realme 10 Review: Performance and efficiency at the midrange

Realme 10 review in Iloilo, Philippines

realme 10, the latest in its number series lineup, was finally launched in the Philippines and globally last week. The brand, which is the market leader in the country for the past six quarters, announced that realme 10 continues with its ‘leap-forwad’ mindset by offering improved performance, stylish design, amazing display.

realme sent me a review unit (RMX3630, 8GB + 256GB variant, Rush Black colorway) ahead of the launch to get first dibs on the phone and experience its features and capabilities. You may check out my unboxing and first impression of realme 10 here.

Quick recap, realme 10 has MediaTek Helio G99 Processor, a 90Hz Super AMOLED Display, a 5000mAh Battery with 33W SUPERVOOC Charge and a 7.95mm Ultra-Slim Light Particle Design that comes in two colorways: Rush Black and Clash White.

Inside the box of realme 10
Inside the box of realme 10.

Through its number series, realme prides itself in bringing flagship-level features to the midrange segment to the delight of its fans. Will realme 10 continue to live up to the billing and be the best-value smartphone in that competitive price point? Here’s my review after using the unit for a couple of weeks.

Design and Build

The realme 10 goes for a flat design, with its flat display protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 5, flat back panel made of plastic with iridescent design, and flat side frame with curved corners. Holding and handling the phone is very light and easy with its very slim body of 7.95mm at only 1.78 grams.  In fact, its the slimmest phone of realme so far which makes it very pocket-friendly.

realme 10 slim body at 7.95mm

On the left side you can find the Triple Card Slots that can accommodate two nano-SIM Cards and micro-SD Card with an expandability of up to 1TB. The right side has the volume rocker and the power button that doubles as fingerprint sensor, while on the top you can see the hole for secondary microphone.  At the bottom, I love to see that there’s a 3.5mm jack together with main microphone, USB-C and single-firing speaker grill.

Bottom holes of realme 10.

The back display really makes realme 10 awesome and stunning with its Light Particle Design, which makes the panel glittering and sparkling under different light conditions. The Rush Black colorway that I have have gradient of gray to black that at times look bluish with splattered glitters. Good looking indeed!

Display

The realme 10 offers 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display at full HD resolution  of 409ppi which produces crisp, sharp details and brilliant, accurate colors.  According to realme, the brightness is up to 1,000 nits. You may also adjust the screen in 3 colour modes of Vivid, Natural and Pro mode, and also its color temperature.

realme 10 super amoled display at 90hz refresh rate

Screen refresh rate of up to 90hz and touch sampling rate of 360z is really great for navigation. You can set refresh rate on Auto-select, High, or Standard (60hz). Using the phone for days, I can really feel that it gives fast scrolling and smoother interactions with its instant touch response.

Pairing these display features with downward firing UltraBoom Speaker which produces loud volume of up to 200% makes this device perfect for gaming, watching movies, and other mobile entertainment!

realme 10 Ultra-Boom speakers produces loud sound of up to 200%
realme 10 Ultra-Boom speakers produces loud sound of up to 200%!

Cameras

On  the rear side, realme 10 comes with a dual setup of 50MP Color AI Camera and a 2MP Black and White Lens plus a LED flash. I’m a little bit disappointed that there’s no more ultra-wide lens on this one which I always use.

realme 10 dual rear camera of 50MP Color AI and 2MP depth sensor

Even with lower MP than its predecessor, photos produced from realme 10 does have accurate colors and plenty of details. In the camera UI there’s  Nightscape, Street Mode 2.0,  Portrait, and more options to choose from. There’s also dedicated 50MP option in the UI that offers better, sharper images but without the zoom function.

The 16MP Selfie Camera is also capable of taking quality self-portrait shots, even at night. The selfie shots I took are clear, and little bit softer. You may also apply a lot of tweaks and filters that comes with the UI.

What I also like with realme 10 is its very fast in taking shots even at night. It’s AI feature also activates Night mode automatically when it detects dark ambiance for fast capture and processing.

