The Realme 10 is one of the latest offerings from the Chinese smartphone brand that aims to deliver high performance and build quality at an affordable price. It sports a stylish design, a stunning display, a mid-range processor, and a set of cameras that promise to be able to shoot beautiful photos and videos. Would you like to know more about it and see how the Realme 10 Android smartphone fares in real life? If you do, you should read this review:
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The box of the realme 10
Unboxing the Realme 10 reveals everything you get: the smartphone, a 33W fast charger together with a detachable USB-A to C cable, a transparent silicon cover, a SIM ejection tool, and two booklets containing the user manual, warranty details, and safety information.
What's inside the box of the realme 10
The unboxing experience offered by the Realme 10 smartphone is to my liking. Unlike other manufacturers, Realme doesn’t give you just the smartphone but also a rich bundle that includes a fast charger and a protective cover for the phone.
The Realme 10 is a 6.4" Android smartphone
The model I received in testing was the Clash White version. Its back features a shade of white filled with shimmering colors that sometimes look like sparkling dots, while other times, they give out gradients of light. I must say that it looks beautiful and almost made me give in to the temptation of not using the silicon cover bundled in the packaging. There’s also another color version for the Realme 10, called Rush Black, that appears to look just as great as the white one.
The color options for the Realme 10
Realme 10’s front is covered by Gorilla Glass 5 and is filled almost entirely by the large screen, which, thanks to its AMOLED panel, looks great both in terms of color and brightness. The bezels surrounding the screen are rounded on the corners, and they’re also slim, except for the bottom one, which is slightly thicker. The only thing that breaks the symmetry is a tiny hole in the top-left corner of the display, where the selfie camera resides.
Realme 10 sports a Super AMOLED display
The edges of the Realme 10 are slightly angled, falling onto the frame that appears to be made of plastic materials, just like the back cover of the phone. The grip is good, though, and the edges look quite solid. On the bottom, you’ll find the USB-C port, the loudspeaker to the right, the main microphone, and a 3.5 mm audio jack to the left.
There's a 3.5 mm audio jack on the Realme 10
The left edge houses the SIM and MicroSD cards tray, while on the top edge, there’s nothing except for the auxiliary microphone.
Realme 10 has a three-slot SIM tray
The power button, which also acts as a fingerprint reader, and the volume rocker are all located on the right edge of the Realme 10, towards the top.
The fingerprint reader is built into the power button
The main camera system on the rear side of the smartphone is made of two large round camera housings and a small LED flash. I love the ring-like design of the cameras, as it feels both professional and simple. The cameras stand out not just in the figurative sense but also in the physical, objective one. Unless you put the smartphone inside a case, it will wobble on any plane surface you place it on.
The rear cameras are inside protruding rings
I like the overall look of the Realme 10, as its outward appearance indicates both beauty and a semblance of order and simplicity. The build quality seems good too, and the smartphone feels well-made. The only thing I can complain about is that the company didn’t certify the Realme 10 for resistance against water or dust, so care is advised in this regard.
Realme 10 is powered by a Helio G99 processor
Out of the full 128 GB of storage, roughly 107 GB are free to use. The rest (21 GB) is taken by the operating system and default apps. Fortunately, you can also expand the available storage space by adding a MicroSD card. By the way, although the Realme 10 is a dual SIM smartphone that accepts two nano-SIM cards, the storage card has its dedicated slot on the SIM tray.
The SIM and MicroSD card tray
Realme 10’s screen is based on a Super AMOLED panel with a 6.4-inch size, an aspect ratio of 20:9, and a resolution of 1080 by 2400 pixels. That translates into an excellent ppi density of 411 pixels per inch. Moreover, it also offers a high refresh rate of 90 Hz and a peak brightness of 1000 nits (candela per square meter). The display is protected by high-quality Corning Gorilla Glass 5.
The display supports a refresh rate of 90 Hz
In terms of cameras, the Realme 10 offers a dual-camera setup on its rear as well as a front camera:
The main camera has a 50-megapixel sensor
Regarding network compatibility, you might want to know that Realme 10 supports dual-band Wi-Fi 5 on the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands but isn’t compatible with Wi-Fi 6. It also offers Bluetooth 5.3 and, depending on the region you get the smartphone, NFC. As for sensors, besides the fingerprint reader built into the power button, the Realme 10 also includes an accelerometer, a proximity sensor, a compass, and a gyroscope.
Powering the Realme 10 is a non-removable Li-Po accumulator with a capacity of 5000 mAh. It’s a large battery that should keep the smartphone running for more than a day. Moreover, the phone also supports fast charging, and the bundled charger can deliver 33W, which the company promises will take the battery from 0 to 50% in 28 minutes.
