Realme 5 Pro review: Mostly excellent

The Realme 5 Pro shows just how good mid-range phones have become in 2019, because you really don't have to spend a fortune to get a very capable handset. The use of ColorOS and slightly lesser battery performance are issues, but this is otherwise an excellent value budget buy.

Varied camera mostly works well
Quick fingerprint sensor
Design looks premium

Battery life could be better
Plastic body attracts fingerprints
ColorOS is intrusive where it shouldn't be

Alex Kidman

Last Updated Nov 17, 2019

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Display

Display Size

6.3 inches

Resolution

1080 x 2340px

Pixels per inch (PPI)

409 ppi

Camera

Rear camera megapixels

48MP + 8MP + 2MP + 2MP

Rear camera aperture size

f/1.79 + f/2.25

Video recording

Front camera megapixels

16MP

Front camera aperture size

f/2.0

Physical Dimensions

Dimensions

157mm x 74.2mm x 8.9mm

Weight

184g

Connectivity

NFC

Wi-Fi

802.11 a/b/g/n/ac

Network category speed

N/A

Power, storage and battery

Processor

Qualcomm Snapdragon 712

RAM

8GB

Operating system

Android 9

Internal storage

64GB, 128GB

External storage support

Up to 256GB

Battery capacity

4,035mAh

Device features

Headphone jack

Yes

Fingerprint sensor

Yes

Water resistance rating

N/A

Wireless charging

Launch price (RRP)	$399
Launch date	2019-10

Go to Realme's site More info

Where to buy

While it's launched in Australia with the realme XT as its flagship offering, the realme 5 Pro sits just underneath, both in pricing and specification terms.

However, the drop in power isn't one that really makes an exceptional difference for that price drop, making it a better bet overall than the realme XT was.

Given the realme XT was (and is) in essence a cheaper Oppo phone, that makes the realme 5 Pro a genuine standout device.

Design

Sparkling Blue or Crystal Green finishes
6.3-inch LCD display
Teardrop notch
Rear mounted fingerprint sensor

Put the realme 5 Pro next to the realme XT and you might initially struggle to pick which is the "cheaper" handset. That's because the realme 5 Pro runs with a 6.3-inch display, slightly larger than the 6.1-inch screen on the more expensive realme XT.
You get more screen, but with a slight loss in colour reproduction, because it steps down from an AMOLED into LCD territory. Like so many Chinese-produced phones the default colour scheme is on the brighter side, and that's accentuated by the default ColorOS icon scheme, which tends towards the garish. The realme 5 Pro's screen has a 1,080 x 2,340 pixel resolution, identical to that of the realme XT, although that extra 0.2 inch diagonal means it's got a slightly lower pixel per inch count at 409 ppi. Unless you're particularly eagle-eyed, you're not going to notice that in day to day usage.
Like the realme XT, you're also looking at a teardrop notch at the top centre of the display, but you won't find an in-glass fingerprint sensor. Instead it's located around the back of the realme 5 Pro's body, which is where you'll also find your colour choice at play. In Australia, realme sells the realme 5 Pro in either Sparkling Blue or Crystal Green finishes. They're both bold colour choices, if not particularly innovative in this space.
The plastic rear frame of the realme 5 Pro does rather give away its budget nature, as does its habit of picking up every fingerprint within a 5-metre radius when you pick it up.
On the left-hand side of the realme 5 Pro you'll find the volume buttons and SIM card tray. Like the XT, it's a triple-card tray, allowing for dual SIM action as well as MicroSD expansion. That's a true rarity in any phone, let alone a budget-to-mid-range model like the realme 5 Pro.

Camera

Four rear cameras, although the layout is odd
48MP lens, but you're better off combining pixels
Low light shooting isn't great

In a rather bold move, realme describes the realme 5 Pro as the "Quad camera speedmaster". Slightly ridiculous marketing names aside, its primary rear camera features a 48MP f/1.79 sensor, partnered up with a 8MP f/2.25 119 degree wide angle camera, 2MP portrait camera and 2MP macro camera. Like so many budget phones there are lenses here you never really interact with that much, with the portrait lens used for depth effects most notably.
As numbers go, 48MP does sound impressive at this price point, but like many other phone cameras, by default you're not shooting at that full range. Instead, it's combining pixels to give it better light sensing abilities and longer hybrid zoom distance. You can elect to shoot at full 48MP if you must, but the results really don't often bear out for the additional image size you'll create.
As with the realme XT, the default camera app is simple and somewhat evocative of Apple's camera app, with most of the secondary features hidden behind either a hamburger menu or range of icons at the top of the display. It's not terribly well laid out – you might realise that 48MP photos or macro mode are enabled from the hamburger menu but miss that the wide-angle lens is actually switched on from an icon at the top, for example.
Still, having come from the realme XT, I was taken by the fact that there really wasn't much distance between the two phones in camera terms at all. What you're looking at here is perfectly adequate mid-range general performance, combined with the flexibility of those lenses to create specific photo types.
Not that this is quite a flagship camera phone. Macro shots have a tendency to be a little soft, and low-light performance tends to seriously oversaturate colours in dark environments in a way that appears entirely artificial.
Still, at its price point, the realme 5 Pro offers genuinely good photographic features.
realme 5 Pro sample photos

