Realme 8i smartphone review

Equipment class B ("Mercedes" scale A, B, C, E, S)

Rating scale 1-6 (6-excellent)

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realme is very keen on dominating the low-end segment. The manufacturer feels particularly strong in this segment of the smartphone market and has just presented the new realme 8i model, costing PLN 849 for the 4/64 GB version and PLN 899 for the 4/128 GB version. Compared to the competition, realme 8i stands out primarily with a 120 Hz screen - it is probably the cheapest smartphone with a screen with such a high refresh rate. It is also more powerful than the wrealme 7i processor. I could use realme 8i before the premiere and check for you if you can recommend this phone to people with a budget of PLN 800-900.

Main pros and cons of realme 8i

Pros of realme 8i:

Cons of realme 8i:

How do we evaluate the design? – Rating 4

The design of realme 8i has been unified with the manufacturer's other smartphones from the 8 series. This applies primarily to the camera island and the fingerprint reader, which has been moved from the back of the housing to the power button. The frame and the back of the housing are made of plastic. In Poland, there are two housing colors available: black and purple. The color is not uniform, but has a characteristic gradient from a more saturated color to silver. The glossy casing shows smudges and traces of touch.

The smartphone can be unlocked with fingerprint and face, and both methods work super fast and practically every time. This has a big impact on the convenience of using realme 8i.

On the bottom edge, in addition to USB C, we also find a headphone jack and a mono speaker. The speakerphone sound is loud and allows you to easily listen to podcasts even in noisy environments. It is weaker when playing music at high volume levels, then its sound is less pleasant to the ear - some sounds merge, and the high tones have a sharp and shrill character.

The housing is not sealed and the manufacturer has not provided any water and dust resistance standard. On the plus side, it should be counted that in relation to realme 7i, the newer realme 8i model, despite the larger screen diagonal, did not increase its dimensions and even reduced the thickness of the housing.

What do we think about the display? - 5 rating-

The screen is the biggest change from the older realme 7i model, which had a panel of only 720p and refreshed at 60 Hz, in addition to a smaller 6.5-inch diagonal and larger bezels. The reviewed realme 8i has a 6.6-inch display with a resolution of FHD+ 2412 x 1080 pixels and a refresh rate of 120 Hz. Pixel density increased from 270 to 400 PPI. The bezels are also narrower, and the central waterdrop notch has been replaced with a round hole on the left side of the screen. So it's safe to say that the display is clearly better, both on paper and in practice. Both the higher resolution and high refresh rate are easily noticeable to the user. Currently realme 8i is the cheapest smartphone with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. realme 8i, however, has an IPS panel, not AMOLED, as in more expensive phones.

In the settings you will find a dark theme, eye comfort that reduces blue light, two color modes, color temperature adjustment, and the ability to choose the screen refresh rate.

The realme 8i display is of good quality, especially in its price range below PLN 900. Although the AMOLED screen offers us better contrast, the brightness, viewing angles and color saturation of the reviewed phone are satisfactory. Only the brightness of the panel drops noticeably when we look at it from an angle.

Specs & Operating System - Rating 4

realme 8i is powered by Mediatek Helio G96 octa-core processor clocked at 2 x 2.05 + 6 x 2.0GHz. It is the change in the processor that allows the use of a 120 Hz screen and the newer UFS 2.2 memory. In Poland, there are two variants of memory: 4 GB RAM and 64 GB for the system and files, and 4 GB RAM and 128 GB for the system and files. Version 6/128 was sent to the editorial office for testing, which will not be available on our market, but it should not significantly affect the test results. In addition, realme 8i supports microSD memory cards and non-hybrid dual SIM. So you can use two nano SIM cards and a memory card at the same time.

Benchmark Results:

It is no surprise that a phone under a thousand zlotys is not a performance champion and ranks lower in the Antutu ranking. However, this does not prevent its use, because budget models have already achieved a sufficient level of efficiency to maintain comfort. The phone works smoothly and without any problems, and the impression of fluidity is additionally enhanced by the high refresh rate of the screen - each animation seems smoother. Performance can be described as good enough.

