realme X3 SuperZoom review

Where to buy

realme isn't a brand you'd particularly associate with flagship phones. While it's only been in the Australian market for a relatively short time, its handset offerings have been budget or at most low mid-range priced devices, generally with quite good value on board.

The realme X3 SuperZoom switches up that perception, offering a slew of features you'd typically associate with flagship phones, but still coming to market at well under $1,000. There are some cut corners to achieve that price point, but there's also a serious challenge not only to the mid-range price point the X3 SuperZoom occupies, but also to the value proposition of a lot of flagship phones.

Design

Design

• 6.57-inch 120Hz display
• Side-mounted fingerprint sensor
• Serious camera bump

• Read our full review of the realme X3 SuperZoom's design

  When I first took the realme X3 SuperZoom out of its packaging, it felt very familiar. I couldn't quite shake the feeling that I might have seen much of this design somewhere else, and of course, I had. There's a lot of design similarity between the realme X3 SuperZoom and the Oppo Find X2 Pro, and that's probably not coincidental. Both brands sit under the BBK Electronics umbrella – they're also the owners of the Vivo and OnePlus brands – and there's a fair quantity of shared IP between all of BBK's differing brands.

  The realme X3 SuperZoom has a 6.57-inch FHD+ (2,400x1,800) LCD display with very moderate bezels but a wider-than-usual holepunch notch, located at the top left-hand side. That's to allow for both a standard and wide lens for group selfies, and while that's a concept that's less compelling in a COVID-19 world, it's also a nicely flexible one that we haven't really seen on too many phones since the Google Pixel 3 line.

  While it's only an LCD screen, and at this price point some competitors do offer AMOLED displays, the big feature here is support for 120Hz refresh rates, as well as upscaling of existing content to give it a more smooth, pleasing effect. That's a feature we've seen in a number of phones this year, but none at this kind of price.

  At the mid-range price point that the realme X3 SuperZoom occupies, we've seen more than a few brands embrace in-display fingerprint readers, but realme has instead opted for a thin side-mounted reader that also doubles as the phone's power button. It's functional, but like most side-mounted readers, it doesn't have a huge capture area and can be a little reluctant to unlock the phone first time out. You can opt for a less secure facial unlock if you prefer.

  At the back, you won't mistake the realme X3 SuperZoom's "Glacier Blue" body as anything but plastic, and predictably also anything but a fingerprint attraction zone. By itself you'll also struggle to place it flat on any table, thanks to the vertically oriented camera bump. I'm actually tempted not to call it a camera bump, because that rather understates how big it is. It's more like a camera mountain. However, there is a solution at hand, because realme provides an in-box case that not only protects the phone, but also reduces the camera Everest situation nicely.

  Sadly, there's no sign of a headphone jack, and it's also not specifically rated for water resistance. Light splashes should be fine – I got caught in a minor rain shower during my review process and the realme X3 SuperZoom came through just fine – but immersion is not advised.

Camera

Camera

• 64MP primary and 5x optical zoom is a great combo
• Macro lens is a little weak

• See sample photos and read our full review of the realme X3 SuperZoom's camera

  The mighty camera bump on the back of the realme X3 SuperZoom is of course a prime selling point for the phone, combining a primary 64MP sensor, 8MP 5x optical periscope lens, 8MP wide and 2MP macro lens together to provide a lot of photographic potential.

  It's that periscope lens that gives the realme X3 SuperZoom its slightly silly sounding suffix, as well as a range of zoom modes. Anything up to 5x is of course handled by the optical lens, but it also offers a 10x "hybrid" mode, downsampling that 64MP lens to do so, and then a further stretch to up to 60x digital zoom.

  Stretch is the right term here, too, because while you can get some very nice shots at optical zoom distances and even within that hybrid zoom range, the more you push it, the worse it generally gets.

  Here's a handheld wide angle beach shot taken with the realme X3 SuperZoom:
  

  The same scene with the standard 64MP lens:
  

  As we start to zoom in on the optical lens, there's still a good level of detail, even revealing surfers in the waves:
  

  Even 10x hybrid zoom is pretty good:
  

  But if you push it in further than that, it all becomes very ugly indeed:
  

  That's totally in line with the experience you'd get out of any periscope lens camera phone right now; the extreme zoom numbers they throw in the marketing lines technically "work", but not to a level where they're going to produce any kind of pleasing photo.

  The 64MP primary lens by default uses pixel binning to provide more detail in shots, but you can shoot at full 64MP if you prefer. It's usually not worth it, especially when you consider that the realme X3 SuperZoom doesn't support any level of storage expansion, and a 64MP photo takes up a lot of storage space. Still, it shoots very well in a wide range of shooting situations. It's not quite up there with flagships in terms of night mode performance, but it's certainly competitive against the low light offerings of its similarly priced competition.

  The other slightly weak area of the realme X3 SuperZoom is its 2MP macro lens, which needs some pretty careful finessing to get quality photos from. That's probably why realme's stuck the macro function within a sub-menu rather than calling it out directly. You can get fair shots, but you'll probably also end up with more than a few blurry messes in the macro world.