Performance

Snapdragon 712 provides good mid-range performance
ColorOS is still messy
Default apps ask for odd permissions

Where the realme 5 Pro trails the XT in pure camera and screen technology terms, there's no such divide when you peel back the screen and look at the internal components on offer.
It's running on the same Snapdragon 712 processor with the same 8GB of RAM, which means, not surprisingly, that it offers essentially the same performance as the more expensive "flagship" phone.
We can see that rather clearly in its benchmark results. Here's how the realme 5 Pro compares to similarly priced mid-range handsets using Geekbench 5's CPU test:
And here's how it compares running 3DMark:
The realme 5 Pro runs on Android 9 at launch, but you might not immediately pick that. Like the rest of realme's phone family in Australia, it's using Oppo's ColorOS launcher on top of Android. If that brand link confuses you, it's because realme and Oppo (and for that matter OnePlus and Vivo) are all owned by BBK Electronics.
ColorOS has long bridged the gap between iOS and Android, and in recent years it's dropped much of its faux-iOS stylings, giving it a true hybrid feel. There's still a learning curve here whether you're coming from iOS or Android because you'll sometimes have to scramble around to work out where a control might be sitting, or whether it's following Android or iOS standards for layout.
It's also an issue because the default apps often ask for slightly odd permissions when you launch them. It's almost certainly a hangover from the phone's Chinese origins, where most phones are locked down and features like Google services are explicitly blocked. It's good that you're at least told this but I'm still not sure why stock apps need phone calling access and data writing permissions!
The other downside to being tied to ColorOS is that by definition, realme can't issue its own security or major OS updates. We'll only see those updates come to phones such as the realme 5 Pro at the same time (or later) than their Oppo counterparts at best.

Battery life

4,000mAh battery doesn't quite perform as well as we'd like
Fast VOOC charging

Like its pricier sibling, the realme 5 Pro packs in a 4,000mAh battery, which is actually decent at this price range, if not quite best in class.
However, the power demands of that larger screen do play a part in its overall battery endurance.
Geekbench 5 doesn't include a battery testing mechanism, so we've switched to testing with YouTube video running at full brightness and moderate volume for an hour to get a picture of relative performance.
Here's how the realme 5 Pro compared after an hour's testing against similarly priced handsets.
At that kind of battery testing level, you'll generally be able to see a full day's battery usage, but much more than that is unlikely. You can at least top the realme 5 Pro up quite rapidly, as long as you've got its own charger to hand.
One of the very positive side effects of being under the BBK umbrella is that realme has also "borrowed" Oppo's very fast VOOC charging technology for topping up its handsets. Of course, you'll only get that speedier charging if you're using the supplied cable and charger; other USB C chargers will work but at a much slower rate.

Verdict

Exceptional value for a $399 phone

It's not the flagship handset in the realme range, but the realme 5 Pro manages something even more impressive.

It provides essentially the same experience as the realme XT, and unless you have them side by side you'd really never notice the differences, while keeping a sweet $100 more in your pocket.

If you're looking in the mid-range and your budget is constrained, the realme 5 Pro is highly recommended.

Pricing and availability

Price: RRP $399
Where to buy: The Good Guys | Bing Lee | Amazon

Alternatives

The realme 5 Pro sits under the realme XT within the family; for $499 you'd get a bump in camera specifications and screen technology if that's important to you. You can read our full realme XT review here.

$399 will also buy you the Mintt UltraMintt Y3 or the Oppo A9 2020 if you wanted ColorOS specifically.

Specifications

Display

Display Size

6.3 inches

Resolution

1080 x 2340px

Pixels per inch (PPI)

409 ppi

Camera

Rear camera megapixels

48MP + 8MP + 2MP + 2MP

Rear camera aperture size

f/1.79 + f/2.25

Video recording

Front camera megapixels

16MP

Front camera aperture size

f/2.0

Physical Dimensions

Dimensions

157mm x 74.2mm x 8.9mm

Weight

184g

Connectivity

NFC

Wi-Fi

802.11 a/b/g/n/ac

Network category speed

N/A

Power, storage and battery

Processor

Qualcomm Snapdragon 712

RAM

8GB

Operating system

Android 9

Internal storage

64GB, 128GB

External storage support

Up to 256GB

Battery capacity

4,035mAh

Device features

Headphone jack

Yes

Fingerprint sensor

Yes

Water resistance rating

N/A

Wireless charging

Latest mobile reviews

Alex Kidman

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A multi-award winning journalist, Alex has written about consumer technology for over 20 years. He has written and edited for virtually every Australian tech publication including Gizmodo, CNET, PC Magazine, Kotaku and more. He has also been the Editor of Gizmodo Australia, PC Mag Australia, CNET.com.au and the Tech and Telco section at Finder. Alex has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of New England and a serious passion for retro gaming.

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Realme 5 Pro review: Mostly excellent