If you’d like to get into detail about all the features and technical specifications, check out Realme 10’s official webpage.
Access the next page of this review to read more about the user experience offered by the Realme 10, the quality of its cameras, its performance in benchmarks, and the software you get with this smartphone.
Watching videos on the Realme 10 is a treat
The loudspeaker is relatively powerful, and the sound is punchy, although it doesn’t impress in terms of low frequencies. It gets the job done, but I recommend using a pair of headphones for better audio quality, especially if you like watching movies on your smartphone.
As strange as it may sound, gaming on the Realme 10 proved to be one of the things I savored the most. The Helio G99 chipset powering this smartphone might be a mid-range one, but it’s quite good at gaming. All the games I tried ran well and without any lags or stuttering. Notwithstanding the fact that I used automatic quality settings, the games usually adjusted their graphics to medium and sometimes high quality. Moreover, the framerate was high enough to offer a smooth, fluid experience, and the smartphone didn’t get hot even after long gaming sessions.
Gaming on medium graphics quality is excellent
Interacting with the smartphone’s user interface and apps, as well as browsing the web, were up to standard. Animations, transitions, loading, and the interaction, in general, are fast and smooth, so I’ve got no complaints in this area.
Realme 10 offers high performance for daily tasks
The smartphone’s fingerprint sensor that’s built into the power button is reasonably fast. It usually registered my fingerprint accurately, but there were times when it simply refused to. However, this happened only a couple of times in two weeks, so I won’t count it as a negative aspect.
Battery life is outstanding! The large 5000 mAh accumulator can keep the Realme 10 running for two days easily if you’re not playing a lot of games or shooting tons of photographs and videos. On top of that, the Realme 10 can also charge quickly. According to my measurements, it takes 74 minutes to get from 0 to 100% using its bundled 33W fast charger, which is excellent considering the battery’s capacity!
Realme 10 charges from 0 to 100% in 74 minutes
For everyday use, the Realme 10 is a fine Android smartphone. Launching apps is fast, and the user interface is snappy. The smartphone’s display looks great, the audio quality during phone calls is top-notch, the battery life is stellar, and charging is fast. It’s great even for gaming, albeit on medium graphics quality settings.
There's no ultrawide camera on the Realme 10
The Camera app has a simple user interface that offers all the standard shooting modes you’d expect. Navigating it is easy and intuitive, and if you’ve ever used a smartphone for taking pictures, you won’t have any problems understanding what’s what. It’s worth pointing out that the cameras support HDR, night mode, and AI Scene detection. Zooming is also possible, but 2x is the maximum recommended, as anything above that will result in poor quality. 2x is also just a cropping result, by the way, not something achieved by using the actual lens.
The Camera app is easy to use
Getting to the photo quality, I must say that if the lighting is good, the photographs are generally good too. The contrast is OK, and the colors look correct and feel natural. Some lack of detail and over-sharpening is visible though, even in photos shot outdoors.
Over-sharpening is visible in outdoor photos
Photographs shot at night are OK, too. There’s noise in them, but that’s to be expected in poor lighting conditions. The exposure is appropriate, and the colors appear to be quite accurate. Enabling the Night Mode leads to an increase in noise, but colors still feel natural, and the exposure seems a bit better than for photos shot without Night Mode.
Night shots have decent quality
I like the way portraits and selfies are captured. Both the front and rear cameras do quite a good job of separating the subject from the background, even if this is likely a software thing. Skin tones and textures are realistic, and color reproduction is natural.
Selfie portraits are of good quality
In terms of video, both the front and rear cameras are limited to 1080p resolution, and while both can record at a framerate of 30 fps, the back camera also supports 60 fps. As this is a mid-range smartphone, I won’t count the lack of 4K video recording as a negative either. However, I don’t like the fact that the smartphone doesn’t offer any kind of image stabilization, neither optical nor electronic, for any of its cameras.
Videos come out with realistic colors and good contrast. As long as your hand doesn’t shake, the results are good in this regard. To get an idea of what to expect, here’s what a relatively static video looks like:
Next, take a look at what the smartphone’s main camera can do when shooting a more dynamic video with more movement involved:
The cameras offered by the Realme 10 smartphone are average, not outstanding, but not bad either. Photo quality is generally good in adequate lighting and decent at night, just as videos look good if your hand doesn’t shake.
Realme 10 received an update to Android 13 and Realme UI 4.0
Regarding long-term support, I didn’t find detailed information about the Realme 10 smartphone. However, if Realme’s update policy holds true, it should get three operating system updates and up to four years of security updates.