For video recording, it can shoot at a maximum of 1080p at 60 fps.

Software and Performance

realme 10 is running on Android 12 with realmu UI 3.0, which is a pretty simple, vibrant and fluid interface that’s very easy to navigate. It has the usual realme and Google apps, and you will be presented with a lot of unnecessary apps and bloatware if you did not opt-out during the initial setup. Of course, you may uninstall those apps.

realme 10 apps

The phone also supports the Dynamic RAM Expansion (DRE) feature which lets you expand your smartphone’s RAM virtually by using the phone’s internal storage. Upon receiving the phone, I was only able to expand it up to 5GB but after a software update, virtual RAM may now expanded up to 8GB!

realme 10 dynamic RAM expansion

For storage, realme 10 is available in 128GB and 256GB, and can be expanded up to 1TB via the microSD slot.

In few weeks that I’ve been using the realme 10, I can say that its performance and efficiency are its strongest points, thanks to MediaTek Helio G99 Processor built with a 6nm architecture along with a power Arm Mali-G57 MC2 GPU in an octa-core setup.

Running apps and interactions are really fast and smooth. You can do a lot multitasking as app switching is quick and seamless, which is great for productivity.

realme 10 gaming

I’m not really into gaming but I’ve tried a few and realme 10 can handle most of it in mid settings. For Mobile Legends, you can set it at High refresh rate and Ultra graphics. It can also handle LOL: Wild Rift in high frame rate of 60fps and PUBG Mobile at 40fps.  For demanding games, it’s recommended to set it to mid settings for stable gaming experience.

It’s lightweight and slim design makes it also comfortable when holding it while playing games.

realme 10 benchmarks

Benchmarks:

• AnTuTu v9 – 392,689
• AnTuTu v9 Storage – 44,287; Sequence Read –977.8 MB/s; Sequence Write –  831.4 MB/s
• PC Mark – 10,496 (Work 3.0)
• Geekbench 5 – 564 (Single-Core), 1,763 (Multi-Core)

Connectivity and Battery Life

realme 10 offers the usual connectivity features like WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, a USB-C port, and a 3.5mm audio jack. Obviously missing is the 5G connectivity which I personally want to have on a smartphone at this price point.

The device is very efficient in using its 5000mAh Battery capacity as I was able to use it in 1 day and half with regular use. For charging, there’s 33W SUPERVOOC Charge which can power the phone from 0% to 50% in only 28 minutes.

realme 10 Supervooc charging 33W

My Take

Overall, realme 10 is a solid phone at the midrange segment as it offers great combination of powerful G99 chipset and dynamic RAM expansion capabilities of up to 16GB which make it fast and smooth while doing daily tasks and productivity. Gamers will also love that it’s very capable to handle most games with stable play experience.

Camera output is surprisingly great even at a lower MP count, thanks to its AI software optimization. But I really love to have that ultrawide lens at this segment, something I frequently use when covering events as a blogger. A little future-proofing it’s connectivity feature with 5G capabilities will also help its cause.

realme 10 Specs and Price

6.4-inch FHD+ (2400 x 1080) Super AMOLED display, 409ppi
90Hz refresh rate
Corning Gorilla Glass 5
MediaTek Helio G99 SoC
Mali-G57 MC2 GPU
8GB RAM
128GB, 256GB storage
microSD card support (dedicated slot)
Dual-rear cameras: 50MP main and 2MP black and white
16MP front camera
Dual-SIM
4G LTE
WiFi 5
Bluetooth 5.3
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS
USB-C port
3.5mm audio jack
Fingerprint scanner (side)
realme UI 3.0 (Android 12)
5,000mAh battery w/ 33W SuperVOOC fast charging
159.9 mm x 73.3 mm x 7.95 mm
178 g

Price: 8GB + 128GB is priced at PHP 12,999, while the 8GB + 256GB is at PHP 14,999.  

About Nonoy Taclino

Nonoy Taclino is a pioneer blogger and social media manager in Iloilo, with 15 years of experience under his belt.

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