Realme is known for its affordable mid-rangers but in this market you have to offer something special in order to stand out from the crowd. How about 5G connectivity on a budget that's what you get with the new Realme 8 5G. Realme 8 5G is the successor to the Realme 7 5G though rather than being an upgrade in terms of specs and actually cuts back on quite a few of them, in exchange for a much more affordable price tag, looks-wise it's quite similar to the Realmes we've seen lately.
The glossy curved rear panel is made from plastic but the way it catches light looks a lot like glass on this model. The thin frame is also plastic and this matte finish adds a bit of grippiness. Something you are missing here compared to last year is the water sealing on the device's ports but the previous model didn't have official waterproofing anyway. The Realme 8 5G display is a 6.5 inch IPS LCD with a 1080p resolution a punch hole for the selfie cam and a fast 90hz refresh rate. The high refresh rate does make your scrolling smoother but it's not as smooth as the Realme 7 5G, which has a 120hz refresh rate and you also miss out on gorilla glass protection on the new model. This screen is decent. Colours are fairly accurate but whites have a noticeable bluish tinge. The contrast is excellent though these blacks are quite nice for an LCD and brightness is pretty good.
The Realme 8 5G is one of the cheapest 5G smartphones you can get these days. It has an affordable 5G enabled chipset the MediaTek density d700, performance-wise is comparable to Qualcomm's snapdragon 695g in benchmarks. The Realme 8 5G holds its own against competitors like the Oneplus Nord N10 though it does fall behind last year's Realme 7 5G a bit in graphics tests. Overall the performance is decent, actually running most games pretty well at lower settings and we didn't notice any hiccups plus the thermals are nice here with no throttling to speaker.
So that's the Realme 8 5G, you get 5G support at a low price which is hard to find these days and besides that, you get a decent high refresh rate screen good battery life and pretty nice camera quality for the money, compared to last year's model the Realme 8 5G looks overall like a downgrade but it is much cheaper which puts it into a whole different class of phones and that makes them hard to compare. Overall if you're after 5G connectivity the Realme 8 5G is a good deal for the money but if that isn't a priority for you, there are some nice 4G, capable competitors, at this price with better specs and of course if you're willing to spend a little more, there are plenty of 5G options to choose from.
The Realme 8 5G has a headphone jack as well as a single speaker down at the bottom. The speaker earned a good score but the quality is just average with well-presented mid-tones. You can wake up and unlock the Realme 8 5G with a side-mounted fingerprint reader which is super fast and accurate and you have the option to get either 64 or 128 gigs of storage onboard which is expandable. The interface of the Realme 8 5G is Realme UI 2.0 based on Android 11. It's quite straightforward and easy to use. You have the option to keep all of your apps in a drawer or all on the home screen if you want. The home screen is quite customizable too. You have quite a bit of control over the looks of your icons and there is a theme store if you want to change things up even further. One neat trick you can do is minimize an app to a floating window from within the task manager for easy multitasking and there is a smart sidebar on the edge of the screen which gives you quick access to functions or app shortcuts.
The Realme 8 5G is powered by a large 5000 millionth hour battery and earned a great endurance rating of 118 hours in battery life tests, even accounting for this large battery capacity charging speed isn't impressive, which is unusual. Realme phones typically top up really fast. You get an 18-watt charger in the box and it was able to take the Realme 8 5G from zero to just 29% charge in half an hour.
The Realme 8 5G has three cameras on the back, a 48-megapixel quad Bayer main camera, a 2-megapixel macro camera, and a 2-megapixel monochrome sensor for depth sensing. Unlike the Realme 7 5G this time around you don't get an ultra-wide camera the main camera saves 12-megapixel photos by default and those are pretty good for this entry-level class, the resolved detail is enough even if it isn't spectacular, the colors are accurate and the dynamic range is wide but not over the top. The main camera takes portraits that are really good for this class with a commendable dynamic range. The separation isn't stellar but it's more than acceptable. The 2-megapixel macro camera shoots good photos if you get the distance right since the focus is fixed at around 4 or 5 centimeters, these come out sharp, contrasty, and colorful but the detail level isn't very impressive. The main camera shoots good low-light photos for the class, there's a decent amount of detail good contrast, and well-preserved colors. The balance exposure and the dynamic range also deserve some praise, turning on night mode will result in a bit more detail and it restores clipped highlights, it also improves the color saturation a bit. The Realme 8 5G has a 16-megapixel front-facing cam with fixed focus, selfie picture quality is outstanding with rich detail, good sharpness, accurate colors, and impressive dynamic range. Videos can be captured with the main camera and up to 1080p resolution at 30fps, there's no 4k or 60fps support here. These videos have great colors and contrast and a wide dynamic range. The level of detail is good for this resolution and you have always-on electronic stabilization.