The connectivity package includes LTE, WiFi ac, the latest Bluetooth 5.2 and NFC. Only 5G and WiFi 6 are missing.

The sensor set includes accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity sensor, light intensity sensor and digital compass. Location is realized by GPS, Beidou, Glonass and Galileo.

In the past, the most common shortcomings in the budget phone segment were NFC and gyroscope, but here are both functions - 360 videos work seamlessly and you can look around precisely by tilting the phone.

At the time of writing this review, realme 8i is running Android 11 with security updates as of August 5, 2021. The realme UI 2.0 overlay is responsible for the UI.

System apps include voice recorder, compass, phone manager, and Soloop for video editing. There is the ability to record the screen, a smart sidebar with shortcuts to applications and functions. During the tests, the system did not cause me problems with performance and stability.

What kind of photos and videos does he take? – rating 4

Even though realme 8i actually has one camera that we take pictures with. The design intentionally suggests that there are more cameras - three or even four if we do not look closely that instead of one of the lenses we have a LED flash. This is a very "cheap" gamble of the manufacturer and such actions should be stigmatized by customers.

The "kit" of cameras looks like this:

I am more interested in the quality of the saved images than the number of cameras. And here realme 8i has nothing to be ashamed of. The tonal range is sufficient, the colors are saturated and clean. It is the color scheme that is successful in the case of the realme 8i camera. Often photos from inexpensive smartphones are not technically bad, just "bland". Here realme 8i performs quite well. Given that the camera does not have optical stabilization, night photos are also fine. Therefore, I consider the main camera to be really good. The main compromise is the lack of a wide-angle camera, but I prefer one good camera than two average ones, or adding more by force. Realme did not avoid this, but we do not treat the depth or macro camera when buying as seriously as the wide-angle camera, so it's easier to forgive such a treatment.

Selfie quality is good and supports portrait mode with background blur. Video recordings are limited to 1080p resolution and their detail is very average. The video is digitally stabilized and quite effective when shooting stationary, but artifacts appear when walking.

The camera app encourages the use of x2 and x5 magnifications that are on hand, but this is a digital-only zoom and there is a noticeable drop in quality. In addition to photo and video, there are ultra night, portrait, 50M, dual view video, slow motion, time-lapse, movie, expert, panorama, text scanner and ultra macro modes.

Example photos:

Example video:

How long does the battery last? – 4+ rating

realme 8i has a 5000 mAh battery, and the phone comes with a standard 18 watt charger. Charging times are not impressive - half an hour of charging is 30% of the battery, and a full charge takes almost two and a half hours.

While playing a YouTube video with the screen brightness set to half and 120Hz refresh rate, the phone ran for close to 19 hours. This is a very good result.

To sum up, realme 8i has a long battery life and you can easily count on two days of moderate use, while when you need to charge the phone it will take a long time and plugging the charger for a few minutes will not make a noticeable difference.

Our final rating

Compared to competitors, realme 8i stands out primarily with its screen. The 120Hz display with FHD resolution is a big leap from the 720p and 60Hz offered by the realme 7i last year. It is also probably the cheapest smartphone on the market with such a high screen refresh rate. There were also no important elements of equipment - you can pay using NFC or watch 360 video using a gyroscope. The main camera offers good quality images, and the phone has a long battery life offering comfortable performance - it works well and without problems. Of course, the phone could load faster, offer higher performance or more cameras - but we will find it in more expensive devices. Switching from realme 7i to 8i means that we no longer have the feeling of using a budget, but we are dealing with a phone resembling much more expensive smartphones. If we are looking for a device below a thousand zlotys, realme 8i will be a good choice.

We love: 120Hz screen

We don't like: slow charging

Who's realme 8i for:

Who's not is realme 8i:

Alternatives to realme 8i: