realme 6 Pro Review: A 90Hz phone within reach!

The company that brought you the affordable but capable phones like the C3 and 6i is back with another interesting device. Called the realme 6 Pro, it carries a stunning design, half a dozen cameras, and features that help accomplish day-to-day tasks with ease.

Design

Gradient-colored phones undoubtedly have their unique appeal and this is what the 6 Pro banks on for its design. From the get-go, you’ll automatically be drawn to the lightning-inspired pattern seen on its back panel. Just like other phones with gradient design, the pattern sort of changes depending on how light bounces off of it. The company says it has applied a special printing technology for the first time just for the 6 Pro.

CHECK OUT: realme 6 Pro Unboxing and Hands-on

realme says it’s made of Gorilla Glass 5 so it should repel light scratches and the like. I, personally, am not a fan of phone cases as they simply change the overall feel of the device. Although, if you really want to keep it scratch-free, you may want to put on its included jelly case.

There are three color variations available for the 6 Pro. What we have here is the Lightning Blue variant and there are also Lighting Red and Lightning Orange. Unfortunately, Lightning Orange will not be available in the country.

As for the reason behind its lightning design, the company says it signifies speed and agility which are what the phone offers.

Additionally, you have a 6.6-inch Full HD+ display with a 90hz refresh rate (which we’ll talk more about later on). There’s a small chin at the bottom and dual selfie cameras on the upper left corner. For the rest of the device, we see a power button with an integrated fingerprint sensor on the right, volume buttons on the opposite side, dual SIM tray with microSD expansion, and a USB-C port at the bottom.

Finally, an AI quad-camera setup rounds up the design.

Display and Multimedia

The display in itself has a couple of features that we want to highlight.

First and foremost is its 90Hz refresh rate. This means that the screen updates (or refreshes) the image 90 times per second. Normally, displays used on TVs, monitors, or smartphones max out at 60Hz, and having higher refresh rates mean movements and transitions will have a smoother and more fluid look.

This came especially handy when playing games. It’s simply a joy to play games with higher refresh rate. Browsing the web at this refresh rate is also a different experience. It generally consumes more battery, though, so you might want to gauge when to use or not use this feature.

The phone also features Dolby Atmos and supports hi-res quality. For best results, be sure to use a good pair of headphones as it makes watching videos or playing games a lot more enjoyable.

Camera

Imaging is one of the main selling points of the 6 Pro. Armed with a quad-camera setup for the rear and dual selfie shooters, the phone aims to be more than just versatile for its shooting capabilities.

With our time with its half-dozen cameras, we found that it’s more than enough for our usual needs — quickly snapping a shot of nice scenery, a cute cat for Instagram, or your lunch that you can’t help but post on Facebook.

Although when you need to step things up a notch, its Pro Mode is especially useful. You can tweak each value independently and a live preview reflects your settings. From shutter speed, white balance, and going for manual focus so you can specifically choose your subject, the realme 6 Pro gives you this freedom whether you’re using its main camera, its telephoto, wide-angle, or macro lenses.

Speaking of telephoto, it’s able to bring you closer to your subjects by 2x through its optical zoom. If you still need to get closer, it can go up to 20x but hybrid zoom will take over and you’ll lose some detail.

Its wide-angle camera also does the job if you’re a fan of taking landscape shots or simply shooting a large group of people.

Meanwhile, the macro lens lets you go up close and personal with your subject. It does bring out certain details of small objects but the overall photos it produced are decent at best. Still, it’s nice to have it in case the need for it arises.

Additionally, we want to show its low light capabilities. Its Night Mode with Nightscape 3.0 actually produces really decent photos. And we’re talking really low light instances. Of course, you’ll be able to see some digital noise when you look at the image up close and a bit of detail is lost, but that’s just expected under such circumstances.

Overall, it’s pretty impressive how it’s able to pull this much light out of a really dim scenario. Night Mode works for its other cameras but we found it produces the best photos on its main 64-megapixel camera.

As for shooting videos, it’s equipped with image stabilization so you can record while moving and minimize unwanted jitters. We’ve tried mounting it on a travel tripod while following a moving subject and the footage we got (which you can see in our video review at the end of this article) definitely has less camera shake.

Its video features don’t stop there. It also boasts up to 4K resolution at 30fps and up to 240fps slo-mo recording. This means you can achieve those buttery smooth footage as long as you have enough light.

The same goes for its dual front cameras. Together, they offer versatility for your selfie needs. You have a 16-megapixel wide-angle main accompanied by an 8-megapixel super-wide-angle for those group selfies.

