realme 8 Review Philippines: Better with AMOLED

realme 8 Review Philippines: Better with AMOLED

Review verdict: Thanks to a new display and new exterior, the realme 8 is able to stand out despite sporting virtually the same internals as its predecessor in the Philippines. The switch to a nicer-looking and more power-efficient AMOLED panel addressed the mediocre battery life that was present on last year’s model, nearly doubling its overall battery life. 

realme 8 Review Philippines Specs:

    • Helio G95 processor
  • 8GB LPDDR4X RAM
  • 128GB internal storage
  • 6.4-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED display, 180hz touch sampling rate
  • 64-megapixel f/1.9 main camera with PDAF, 8-megapixel f/2.25 ultra-wide-angle camera, 2-megapixel macro camera, 2-megapixel f/2.4 mono camera
  • 16-megapixel f/2.45 IMX 471 selfie camera
  • 4G, LTE
  • WiFi, Bluetooth 5.0, in-display fingerprint scanner
  • 5000mAh battery
  • 30w fast charging
  • Android 11, realme UI 2.0

Pros

  • AMOLED display superior over IPS
  • Vastly better battery life

Cons

  • Inconsistent camera performance
  • Hardware is nearly identical to the realme 7

The mainstream realme series is now on its 7th generation, and the realme 8 aims to address all of the concerns we had with the realme 7 with a new display and a nicer looking back. It’s an iterative upgrade for sure, which begs the question: is there enough new stuff here to warrant a purchase?

Design

Like its Pro sibling, the realme 8 chucks the old gradient-ish design and sticks with a bolder, sleeker two-tone glossy exterior with the brand’s tagline printed on the back. The phone gets a nicer-looking square-ish camera module at the rear as well. As far overall ergonomics goes, the realme 8 still feels much like the realme 7 in the hand.

As for the buttons, the realme 8 switches things up by placing both the power button and volume controls on the right side. You get a conventional power button now too, as the realme 8 now comes with an in-display fingerprint scanner thanks to its AMOLED panel upgrade.

Display

Similarities with the realme 7 aside, the biggest change on the realme 8 is the display. While it is a smidge smaller than the realme 7 at 6.4-inches, you are now getting an AMOLED panel that has an in-display fingerprint scanner–though the refresh rate has been scaled down to a conventional 60Hz from 90Hz. While the refresh rate feels a lot like a downgrade, the better colors and saturation of an AMOLED panel VS an IPS one more than make up for it.

Ugprading to an AMOLED panel nets you deeper blacks and more vibrant colors compared to the realme 7’s IPS panel. It also has a nice side benefit of actually being more power-efficient and the display swap addressed the realme 7’s biggest con – battery life.

Cameras

The realme 8 has the same rear camera setup found on the realme 7 (and realme 7 Pro), consisting of a 64-megapixel f/1.8 Sony IMX682 main camera, 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera, 2-megapixel macro camera, and a 2-megapixel black and white camera for portraits.

Because of the similar camera setup, the overall performance of the realme 8 is similar to the realme 7 in general. We noticed some artificial boosting in photos especially for low-light shots, where excessive sharpening is evident.

While this can be addressed by using Night mode, the realme 8’s hardware and software limitations can only do so much, especially when you start pixel-peeping photos. As for videos, we still advise using a stabilizer or tripod for the realme 8, as its lack of EIS may result in shaky footage.

Internals and battery life

The biggest similarity between the realme 8 and realme 7 lies in the internals, as both phones rock a Helio G95 processor that is paired with 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage.

Despite having the same set of internals, the realme 8 scored better than its predecessor in GeekBench CPU tests. You can chock that up to better optimization, which makes sense considering the phone essentially re-uses the same processor from last year.

As for gaming, we managed to run Genshin Impact smoothly on the default low graphics settings. While it is possible to run the game at medium settings, the realme can’t sustain consistent frame rates for prolonged playing sessions to the phone heating up and throttling the processor.

Another big improvement on the realme 8 is when it comes to battery life. The use of an AMOLED panel with a lower refresh rate–along with a few software-based optimizations–was able to push the realme 8 to have a stellar 22 hours of battery life from our video loop test, almost triple the battery life we got from the realme 7 using the same test.

Like its predecessor, you also get a 5000mAh battery, along with 30w wired charging. Topping it up from 0 to 100% will take you around 80 to 90 minutes.

Wrap up and conclusions

Despite being almost similar to its predecessor, our review of the realme 8 in the Philippines shows that the AMOLED upgrade is an important one: aside from delivering better overall visuals when watching videos or playing games, the display upgrade also gave the realme 8 a big, big boost when it comes to battery life, lasting longer than the realme 7 by a mile despite using the same 12nm processor.

realme 8 Review Philippines Price

The realme 8 is priced at Php 13,990 and is available via realme’s official Lazada store. For its opening sale on midnight of May 12, the realme 8 will be Php 1k more affordable during Lazada’s flash sale.

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