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Realme 10 Pro is available globally starting December 8, 2022. We at AndroidHeadlines have reviewed a lot of Realme devices in the past. The new Realme 10 Pro compares quite well to the Realme 9 5G that we reviewed back in August of this year.
The new Realme 10 Pro starts at $319 for the base 8GB RAM with 128GB storage but looks like you can get it for a bit cheaper right out of the gate from some vendors. This means that the new device should be quite tempting for folks wanting to upgrade their smartphone for the holiday season.
Realme 10 Pro Unboxing
The unboxing experience is pretty much the same as always. There is the familiar yellow and black theme retail box. Inside is the insert with paperwork, a smoke-gray TPU case, and a SIM tool. Underneath is the smartphone followed by a 33W fast-charging brick and a USB-C cable.
A couple of things to note here – smoke-gray TPU case is likely to not get discolored easily (something Xiaomi should pay attention to). Also, there’s already a film screen protector on the device from the factory. This allows you to start using the smartphone as soon as it is out of the box.
Realme 10 Pro: Hardware Impressions
The Nebula Blue review unit of the Realme 10 Pro looks absolutely gorgeous. I like the uninterrupted matte back cover with the two camera lenses sticking out. Definitely gives the smartphone a unique look in my view.
Aside from looking great, the Realme 10 Pro has a stellar feature – a headphone jack! On the bottom rail, you have the headphone jack along with cutouts for the microphone, bottom speaker grille, and USB-C charging port. On the left-hand side rail, you can see the dual-SIM/microSD card tray slot. The top rail has a tiny circular hole for the second microphone. And finally, on the right-hand side rail, there is a power button/fingerprint sensor and a volume rocker.
The flat edges all around give it a modern look reminiscent of the newer iPhones and Redmi Note 11 series devices. The other thing that is flat on this smartphone is the front display, which is a good choice. The bezels surrounding the display are absolutely minimal barring a slightly chunky bottom chin. Keep in mind that the bottom chin on budget offerings from Xiaomi or Motorola are way thicker in contrast to the Realme 10 Pro.
Another neat feature is the top earpiece speaker grille which is embedded in the top part of the frame. This shows that Realme spent a reasonable amount of engineering effort. They could have just cobbled together something from prior generations considering that this is primarily a budget smartphone.
Display on the Realme 10 Pro is massive with a 120Hz refresh rate
With the newer hardware design, we get a larger 6.72-inch display on the Realme 10 Pro. The flat display has a 120Hz refresh rate and great color accuracy. Brightness levels are good enough for outdoor visibility. Sometimes actual performance is what matters and not specs and this is the case with the Realme 10 Pro display. It is bright and vivid without having any glaring color aberrations or oversaturation.
The only knock against the display is that it is not AMOLED. Having said that it is still one of the best IPS LCD displays in the category and is way better than comparable smartphones from Xiaomi. And it is definitely better in terms of brightness levels compared to the Realme 9 5G that we reviewed a few months ago.
In terms of resolution, the IPS LCD display has 2410 x 1080 pixels with a 392 ppi pixel density. With tiny side and top bezels and a slightly big bottom chin, the Realme 10 Pro ekes out an 89.8% screen-to-body ratio which is quite good for the price range. My prediction is that most users will love the large display for media consumption from browsing, to gaming to watching videos.
Performance is more than adequate for daily tasks including gaming
Realme 10 Pro uses a Snapdragon 695 5G processor (6nm TSMC process). The octa-core (2×2.2 GHz Kryo 660 Gold & 6×1.7 GHz Kryo 660 Silver) processor also has the Adreno 619 GPU.
Geekbench scores are quite good and comparable to other smartphones running on the same processor. Keep in mind that a Pixel 5 running on Snapdragon 765 has inferior scores to the Realme 10 Pro. So from a daily use perspective, the Realme 10 Pro has plenty of processing power for all of your daily tasks including gaming.
Speaking of gaming, the Realme 10 Pro does not have a dedicated gaming mode. However, you can go into the Battery > More settings > Performance Mode > High performance mode. This will let you crank up the system performance while gaming, although it may drain the battery a bit more than usual. My review unit has 8GB base RAM with an option to add an additional 8GB RAM via the Dynamic RAM function in the About device settings menu.
Realme 10 Pro is available in three variants – 6GB/128GB and 8GB/128GB or 8GB/256GB. Since base storage is now 128GB I would get the higher RAM version versus the higher storage version as this phone still has a micro SD card slot available.
Software on the Realme 10 Pro is Android 13
Our review unit of the Realme 10 Pro has a custom realme UI 4.0 based on Android 13. Besides the Pixel series, these are some of the first smartphones running Android 13 out of the box, which is nice. However, you will be hard-pressed to find any noticeable difference from realme UI 3.0 which was based on Android 12.
It should be noted here that we did like realme UI 3.0 which was fast and fluid and pretty close to what you get on stock Android. The newer version of the software has a few new features but for the most part, behaves like the prior version and that is not a bad thing.
