selling brands on both Lazada and Shopee and climbed to fourth spot in the local smartphone market. Not bad for a brand that is just a year and a half old.

Last week, realme released its first-ever flagship smartphone, the realme X3 Superzoom, and made its first stab at the flagship market. But at a time when businesses are closing, people are losing jobs, and everybody is on a tight budget, was it really the perfect time for them to follow their mantra and “Dare To leap?”

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Let’s take a look at the top features of the realme X3 SuperZoom and see if it is indeed the super value flagship to beat.

120Hz SCREEN REFRESH RATE: To put things in perspective, the current standard for smartphones is 60Hz, while most current flagships only offer 90Hz. The only other phone I have, which has the same 120Hz costs three times more than the X3 SuperZoom. 

The high refresh rate makes the animations and content on the screen look and feel smooth and snappier, thus, improving the overall experience. Though the difference between 90Hz screens is not easily perceivable with the naked eye, its more noticeable it when upgrading from phones with a 60Hz refresh rate. Scrolling through the app drawer, images, web pages, and playing games on a 120Hz display–let’s just say that once you’ve gone 120Hz you don’t ever want to go back.

As for the display itself, the X3 Superzoom has a 6.6 inch IPS LCD panel with a 2400x 1080 Full HD+ resolution. The LCD panel is surprisingly good, bright with really vibrant colors. It’s not the very best or the sharpest, but I don’t see it being an issue at all.

I’m also among those who prefer a flat panel than curved displays because it’s simply much easier to hold without having to worry about my palm accidentally activating those edge functionalities. Also as cool as those gestures are, I would rather stick to the navigation buttons especially when browsing through photo albums or editing some videos. 

All told, the X3 Superzoom LCD screen is about as good as you’re going to get outside an OLED panel.

POWERFUL PERFORMANCE WITH 12GB RAM:  It might not have the latest Snapdragon processor but that 12GB RAM + 256GB storage combo is such a sweet deal, and again bigger than those offered by other flagships. On paper, it may look like a compromise, but the updated Snapdragon 855+ is a beast when it comes to performance with enough power to keep even the most demanding user happy.You don’t get 5G, but who cares? As if we’ll be having extensive 5G coverage anytime soon. 

The Snapdragon 855+ remains as powerful as it was when it first launched, and when you combine that with 12GB of RAM it practicallyallows you to do just about everything you can on a smartphone. Switching between apps is quick. Games, productivity apps, video streaming, all work exceptionally.  The benchmark scores are second only to the Snapdragon 865 and Apple’s A13 Bionic processor and again for its price—is something truly impressive. 

In real life use, the results are even better and everything runs quite fast without any lag or random app shutdowns. This likewise translates to an excellent gaming experience as it can handle any game I installed and run it smoothly at the highest details. 

Does it get warm? Yes, but it never overheats or shuts down any apps in the process. It’s actually one of the reasons why I’m still using it as my daily driver even after doing this review, not to mention that with 256GB of storage, you won’t even miss that microSD slot. 

PERISCOPE CAMERA: The realme X3 SuperZoom’s highlight feature is obviously its cameras and zoom capabilities. At a sub Php25k price point, it is the first to have a 64MP quad-camera setup with a 5x periscope telephoto lens. 

The main camera consists of four shooters: a 64-megapixel Samsung ISOCELL GW1 sensor ultra high-resolution wide-angle camera (26mm, f/1.8); an 8-megapixel ultra wide-angle camera with a 119-degree field-of-vision (15.7mm, f/2.3); another 8MP Periscope camera with 5x optical zoom (124mm, f/3.4) and a 2MP Macro (4cm focus, f/2.4)

Camera modes include, Night, Video, Portrait 64MP, Panorama, TimeLapse, Ultra Macro, Text scanner and even Google Lens.  

For its price, the X3 SuperZoom’s cameras are amazing and would make a great choice for those budding content creators, who are looking for a versatile camera.

Photos in good lighting  are clear with lots of detail and great color reproduction. You can even turn on AI-assist to make the colors pop out even more. There is a bit of a struggle in less than ideal lighting but it’s something you can easily fix by switching on to night mode. Just make sure to give it a second or two to process before moving the camera. 

