Yes finally! After the warm reception of the previously launched 8 Series- realme 8 and realme 8 Pro, realme Philippines is once again up with another revolutionary offering with the launch of their newest smartphone with 5G capability under their mid-range category… The realme 8 5G.
5G connectivity is always one of the main talks whenever there’s a smartphone launch nowadays, and question like “Is it 5G already?” is always raised. So what is 5G connectivity? its benefits? According to Qualcomm.com, “5G enables a new kind of network that is designed to connect virtually everyone and everything together including machines, objects, and devices. 5G wireless technology is meant to deliver higher multi-Gbps peak data speeds, ultra low latency, more reliability, massive network capacity, increased availability, and a more uniform user experience to more users.”
So if you are planning to buy a budget-friendly 5G-capable android smartphone with some impressive specs, the realme 8 5G could be just what you need. As you read further, let me give you a run down on what realme 8 5G smartphone can do based on my hands-on experience.
WHAT’S INSIDE THE BOX?
- 18W Quick Charger
- USB Type-C Cable
- Protective Case
- Quick Guide
- Important Info Booklet with Warranty Card
To see actual unboxing, watch the video below:
DESIGN AND DISPLAY
If you noticed, the “Dare To Leap” design tagline is non-existent anymore on the realme 8 5G compared to its siblings in the 8 series. With this specific model, realme decided to go for a classic look with just a small realme logo. The curvy and glossy back panel is made from high quality plastic material which reflects a speed light design(for me more like a pearly glass kind of reflection in actual) that gives this smartphone a premium feel especially when light strikes on it. 
Since it has a glossy finish, it has the tendency to have fingerprint and dirt smudges. But good thing this smartphone’s package comes with a free phone case to prevent this from happening.
realme 8 5G has a super slim design with just 8.5mm thickness which is comfortable and easy to grip when being held. Knowing its battery capacity, surprisingly, this smartphone is lightweight weighing only 185g.
Other aspects of the design remain mostly the same, that includes the 3.5mm headphone jack, USB-C port, mic, and single speaker grille at the bottom. On the left side, you’ll see the volume rocker, 3-card slot for two SIM cards(5G-dual sim standby) with one SD card slot which is expandable up to 1TB. On the opposite side is where Power Button which has the Fingerprint Sensor integrated to it(not in-display compared to realme 8 and pro models). The back panel houses the triple camera module with LED flash, while the punch hole front camera for selfie is located at the front panel.
Screen display came different this time with the realme 8 5G, as it opted to go for an IPS LCD panel instead of the AMOLED screen. But you know what? The IPS LCD still delivers clear, vibrant and slightly saturated display. To the untrained eye, it looks almost the same with the AMOLED screen.
With the rm 8 5G, the screen is slightly bigger at 6.5-inch FHD+(20:9 aspect ratio-2400 x 1080 resolution), with a high 90Hz refresh rate, and a 180Hz maximum sampling rate. I ran all the usual smartphone tasks on my rm 8 5G such as browsing through different apps, scrolling through social media and websites and had no complaints with the display’s performance. Honestly, I hardly noticed any latency while doing it and this phone reacts instantly with every swipe and touch well-enough for me to enjoy my viewing, browsing, and gaming experience on a breeze. What’s good about this phone is that you can manually adjust the screen refresh rate to from 90Hz down to 60Hz, or set it on Auto.
Know the difference of refresh rate and sampling rate here:
- Touch Sampling Rate is a frequency of a screen to register a touch by the user. It means that how many numbers of times in a second the screen will look for touch input. It is measured in Hz like 60Hz, 90Hz.(Source:https://c.realme.com/in/)
- Screen Refresh Rate of any display, be it onsmartphone, TV, Laptops, etc. is nothing but a count of their content refreshing in one second. It means that the number of times the pixels of the display refreshes in each second or in other words ‘How quickly the display updates itself’. For example, refresh rate like 60Hz means that the display refreshes itself 60 times in a second, 120Hz means that it would be refreshed 120 times in a second. (Source:https://c.realme.com/in/)
Using this phone under direct sunlight is easy because the screen has a maximum screen brightness of 600nits which is very helpful when i’m outdoors, I can still view the details on my screen clearly.
CUSTOMIZATION
CAMERA
Click here to see more front camera selfie sample shots in high resolution.
Let’s start with the front camera. Same with the other realme 8 Series phones, the realme 8 5G is equipped with 16MP in-display front camera which can take very nice quality selfie photos especially when the Portrait and Beautification Modes are activated. You can turn it off if you want and prefer a more natural look. Picture quality is really impressive as it shows accurate colors, good details and dynamic range.
<
There’s also this feature within the front camera Portrait Mode where you can adjust the bokeh percentage(yellow circle in the upper left corner of the camera view panel) from subtle (1%) to a totally blurred background(100%). Several AI Filters are also available if you want to add up some visual impact to your selfies. You can also do Time-Lapse and Panoramic shots using the front camera. For Video Recording it supports UIS Video Stabilization, and can record 1080P/30fps or 720P/30fps videos.
