Why the Realme 3 could be the best camera phone for less than 10k

Last year, Realme emerged out of nowhere. It was Oppo’s not so subtle attempt to take on the phenomenon Xiaomi’s Redmi brand has become in India and within only 8 months Realme has started taking off. Its latest phone, the Realme 3, represents a huge statement, with it offering features that could take on Xiaomi’s new Redmi Note 7, and then some more. One of the things that pops-out is that it has a pretty impressive camera system backed up with a huge battery. This leads me to believe that the Realme 3 could be one of the best camera phones for someone on a budget considering it just starts at Rs 8,999.

• There is a dual camera system on the back which is now becoming quite normal, but what’s interesting here is that it has a 13-megapixel primary sensor with a larger f/1.8 aperture which can absorb a lot of light. Remember, even the iPhone XS has an f/1.8 aperture so that’s a good thing. I found this certainly gave the camera an advantage over phones currently in the market.
• This camera is coupled with some impressive software features like chroma boost, which improves the vibrancy and dynamic range of the shots. In addition, there is a Google Pixel style nightscape feature that takes multiple shots and fuses the images into one bright shot. In my tests, it worked reasonably well which came via a software update.
• The Helio P70 processor by MediaTek is a very capable chipset coming with a 3-core ISP that helps the processing of images on this phone. This is not something one can have on phones running Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 625 or 636 processor. It helps with AI processing as well and overall helps in the portrait mode with advanced scene detection capabilities.
• We are talking about a phone with a 4,230mAh battery which is huge by even modern standards, which is further coupled with an HD+ screen which should make this phone usable for a very long even if you spend the entire day clicking photos.
• Realme is adding support for the camera 2 API which means you will be able to download and install the incredible Google Camera app and leverage Pixel style camera capabilities which is very impressive for a phone of its cost.