Realme 8i Review: An All-Rounder Smartphone, Worth the Price?

Realme had launched the Realme 8i, the successor of Realme 7i back on September 14, 2021. The device was launched in Nepal in the first week of October. Realme 8i is an all-rounder budget smartphone with a decent display, processor, camera, and battery life. 

Realme 8i offers a lot with its 120Hz refresh rate, 50MP primary lens, and 5000mAh battery. All of the decent features at an affordable price. We had the Realme 8i in the Space Purple color for review. Here’s the detailed review of the Realme 8i.

Realme 8i Review- Specifications

Realme 8i- Overview

Design 

Realme has a history of making good-looking budget smartphones. Realme 8i is another addition to the group. The smartphone has a flat screen with a curved back polished with a gradient finish that spreads beautifully across the frame of the device. We had the Space purple variant that had an attractive uneven transition of purple that hues towards sliver-ish shine. The device is also available in another color variant- Space Black.

Holding the device is easier with the curved back. Also, the device doesn’t weigh much; so, you can carry the device around with much ease. 

However, if you’re shifting to Realme 8i from some Samsung or Mi smartphones, then you may feel that the volume keys on the left frame are quite low. Along with the volume keys, you can find the tri-card slots on the left frame of the device. Besides that, the power button is placed at just about the right place in the right frame of the device. The surface of the power button doubles as an always-on fingerprint scanner as well. Likewise, you can find the 3.55mm headphone jack, Type-C charging port, a mouthpiece, and a speaker on the bottom frame. 

As the back is glossy, it is prone to smudges and fingerprints stamps on it. So, you’ll have to clean the device often.

Display

Moving on to the display, the device flaunts a 6.6-inches IPS LCD with a resolution of 1080 x 2412 pixels. Even though the device had an IPS LCD panel, the color saturation and contrast are acceptable. Furthermore, the device features a refresh rate of a whopping 120Hz and a touch sampling rate of 180Hz. 

At the top left corner, the device has a punch-hole cutout that houses the selfie camera. Likewise, you can find one thin grille for the earpiece, which is not the second speaker.

Performance

Realme 8i boots on Android 11 with Realme UI 2.0 that offers more customization options compared to UI 1.0. So, you can expect a couple of Dark Mode styles, richer floating and mini windows along advanced security.

With the OS, you can customize the smartphone as per your desire or use it as it is. From apps to themes, you can customize everything on the device. Furthermore, the device has many other security and advance features to offer.

Another impressive feature of the device is that the device supports Dynamic RAM Expansion (DRE) that allows you to expand the RAM of your smartphone virtually. With this feature, you can add up to 5GB of virtual RAM using the device’s internal storage.

As for the SoC, the Realme 8i is powered by a MediaTek Helio G96 chipset. Likewise, the graphics of the device is handled by Mali G57 GPU. Even though the SoC is decent enough for the device, the GPU has only a dual-core configuration instead of a quad-core. So, unfortunately, the device doesn’t support a 120Hz refresh rate in games. However, you can still have a decent gaming experience.

As for the heating and cooling system, the device seemed to have a decent cooling system as we were able to play PUBG for up to 20 minutes without having the device warm up.

The device is available in two different storage configurations- 4GB/64GB storage and 6GB/128GB storage. Performance-wise, the device is decent enough for the price.

Camera 

Talking about the camera, Realme 8i features a 50MP primary camera with a wide lens, a 2MP macro shooter, and a 2MP depth sensor. At the front, the device features a 16MP selfie camera housed inside a punch-hole cutout in the top left corner of the device. 

The camera Realme 8i offers at the price is satisfactory. However, it seems to lack some menus and options compared to other Realme and Oppo devices.

Nonetheless, you can get an AI Scene Enhancement, that improves the quality of the photos and videos you capture. Likewise, you can also find an Expert mode with great shutter speed, white balance, manual focus, and exposure. 

The daylight photos and videos the device captures are quite impressive. The photos are detailed with vibrant colors and good contrast. The noise is minimal as well. It’s the same for selfie cameras as the subjects are detailed with accurate and saturated colors. Overall, the cameras Realme 8i offers are impressive. 

However, you might want to refrain from taking photos at night unless it’s in night mode. The photos captured in low light scenes were super grainy and no subject was clear. Even though the night mode can improve the photo quality to some extent, the photos were still not satisfactory.

Battery

Realme 8i is packed with a massive 5000mAh battery with an 18W of fast charging support. The device had a long-lasting standby performance. With the battery, you can last throughout the day without having any problems. 

As for the fast charging support, 18W seems quite less compared to the 30W chargers Realme provides on other smartphones. However, considering the price, it’s just about fine. Furthermore, with the 18W fast charging support, the device can juice up to 80% in just 75 minutes. 

Price

Realme 8i is priced in Nepal at NPR 23,799 for the 4/64GB variant and NPR 27,199 for the 6/128GB variant. The device can be easily purchased from mobile retail shops and different online sites.

Also Read:

• Realme Smartphones Price in Nepal

• Best Smartphones Under Rs. 30000 in Nepal

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