54 TECH ADVISOR • MAY 2021REVIEWS
Android 10 – maytechnicallyonlybein
its first incarnation,but its foundations
in Oppo’sColorOSmakefora farmore
polishedproductthanyoumightexpect
if you’renewtoRealmeasa brand.
It makessomenotablepullsaway
fromGoogle’sstocktakeonAndroid,
butshouldstillfeelintuitivetothose
who’veuseda smartphonein recent
years.Whetherit worksforyouornotis
moreacase of personal preference, with
regards to the aesthetic and interaction
decisions it employs.
A host of supplementary experiences
are what help give Realme UI its unique
flavour. The Smart Sidebar is an ever-
present quick-access menu for your
preferred apps, as well as useful features
like screen recording, while Game
Space is both a place to house all your
downloaded games and also a means
of optimizing device performance and
controlling notifications when gaming.PERFORMANCE
Going in, we were wholly curious as
to how MediaTek’s Dimensity 800U
SoC would handle – being a relatively
unknown quantity – with the Realme 7
5G and Oppo’s Reno 4 Z 5G being the
first devices in Europe to leverage this
particular silicon.
In the case of the 7 5G, it’s paired
with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storagespace, but perhaps most interestingly,
the 800U makes this one of the first
phones to boast 5G+5G DSDS (dual
SIM, dual standby). This means you can
enjoy both high-quality VoNR (Voice
over New Radio) – the 5G equivalent of
VoLTE – and 5G data connectivity across
two compatible SIMs and plans. Great
for those who roam or want more choice
in which 5G services they leverage from
which carriers.
As for raw performance, the
Dimensity 800U inside the Realme 7 5G
proves to be a formidable chip in the
lower mid-range space, going toe-to-toe
with the Snapdragon 690 in the OnePlus
Nord N10 5G, as well as supposedly
more powerful phones like Google’s Pixel
4a 5G, with its Snapdragon 765G – both
pricier handsets outpaced by this more
affordable device.
The 800U’s apparent penchant for
gamingperformanceatthispricepoint- as alluded to in our benchmarking
results – is also reinforced by its real-
world gaming prowess, which allows for
solid 60fps gameplay at high graphics
settings in games like Call of Duty
Mobile, supported by that rapid 180Hz
touch response rate.
Geekbench 5 (multi-core)
Realme 7 5G: 1,777
Realme 7: 1,622