  Still, my overall impression of the realme X3 SuperZoom's camera prowess is a positive one. It's great to see an actual periscope lens in the sub-$1,000 space, and the combination of lenses gives you exceptional creative possibilities.

  realme X3 SuperZoom sample photos

  

  

  

  

  

  

Performance

Performance

• Snapdragon 855+ is great at this price
• realme UI wants lots of permissions

• View test results and read our full review of the realme X3 SuperZoom's performance

  Most of the mid-range space in 2020 is, as you'd expect, built around mid-range-priced processors and memory configurations. This is where realme genuinely shifts the perception of what you should expect, because it hasn't opted for a Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 or 7 series processor.

  Instead, it's rocking the Snapdragon 855+, paired with either 8GB or 12GB of RAM. That's essentially the recipe for a late 2019 genuine flagship phone, the kind of device that consumers were expected to part with $1,500 or more just six months ago. Sure, it's not the Snapdragon 865 you'll find on 2020's Android flagships, and there's no sign of 5G either.

  So how does the realme X3 SuperZoom compare? While the 2020 flagships do outpace it in standard benchmarks, it compares very well with most 2019 flagship phones – and bear in mind that these are handsets that still sell for prices much higher than the asking price of the realme X3 SuperZoom.

  The review model that realme sent me was the higher-spec 12GB RAM/256GB storage variant, but the cheaper model comes with just 8GB RAM/128GB storage, so you can expect somewhat lower performance if you opt for that model.

  Here's how the higher RAM model compares using Geekbench 5's CPU test:

  And here's how its Adreno 640 GPU compares using 3DMark's Slingshot Extreme test:

  What the realme X3 SuperZoom's benchmarks – and real world performance – show up is one simple truth with regards to the mobile phone market.

  While we've seen some steady year-on-year improvements in processor performance, we really haven't seen a big shift in the apps that we run every day in terms of needing more and more horsepower. There wasn't an app that I threw at the realme X3 SuperZoom that it couldn't handle easily, and even multi-tasking within the way Android 10 handles that worked very well indeed. It's not quite the cutting edge of mobile performance, but if you're never going to be able to take those supercars up to their top speeds, does that really make much of a difference?

  What does make a difference is realme's launcher choice. When the brand first launched in Australia it was using stablemate Oppo's ColorOS launcher, but it's since shifted to its own realme UI launcher instead. Branding issues aside, it's a relatively major UI rewrite for Android 10, and it's not one I'm personally much of a fan of.

  Like ColorOS, the bundled applications want a lot of permissions that don't always seem to make much sense. Why does a standalone voice recorder want access to my phone calls? Why does the weather app need to delete storage data? I appreciate that I'm given the choice when launching these apps, but it's a little alarming nonetheless. Thankfully of course this is full Android, and unlike Huawei's phones of late, realme still has full Google Play store access, so you can set you own defaults relative to your personal security comfort level.

Battery life

Battery life

• 4,200mAh battery slightly underperforms
• Fast USB C charging

• View test results and read our full review of the realme X3 SuperZoom's battery life

  So far, so excellent with regards to the realme X3 SuperZoom's general performance, but in the battery life field it's a more moderate story. The sealed 4,200mAh battery is very much in line with what we're seeing across many Android phones, from the cheapest up to flagship models – without being exceptional – but the presence of that 120Hz-capable display did make me wonder how well the battery would stand up to day-to-day usage.

  You've got a choice of three modes of operation for the realme X3 SuperZoom's display. You can force it to 60Hz, or force it to 120Hz, or leave it in an "auto" mode where it claims it'll intelligently switch between the two depending on the content you're displaying. In my experience that seemed to mostly look like it was in 120Hz mode most of the time, but to give it the best chance to show difference, I put the realme X3 SuperZoom through our standard battery test regime three times with each setting in play.

  That involves streaming a full screen, full brightness YouTube video with moderate volume for an hour from 100% charged and seeing how the battery responds. Typically, phones that crack above 90% in that test are fine for multi-day use, but those that come in below that may struggle, especially under heavier workloads.

  There's no difference at all between auto and 120Hz modes, which does lend credence to my suspicion that it might not kick in all that often. Sadly, this is one area where the realme X3 SuperZoom is deeply average, because it can exhaust its battery before the day is out if you're using it extensively. Multi-day battery life is still possible of course if you're not hitting the realme X3 SuperZoom's battery all that hard.

  BBK Electronics phones have long gone their own way with fast charging standards, which Oppo refers to as VOOC charging, but in realme's case it's referred to as Dart charging, even though it's once again leaning on the same technology standards. It uses USB C connectivity for 30W charging, with realme claiming full charge capability within an hour of plugging it in from flat. It's not lying either, because when I was testing the phone to exhaustion I could reliably plug it in and come back just under an hour later to a fully charged phone. The one nicety you don't get with the realme X3 SuperZoom is wireless charging, but that's not surprising given its plastic rear casing.

Should you buy the realme X3 SuperZoom?

There is some room for improvement on the realme X3 SuperZoom – that battery life is the primary one, but it could also use some level of IP-rated water resistance, storage expansion would be nice and I'd kill for a clean Android version of this phone – but it's overall a phone that absolutely punches well above its weight in terms of features and performance. It's not only the best mid-range phone you can buy right now, but also a solid contender in the lower end of the flagship space too.

Pricing and availability

Buy at eBay

Specifications

Images: Alex Kidman