Apart from all the standard Google apps that come with the Android operating system, the Realme 10 also includes the following pre-installed applications:
Apps and games bundled with the Realme 10
I appreciate the clean user interface and the prompt updates for both Android and Realme UI. However, the number of bundled apps is a bit high. Some of them, like games, shopping apps, and social networking apps, are quite unnecessary. A better approach would’ve been for Realme to let the user choose more of the apps they want to install.
Benchmark results in Geekbench 6
The second benchmarking app that I used was 3DMark. In the Wild Life test, the Realme 10 scored 1369 points, while in Sling Shot, it got 3637 points. While not formidable by any measure, these scores show that the smartphone is capable of running games at good framerates on medium graphics quality settings.
Benchmark results in 3DMark
I continued with running PCMark for Android, a benchmarking app that can test the daily performance of smartphones, as well as the battery life you should expect in real-world situations. While the 10821 points Realme 10 got in the Work 3.0 performance test is a good score, the really impressive part is the 16 hours it managed to run on battery: outstanding!
Benchmark result and battery life in PCMark 10
The last aspect I checked was the wireless performance of the Realme 10, which supports Wi-Fi 5 but not Wi-Fi 6. Using Ookla’s Speedtest app, I measured the Wi-Fi speed on my 1 Gbps internet connection. The results were excellent for a Wi-Fi 5 device, as the Realme 10 achieved a speed of 253 Mbps for download and 322 Mbps for upload. Speedtest also showed that the smartphone should have no trouble at all streaming videos and movies in 4K resolution.
Internet speed results in Speedtest
According to the benchmarks results, the Realme 10 is a capable mid-range smartphone that delivers solid performance both in productivity tasks and gaming. Its chipset can handle most apps and games smoothly and without lag. However, in order to avoid stuttering in games with high system requirements, you might want to use their medium or automatic graphics quality presets. The battery life of the Realme 10 is exceptional and should easily keep you going for about two days.
Realme 10: Who is it good for?
The Realme 10 is an Android smartphone that you should get if:- You want an affordable phone with good performance
- You desire a beautiful smartphone
- You’re looking for a phone with great battery life and fast charging
Pros and cons
Here’s what I like about the Realme 10:
- Bright and colorful AMOLED screen with a 90 Hz refresh rate
- Excellent performance in daily use
- Gaming is smooth on medium graphics quality settings
- Large 5000 mAh battery and outstanding autonomy
- Fast charging, and a 33W charger is bundled in the package
- Clean user interface based on Android 12, upgradable to Android 13
- No ultrawide camera, and photo/video quality is average
- No certification for protection against water or dust
- Some of the bundled apps are unnecessary
Verdict
Overall, I think that the Realme 10 is a good Android smartphone that delivers what it promises. It offers good performance, a beautiful display, decent cameras, and outstanding battery life. Furthermore, you get all of that in an attractive body with an elegant design and at an affordable price point. While it might not have some advanced features or high-end specifications that other more expensive phones have, it will still provide a satisfying user experience for most people.Unboxing the Realme 10
If you’ve had a Realme smartphone before, you’ll instantly recognize the bright yellow of the box in which the Realme 10 arrives. The black fonts and yellow background are, after all, something of a trademark for Realme. The front of the box is minimalistic, sharing only the model name, while the bottom holds details about the main features of the phone together with some of its more technical specifications.Design and build quality
With a 6.4-inch screen, the Realme 10 is a large smartphone, measuring 159.90 mm (6.30 inches) in length and 73.30 mm (2.89 inches) in width. Still, it’s slim and lightweight, with a thickness of 8 millimeters (0.31 inches) and a weight of just 178 grams (6.28 oz). Given its dimensions, this smartphone might be tricky to use with just one hand unless you have long fingers. However, if you’ve already come to terms with owning a large phone, you’ll probably like the svelteness of the Realme 10.Hardware specifications
The Realme 10 is powered by a mid-range Helio G99 chipset made by MediaTek. This is a 4G SoC (System on a Chip), built on a thin 6 nm manufacturing process, that incorporates an octa-core processor (two 2.20 GHz Cortex-A76 cores and six 2.00 GHz Cortex-A55 cores) and a Mali-G57 MC2 graphics unit. Regarding memory, the smartphone is sold in various configurations with 4, 6, or 8 GB of RAM. Storage-wise, you can get the phone with 64, 128, or 256 GB of UFS 2.2 internal flash memory. The Realme 10 sample that I’m reviewing is equipped with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage.- The main (wide) camera has a 50-megapixel sensor, an aperture of f/1.8, and support for phase-detection autofocus (PDAF).