Media controls, notifications, and quick control settings are the biggest visual changes. Also, the most useful feature from a software perspective is ‘Special features’ section in settings. I think Split screen, flexible windows, and Smart Sidebar are all things you can use regularly to improve your productivity.
As usual, there is a full suite of Google apps and no duplicate apps (someone tell this to Samsung please). Bloatware is minimal, and you can uninstall every single pre-installed app. There are still a few quirks – no Google Discover yet when you swipe left from the home screen. And the dreaded ‘Hot Games’ and ‘Hot Apps’ folders are installed so you will need to do a bit of work to hide them away.
Overall though, the software experience is smooth right from the get-go. And thankfully the UI does not bother you with ads that you get on budget devices from Xiaomi or POCO.
Battery life is excellent although charging speeds could be better
There is a massive 5,000 mAh battery onboard the Realme 10 Pro. Also the 6nm process Snapdragon 695 is very power efficient and so for moderate users, 2-day battery life is quite feasible on the Realme 10 Pro. I can definitely see heavy users needing a charger late in the evening though if you decide to game for an hour or two during the day.
As far as charging goes, there is a 33W charging brick in the box. Charging speeds are decent, you get about 60% charge in 30 minutes. It does take about an hour and 10 minutes to get to full charge though. My guess is most folks will charge the phone overnight but if you do need a top-up in the day keep in mind that the charging speeds aren’t blazing fast.
Audio performance is excellent
Somehow Realme managed to fit a set of stereo speakers on the Realme 10 Pro. As usual, the main one is at the bottom side of the frame, while the second speaker is up top which is also the earpiece for calls. For the most part, the speakers sound loud and clear but the bottom speaker does most of the heavy lifting.
In terms of sound quality, I would have liked to see a bit more bass. Overall though the speakers are quite good for the price and the main redeeming feature is the excellent headphone jack. Every time I review a device with a headphone jack, I think that the entire TWS earbuds industry is a pure money grab inspired by Apple.
I would like to point out that the ‘Real Sound Technology’ setting in the Sound & Vibration menu works great with or without the headphones and does help with the overall audio performance. Audio output via Bluetooth is quite good, for the review I used a pair of Realme TWS earbuds. But I still recommend using wired earbuds over wireless ones.
Realme 10 Pro Camera performance is very good
For starters, Realme 10 Pro has just one usable camera on its back because the second camera is basically a 2MP depth sensor. However, the main camera is a massive 108MP 1/1.67″ sensor that is arguably one of the best in this price range. The main camera has an f/1.8 aperture, 0.64µm pixels, and on the front, there is a 16MP. f/2.5 selfie camera.
Daylight photos are great, low light pictures are acceptable
In broad daylight, Realme 10 Pro produces pictures with a high level of detail, colors that are not too saturated, and acceptable levels of contrast with a wide dynamic range. The software doesn’t show a tendency to over-sharpen the photos which is nice. Lastly, it manages to render pictures with good levels of detail and a low amount of noise even in shadows. This holds true for outdoor and indoor photos during daytime.
Low light pictures are good in general but they do lack detail and sharpness isn’t that great in auto Night mode. But manual night mode tends to provide much better results even though color reproduction looks like it can be a bit artificial. Take a look at some sample pictures in our Flickr gallery and decide for yourself.
Realme 10 Pro Camera Samples – Flickr Gallery
There is an option for 3X zoom, however, that is just digital zoom but since this is a large 108MP sensor you can get some really nice photos especially in daylight with a still subject. It is interesting that in Night Mode you only get 2X zoom instead of 3X in daytime.
Selfies are okay for the most part if you are going to share them on social media. Overall detail and sharpness aren’t that great and to get the best results you need good daylight. Portrait mode is also not that great on the Realme 10 Pro especially if there is a bit of depth to the subject.
Connectivity wise there are no real showstoppers
I was able to get T-Mobile 5G signal for data connection right out of the box on the Realme 10 Pro here in Southern California. Calls went through without any issues as well. Texts and MMS service also did not require any tweaking of APN settings. So even though this is not a USA-specific device, I had no issues using it during my review period.
All other connectivity options – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth pairing with the car or headphones, and NFC for Google Pay worked seamlessly. In addition, there’s Screencast and Nearby Share available for viewing media or sharing files. The ability to control smart devices is built right into the quick settings toggle down which is very convenient.
Realme 10 Pro Verdict
I really like the new design language for the Realme 10 Pro in contrast to last year’s 9 series of smartphones. For around $300 you are getting a smartphone with good performance, fluid software, excellent battery life, and a big bold 120Hz display. You also get loud dual speakers and a headphone jack. Couple these features with a fast fingerprint sensor, NFC, 5G connectivity, and 33W fast charging and there’s not much you need in comparison to phones that cost double the price.
Yes, there is no wide-angle camera on the rear, nor 4K video recording capability on the Realme 10 Pro. But the main camera produces some of the best pictures for still photography aside from Google’s excellent Pixel series.
If you are in a geographic location where this phone is available and you can live with an IPS LCD display, then you should definitely give the Realme 10 Pro a close look.
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