At the same time, these two cameras also support HDR and Portrait Nightscape Selfie so you can snap those self-portraits even when there’s little light around. It also supports real-time bokeh while shooting videos.

Performance

Just like the recent realme phones we’ve got our hands on, the 6 Pro runs on Android 10 with realme UI so what you get is closer to stock Android experience rather than having unwanted bloatware eat up your storage space. Again, icons are fully customizable and you can choose from round to square and even adjust the transparency. The original icons can also be customized with your own photos or icons.

Animations and transitions are smooth and navigating through the phone is effortless. There’s still support for Dark Mode, dynamic wallpapers, native screen recording with internal and external audio, and tap to lock.

It also holds the title as the world’s first smartphone with Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G which is specifically made for power and efficiency.

With it, the phone was able to handle gaming for extended periods of time without getting noticeably warm and little to no lags. We ran popular titles like Mobile Legends and Asphalt 9 and the 6 Pro handled them with little effort even with its smooth 90Hz refresh rate turned on. Switching between apps also didn’t slow the system down.

While talking about overall performance, we want to commend the fingerprint sensor that unlocks the phone in less than a second. Just put your thumb over the sensor and it scans and unlocks in an instant.

Battery Life

With a newly upgraded 30W Flash Charge, realme says it can charge the 6 Pro’s 4300mAh battery in just one hour. We wanted to try it first-hand and was impressed to know that in exactly one hour, it was able to charge up to 98% of the battery.

It’s not exactly fully charged but having this capacity almost fully charged in an hour is pretty impressive in our book.

In terms of battery life, we did our standard gaming test with Wi-Fi connectivity and headphones plugged in. We were able to squeeze out eight hours of continuous gaming which is still not bad for its battery capacity. If we switched its 90Hz refresh rate off, we would probably be able to stretch our game time longer.

Creature Feature

In our reviews, The Modern Creatures aims to find that one special feature of a device that makes it worth having — something that gives the product a slight edge from among its peers. For the realme 6 Pro, it would be its 90Hz refresh rate.

Features such as this one are an unusual sight in the midrange category of smartphones. By bringing such feature to models below the flagship level, it gives more people a different experience in gaming or simply browsing.

Conclusion

realme-6

Priced at PhP 16,990, the realme 6 Pro is a smartphone with practical and useful features. Although it can handle gaming and last a long time doing so, we think content creators would also benefit greatly from this device.

With its versatility in imaging through its different cameras, video stabilization for both front and back shooters, and impressive low light capabilities,  the realme 6 Pro can easily be your secondary camera during shoots and a handy gaming device rolled into one lightning-designed midrange smartphone.

realme 6 Pro specs and features:

6.6-inch FHD+ (2400 x 1080) 90Hz display
Corning Gorilla Glass 5
Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G octa-core CPU
Adreno 618 GPU
8GB RAM
128GB storage
microSD card for storage expansion
Rear cameras: 64MP main wide + 8MP ultra-wide + 12MP telephoto + 2MP F2.4 macro
4K video at 30fps, UIS video stabilization
Front cameras: 16MP main + 8MP ultra-wide
Dual-SIM
Hi-Res Audio w/ Dolby Atmos
USB Type-C
3.5mm audio jack
Fingerprint scanner
Android 10 with realme UI
4,300mAh battery with 30W Flash Charge
Lightning Blue, Lightning Red colors

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Best bang for the buck: Huawei Band 7 vs Mi Band 7 comparison

07/01/2022

We all know that keeping an active and healthy lifestyle is key to boosting your immune system which is important especially these days when we couldn’t afford to get sick. 

And if you’re serious about monitoring your lifestyle and daily habits, a fitness band really helps in staying on top of your daily activities. 


In this article, we compare two newly released activity trackers both targeted to be affordable solutions for consumers. We have the Huawei Band 7 and the Xiaomi Band 7 or Smart Band 7 as it is known globally, but the question here is this – which of these two offers a better bang for your buck? 

We find out in this comparison.

Display and Design

Let’s start with both their designs. As you can see, display shape is one of the main differences between these two gadgets. The Huawei Band 7 comes in this rectangular FullView display compared to the Xiaomi Band 7 which carries a more traditional capsule screen. 

Both carry AMOLED panels so colors are vibrant for both devices and can easily be seen even under direct sunlight. 

On paper, Xiaomi’s Band 7 appears bigger at 1.62 inches vs Huawei’s at 1.47 inches, but since Huawei goes for a smartwatch look, users get to enjoy a bigger screen real estate which fits more elements when navigating through the device. 

Personally, having been able to fit more options and elements on the screen makes for a more efficient experience as you’re presented with more options that eventually mean less swiping. 