- The secondary rear camera is a depth camera with 2 megapixels and an f/2.4 aperture.
- On the front, the selfie camera uses a 16-megapixels sensor with an aperture of f/2.5.
The smartphone experience on the Realme 10
I’ll start this section with the most basic part of any smartphone: the phone part. 🙂 In my experience, the Realme 10 is a great phone when it comes to making and receiving calls. The reception is excellent, and the audio quality during calls is great. Both parties involved in a phone call are able to understand each other well, the voices sound clear, and the volume is high. The AMOLED display is nice too, and not only for reading or browsing the web but also for watching movies and videos. I enjoyed the latter quite a bit while I had the Realme 10 in testing. Moreover, I can also say that the screen’s brightness is more than adequate, as I had no issues understanding what was displayed even when I used the phone outdoors on a sunny day.The camera experience on the Realme 10
NOTE: For optimization purposes, the pictures in this review are resized. If you want to see the full-sized original photos and videos I shot with the Realme 10, open this gallery: The Realme 10 promises quite a lot when it comes to its cameras. Alas, things aren’t as bright as the manufacturer would have us believe. While not bad at all, the photo and video quality is what I’d call adequate, not outstanding. Worth noting that, unlike its predecessor, the Realme 9, the Realme 10 doesn’t have an ultrawide camera. Its rear camera system features only a main wide camera with a 50-megapixel sensor and a sidekick camera for depth. On the front, the 16-megapixel camera seems to be identical to the one on the older Realme 9.Android 12 (upgradeable to Android 13) and bundled apps
If there’s one thing most people who’ve ever had a Realme smartphone appreciate, I believe it is software. Realme smartphones usually come with the latest available version of Android and a clean user interface. This holds true for the Realme 10 I’m reviewing right now. When I got it, the smartphone came with Android 12, but after a few days, I received a notification that an update to Android 13 was available to download and install. Similarly, on top of the original Android 12, the phone had Realme UI 3.0, but it didn’t take long for the smartphone to receive an update to Realme UI 4.0 too. This is a launcher that offers a relatively simple user interface, close to that of the original Android, but with a couple of additional personalization options that include icon packs, fonts, and colors.- Amazon: the app of the well-known online store
- Booking: useful for planning trips and making hotel reservations
- Bolt: handy when you need a taxi service
- Compass: a simple app that indicates the cardinal points
- Calculator: can be of service when you’re struggling with math
- Clock: does what it says, which is telling what time it is 🙂
- Clone Phone: helps you migrate your data from your old phone to your new Realme 10
- Facebook: the app of the popular social network
- Facemoji Keyboard: a keyboard app that allows you to use custom emojis, keyboard themes, GIF animations, etc.
- Games: a hub where you can find and manage all the games installed on the Realme 10
- Joom: a shopping platform for products made in China
- LinkedIn: the app of the popular business and employment-focused social network
- Lords Mobile: Kingdom Wars: a mobile strategy game set in a fantasy world where players build and manage their own kingdoms and armies, and battle others in real-time
- My Files: useful for managing the files and folders on your smartphone
- Music: an app that helps you manage and play your music
- Phone Manager: helps you keep an eye on the wellbeing of your smartphone and perform optimizations
- Recorder: lets you record sound using the phone’s microphones
- Screen Lock: does one thing only, and that’s to lock your screen as soon as you tap on this app 🙂
- SHAREit: allows you to share and transfer files
- Sneaker Art: a game where you can paint sneakers and other footwear, and sell them in your own shoe store
- Spotify: the popular music streaming service
- ThiefPuzzle: a game in which you have to set the trajectory of your thief’s arm in order to steal things
- TikTok: the gate to the social network bearing the same name
- Videos: a relatively simple app that lets you play locally stored videos
- Weather: displays the weather forecast for the upcoming days
Performance in benchmarks
We’ve seen what the Realme 10 smartphone looks like and what it feels like using it, and we also know what its specs are. But using and telling you about it is one thing, and actual performance is another thing. To give you a clearer picture of the latter, I ran a series of benchmarks on the Realme 10. Here’s what they show: The first benchmarking app I ran was Geekbench. In its tests, the Realme 10 got a Single-Core score of 636 points and a Multi-Core score of 1817 points. The GPU Compute scores were 1442 for OpenCL and 1423 for Vulkan. All these results point out the same thing: the smartphone has a mid-range chipset, offering performance levels similar to other mid-range Android smartphones like the OnePlus Nord CE 5G, the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G, or the Motorola Edge 30 Neo.
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