As for its highly advertised zoom, the phone also delivers on its promise—up to 10X that is, but to be fair not even those with 100x zoom can deliver good photos at max. You can use it like a binocular to make out faraway objects but don’t expect much. That said, I still think camera “zoom” is just a neat trick to show off, but something you won’t actually use a lot of times—because it’s not only kind of “creepy” and “pervy,” but you need really steady hands or a tripod to get a decent photo at maximum zoom.

As for videos, performance was good during daylight, with good detail and less shake when the ‘UltraSteady’ mode is activated (available only on 1080p 60fps and lower resolutions). But there’s a noticeable loss in quality when shooting in darker areas. It can shoot up to  4K videos  but without stabilization, its best to have a gimbal or tripod ready.

It’s also worth mentioning that the dual-lens 32MP+8MP selfie camera has an ultrawide mode of its own and will be useful for those who are into vlogging. Even more interesting is that you can even shoot portrait mode videos, which blur out the background with the option to adjust the level of the bokeh, definitely a nice addition. 

I expected a lot from the X3 SuperZoom and thankfully, it did not disappoint. It may not be the best in class, but it does comes close in a lot of areas. Unfortunately, I have yet to try Starry Mode in the Super Nightscape 4.0 feature as the only thing I could capture are the roofs and electrical wires around our neighborhood.

BATTERY: The realme X3 SuperZoom comes with a 4,200 mAh battery along with a 30 W Dart Charger along with it. Getting through a day on a single charge was easy even with heavy usage and gaming and I still had around 35 percent by bedtime. 

As for charging the device, it’s also quick. Using the Dart Charge got me 50 per cent within 30 minutes and a full charge in just a little over an hour. If you really are anxious about battery use, you can go to Settings > Battery section where you’ll find power saver options, performance modes and screen battery optimization. You can tinker around with these settings to further extract more usage from the phone.

PRICE: Last and definitely the most compelling reason to get the X3 SuperZoom is its price. With most flagship phones now starting at almost Php40k and above, it makes the realme X3 SuperZoom a steal at P24,990. It’s the most affordable phone with a 5x periscope zoom camera, a powerful Snapdragon 855+ processor, a whopping 12GB of RAM and 256 GB storage, 120hz screen refresh rate– the highest this price point, and a long-lasting battery with fast charging.

As mentioned in the beginning, realme also launched a few other items to complement its AIoT lineup. First is the realme smartwatch priced at Php 3,990. The realme watch promotes life-work balance and fitness, which are essential to staying healthy. The realme watch can track users’ daily activities and exercise by monitoring heart rate, blood oxygen and calories.  It also has a blood-oxygen level monitor, a 24/7 real-time heart rate monitor and an Intelligent Activity Tracker for walking and running. 

It has 14 sports modes which include badminton, indoor cycling, elliptical, yoga and cricket. For users to strike a balance between work and life while reporting from home, the realme Watch has special remote controls for apps like music and camera. Device unlock can also be done through the watch, a feature that is useful now that everybody is required to wear facemasks. It also sends constant alerts and reminders from chat and health apps. The realme Watch comes with multiple personalized watch faces and four different strap colors, which are available for purchase.

Since the X3 SuperZoom doesn’t have a headphone jack, you might want to grab the realme Buds Air Neo. The wireless experience is optimized by the Buds Air Neo’s R1 True Wireless Chip, which uses a new generation of dual-channel transmission technology. In terms of sound quality, the realme Buds Air Neo has a Dynamic Bass Boost (DBB) solution, allowing the device to unleash true bass potential and bring about the dynamism and layers of the bass.  Priced at Php 1,990 the realme Buds Air Neo has a promised total playback of 17 hours.

Then there’s the upgraded version of its power accessory, the realme Powerbank 2. The realme Powerbank 2 can store 10,000mAh of juice at every full charge. Its size is well-complemented by an 18W Two-way Quick Charge and is capable of charging multiple devices at a time.

FINAL WORD: Although realme had to make some compromises to keep the price within its target market’s reach, those tradeoffs (which I’ll discuss more on the blog) does not change the fact that the realme X3 SuperZoom is one of the best bang-for-your-buck phones you can buy right now. In a year full of uncertainty, its good that realme has been consistent in staying true to its promise of putting out value for money products and that you don’t have to settle for less when you can get something that’s just right. 

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