As for the rear camera, the realme 8 5G has a triple-lens rear camera set-up consisting of 48MP main + 2MP Macro Lens(f/2.4 Aperture), and 2MP B&W Portrait Lens(f/2.4 Aperture). Picture quality wise, the 48MP camera mode produces pretty decent photos when there’s proper lighting exposure. The color saturation, reproduction, sharpness, and details are good for its price point. For me, it lacks a bit of texture but still good and acceptable. If you want to have more vibrant and detailed photos, turning on the AI Scene Enhancement feature will do the work.
File size could be a bit massive when taking photos in 48MP mode with AI enhancement, but don’t worry because this smartphone’s storage capacity is big at 8GB ROM+128GB RAM plus you have the option to use up to 1TB SD card. So more photos, more videos, apps and files that you can save. Unfortunately, Ultra-wide lens is not available in this phone, but if you want to capture a wider shot of your landscape subject, I suggest that you use either the 16:9 aspect ratio frame size or the Panorama feature. It will do the trick.
Here are some photo samples of the 48MP Camera (AI Enhancement Off).
Click photo to enlarge. For high resolution photos click here.
Sample shots of the 48MP rear camera below (AI Enhancement On).
Click photo to enlarge. For high resolution photos click here.
Click photo to enlarge. For high resolution photos click here.
The 2MP Macro Lens(f/2.4 Aperture) takes satisfactory photos when you get the distance right(4cm). The photo results came out sharp, contrasty, and the color reproduction is ok. Though the details lacks a bit, but still acceptable.
Click photo to enlarge. For high resolution photos click here.
The rear camera’s Portrait mode delivers nice quality photos. Just like the front camera’s portrait mode, the depth of field is on point and you can adjust the blur effect’s percentage depending on how soft you want your background to be. I noticed though on the photo output that my skin tone has that slightly warm orange tone and it was soften as if there’s AI beautification. Overall, it is still a nice picture.
Taking photos at night time is easy with realme 8 5G’s Night Mode. You know the dilemma when taking photos when there’s no enough light source right?. I took it for a test and the camera struggles to lock focus, but comparing it to the 12MP main camera photo, the Night Mode slightly improved image details and contrast, and as you can see, there’s still a lot of grain, noise, and lack in clarity in the photo results.
Click photo to enlarge. For high resolution photos click here.<
To make your night photos more exciting and extraordinary, you can use Night Mode’s Built-in Filters such as Modern Gold, Cyber Punk, Flamingo, Astral, and Dazzle. Each filter has a certain color hue and ambiance that will give each of your night photos a different look. Use these filters on photo subjects with adequate lighting and for sure you will get amazing photo results.
Other rear camera Modes available: Slo-Mo, Time-Lapse, Expert, Panorama, Text Scanner. For Video Recording, it supports UIS Video Stabilization, UIS Max Video Stabilization and can record 1080P/30fps , 720P/30fps, and 720p/120fps slow motion videos.
PERFORMANCE
realme 8 5G is powered by 7nm MediaTek Dimensity 700 5G chipset which mixes two highly capable Arm Cortex-A76 cores in its octa-core CPU with clock speed of 2.0 GHz. For your gaming experience and everyday usage, i believe this combination is standard enough. Another important addition to this phone is the Mali-G57 MC2 graphics unit which offers high-quality images giving rm 8 5g users an improved visual experience.>
So I tested how this phone would perform while playing graphic intensive games like Mobile Legends, Call of Duty and Asphalt. rm 8 5G can handle it well and it ran smoothly without any lag and jitters, even on high graphic settings. It doesn’t support Ultra Graphics yet on ML though. It does heat up a bit but still manageable and did not affect its performance.
For day-to-day smartphone activities such as browsing, streaming, taking photos or videos from time to time, this phone works efficiently even i’m multi-tasking and I was able to go from app-to-app with ease even with several apps running on the background.
5G CAPABILITY
5G technology is the next big thing in smartphones nowadays and realme is bringing it to their mid-range category line-up, making it more affordable for those opting to shift or upgrade to 5G-capable handset. The product speaks for itself. realme 8 5G is equipped with 5G technology, that means its users can enjoy higher peak data speeds, almost no latency, and more reliability.
Since our area is covered by a certain network’s 5G signal and I’m using their 5G sim card as well, the realme 8 5G can evidently detect it and can be seen on the signal display of the device(as seen in the photo above). I really enjoyed watching high resolution videos in this device since the buffering time is less-to no buffering at all.
When it comes to playing online games like Mobile Legends and COD, I did not experience network signal drop while playing compared to my other phone that sometimes has H+ signal which affects my gaming experience. With the realme 8 5G, there’s no “reconnecting…” notification popping up(for the whole duration that I’m using it), and downloading game packs were much faster(see photos above for comparison). That’s because I get to maximize the power of 5G through this smartphone.
