Realme has been trying its best to get out of the Oppo sub-brand image ever since it launched Realme1, which surprised gadget buffs with its strong specs, and Realme2, which turned out to be a work in progress. With Realme 2 Pro, which sports shinier specs anchored on stronger hardware, the gadget-maker is targeting young customers , while trying to get out of its four-phone-old existential dilemma.

The Realme 2 Pro looks elegant in black (there are two other variants, blue ocean and ice lake). The faux glass back panel feels strong and smooth. It’s very slippery, we warn you; but the case will take care of it at the cost of good looks. With a width of 74 mm, height of 156.7 mm and thickness of 8.5 mm, the phone looks big and broad. It is heavy, at about 174 grams.

The Realme 2 Pro comes with a lot of processing prowess. It has the mighty Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 AIE Processor, which boasts of an octa-core CPU that clocks a frequency of 1.95 GHz and an Adreno GPU 512. The review device had an 8 GB RAM and 128 GB of storage, which could be upgraded to 256 GB. The basic model has a RAM of 4 GB and storage of 64 GB. This impressive computing power becomes a boon when you multi-task or make HD video calls and the like. The phone never hangs. Even when you play big-ticket simulation games, you’re not losing much in terms of display blurs or loading lags. The phone is a helpful beast.

On the display front, the Realme 2 Pro sports a suitably big 6.3-inch IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 2340 x 1080 (FHD+) and 408 pixel density. The front panel is made of 2.5D Gorilla Glass 3. The touch experience is smooth but not enough. You often miss the finesse. But viewing angles are perfect and images and videos are rendered extremely well-saturated. The adaptive brightness faculty, which dutifully fails in many phones, does a good job on the Realme 2 Pro.

The phone’s cameras are just fine considering the price. Oppo phones have been known for their camera capabilities, but the Realme 2 Pro’s shooters may leave you wanting more. The rear camera with a 16 MP plus 2 MP shooter combo does an impressive job under daylight conditions, but struggles a lot if the lights are down. The camera has an aperture of f/1.7 and f/2.4 but they need an expert’s hands to get the best results. The front, selfie camera with a 16 MP shooter and f/2 aperture lives up to Oppo’s legacy. The selfies are honest but appealing. The AI tweaks in the cameras are just the same one sees in the market. The most impressive compartment in the phone is arguably its audio, which is loud and clear. It can easily fill a room or a car. It plays HD audio with ease and even low-quality audio is delivered error-free.

The phone’s 3,500 mAh battery is, however, a let-down considering the hardware armour. The phone supports dual nano-SIM and microSD card. The fingerprint sensor and face-unlock works smooth. The ColorOS 5.2, based on Android 8.1, still needs a lot of improvement. In fact, the OS pulls down the phone at many occasions. Considering that the phone has such strong hardware, software low on aesthetics and ease of use weigh down heavily on the phone, which had all the other ingredients to become a blockbuster. From screenshots to accessing the notification panel while on call, many simple tasks just don’t work properly. Maybe an over-the-air update could fix these things.

With the strong hardware, Realme 2 Pro can easily be a powerful multitasker. Its software blemishes are ignorable if you are not a finicky pro user.

Price: Starts from ₹13,999

Pros: Good at multi-tasking, strong hardware

Cons: Software blemishes, touch not smooth enough

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