Another nice feature of this device is the Smart 5G Power Saving. Since 5G can consume significantly the device’s power, this feature will avoid strain on its battery life. How does it work? Smart 5G technology can intelligently sense the surrounding signal environment and “senselessly” switch between 4G and 5G without switching time, which achieves 30% lower power consumption than phones without the Smart 5G feature.
BATTERY AND CHARGING
realme 8 5G is equipped with a massive 5000mAh battery which makes it ideal for day-to-day use. It lasted me almost quarter of a day or half a day with heavy usage like browsing social media platforms, watching video, few calls, and playing games(depending on the screen brightness, volume, graphics settings etc.). With light usage, the battery life lasted for about two days. The device supports 18W fast charging, though I find the charging time kinda slow for I was able to fully charge the device from 1% to 100% for 2 hours and 47 mins.(See photo above)
rm 8 5G offers different power saving features. First is the Super Power Saving Mode where it automatically does CPU tuning, backlight adjustment, and other strategies and targeted power-saving measures for specific applications. With this feature, the system power consumption is reduced, and the phone life is extended. There’s also Sleep Standby Optimization, App Quick Freeze, and Screen Battery Optimization to optimize the device for power-saving solutions.
PRICE AND AVAILABILITY
The realme 8 5G (8+128GB) is priced at SRP of PHP11,990 and is available in 2 colors: Supersonic Blue and Supersonic Black. Don’t miss this chance. If you purchase from June 25-27 inrealme stores and partner dealers nationwide, you’ll get a FREE realme Buds Q worth P1,490!
EARLY-BIRD OFFER!
On June 25, the realme 8 5G will be available at P1,500 OFF (P10,490 only) and with FREE SHIPPING via realme’s Official Flagship Store on Shopee.
VERDICT
For a phone under the mid-range category, the realme 8 5G boasts different features that is so worth-it for its price point. Decently high refresh rate screen, good battery life, above average camera quality, good performance in gaming even on high settings-no lags, power-saving features, and to top it all is the 5G-capability. If you are up for this kind of smartphone and is looking for an inexpensive 5G-ready phone, the Realme 8 5G is something you should consider.
realme 8 5G FULL SPECIFICATIONS
Size & Weight
Length: 162.5mm Width: 74.8mm Depth: 8.5mmWeight: ≈185g
Storage
3-Card Slot
RAM: 8GB LPDDR4X
ROM: 128GB UFS 2.1
Up to 1TB External Memory
Display
16.5cm(6.5″) Large Fullscreen 90Hz High Refresh Rate
Resolution: 1080×2400 FHD+
Screen-to-body ratio: 90.5%
PPI: 405
Peak brightness: 600 nits
OperatingSystem
realme UI 2.0 based on Android 11
Processor:
Dimensity 700 5G Processor
Next-Gen 5G Processor
CPU: Octa-core, up to 2.2GHzGPU: ARM Mali-G57
Storage & RAM
3-Card Slot
RAM: 8GB LPDDR4X
ROM: 128GB UFS 2.1
Up to 1TB External Memory
Camera
Rear Camera: 48MP Primary Cameraf/1.8 aperture, 6P lens, PDAF 4cm Macro Lens(f/2.4 Aperture) B&W Portrait Lens(f/2.4 Aperture) Photography Function: Super Nightscape, Panoramic View, Expert, Timelapse, Portrait Mode, HDR, Ultra Macro, AI Scene Recognition, AI Beauty, Filters Video Recording: Support UIS Video Stabilization, UIS Max Video Stabilization, 1080P/30fps video recording, 720P/30fps video recording, 720p/120fps slow motion
Front Camera: 16MP In-display Selfie(f/2.1 aperture), 5P lens Photography Function: Portrait Mode, Panoramic View, AI Beauty, HDR, Face-Recognition, Super Nightscape Video Recording: Support UIS Video Stabilization, 1080P/30fps video recording, 720P/30fps video recording Charging & Battery
18W Quick Charge
5000mAh(typ) Massive Battery
Cellular & Wireless
Cellular: Next-Gen 5G Network, 5G DSDS
Frequency Bands: 2G GSM:850/900/1800/1900
3G: WCDMA:B1/B2/B5/B6/B8/B19
4G: LTETDD:B34/B38/B39/B40/B41(2515-2675MHz)
4G: LTE FDD:B1/B2/B3/B5/B7/B8/B28
5G: NR_NSA n41(2515-2675MHz)/n77/n78
5G: NR_SA n1/n28/n41(2515-2675MHz)/n78
Sensors
Side fingerprint sensor Magnetic induction sensor Light sensor Proximity Sensor Gyro-meterAcceleration sensor Navigation
GPS/A-GPS/BEIDOU/GALILEO/QZSS/GLONASS
#realmePH
#CaptureInfinitePossibilitiesWith5G