Talking mainly about aesthetics, it’s also a plus for me that the Huawei Band 7’s form factor resembles a smartwatch more than a simple fitness tracker.

As for the device itself, the body of Huawei Band 7 comes in the same color as its strap so while the straps are easily interchangeable, you’d have to consider a color that goes well with the frame of the device. This is not the case with Xiaomi Band 7 since the strap wraps around the device itself. By changing the strap, you can easily change the overall look of the device.

In terms of form factor, Huawei is proud that its Band 7 is the company’s lightest and thinnest smart band yet with only a 9.9mm thin body (compared to 11.45mm of Xiaomi Band 7) and is lightweight at 13.5g (vs 16g of Xiaomi Band 7). 

While a few grams don’t really make a world of difference, you can definitely see that Huawei is really pouring its efforts to outdo itself and its previous generations and even outdo the competition. 

Another noticeable difference is the fact that Huawei Band 7 has its own physical button to bring up the menu and perform other functions, while the Xiaomi Band 7 skips this and relies on gestures to show more details. 

This is not a total disadvantage for Xiaomi but in my experience, it’s faster and more reliable to accomplish tasks with a simple press of a button – whether checking your activity records or going back to the main screen – rather than using gestures. 

Additionally, when worn, Huawei Band 7 feels and looks more of a snug fit as the device’s lug-to-lug distance is shorter compared to Xiaomi Band 7 which leaves gaps around your wrists. 

But as far as water resistance goes, both these devices are sealed up to 5ATM so you can wear them while swimming or if you’re caught in the rain while jogging, for example. 

Health and Fitness

While Xiaomi Band 7 kind of left us wanting more in the design aspect, it makes up for it when it comes to fitness features. It’s equipped with 120 workout modes including your usual activities like running and doing yoga, to even more obscure ones like playing chess. 

Huawei tops out at 96 workout modes which is still a lot. Although, in my experience, it’s easier to access all of Xiaomi’s 100+ workout presets with its UI layout than Huawei’s which requires you to dig through more tabs when looking for certain workouts. 

Both are proud to offer all-day health monitoring which is one of the things you should look for in these types of devices. 

They come with heart rate and blood oxygen trackers that are key measurements for one’s health and alert you when either falls out of the safe zone. Really useful.

Sleep tracking is also present for both and accurately logs your nightly schedule. It then shows your sleeping patterns so you’re able to adjust and achieve better rest especially if you’ve been logging irregular sleeping schedules. 

Stress monitoring is something that I personally thought I didn’t need (because who wants to be told that they’re currently stressed out, right?), but something that I definitely appreciated during my time with both these devices. 

With stress monitoring, I was able to pinpoint my stressors and, in turn, was able to do something about them. It’s not about totally avoiding stress, but learning how to handle them better when you see your stress levels rising. 

Both also come built-in with breathing exercises to help calm you down that, again, turned out to be a welcome feature I initially thought I didn’t need. 

Additionally, Xiaomi Mi Band 7 has support for women’s health tracking while Huawei Mi Band 7 has alerts to remind you to drink water and even take your meds. 

As fitness trackers, both are capable as well and come with Training Load to better understand fatigue in athletes. Huawei can also show your recovery time, post-training analytics, and even your maximum oxygen uptake or VO2Max – all while coming equipped with Running Ability Index that deducts valuable information when running based on heart rate and speed data.

Based on these features, both are helpful and address certain needs of athletes or fitness enthusiasts so it’s a matter of going for a device that suits your active lifestyle better – if you’re more of a runner, Huawei has its array of features dedicated to improving your runs. On the other hand, Xiaomi targets a more general group of athletes. 

Other features

Apart from monitoring your fitness and tracking your activities, both the Huawei Band 7 and Xiaomi Band 7 come with a handful of other features. 

To give it a more personal touch and look, Huawei boasts more than 4,000 watch faces available to download that spans different designs and specific purposes in mind. Xiaomi is a little modest on this aspect and only offers 100+ watch faces for its Band 7. It’s nice to have a lot of choices and this will easily appeal to users who prefer to change things up once in a while. 

App and call notifications are present on both devices and delivers messages, calls, and other notice straight to your wrist. This way, you wouldn’t miss an important message or a call. And once you’ve received a message, Huawei has a quick message reply so you can send messages from the watch and you can even customize your very own special reply.

For compatibility, Huawei also boasts that the Band 7 works with Huawei’s HMS platform, Google’s GMS service, and Apple’s iOS to ensure that the wearable can easily pair and sync information and data across devices with no hassle. 

Indeed, this made connecting to the Huawei Health app effortless. The phone actually detected the Huawei Band 7 automatically without my command to pair which I think should be the standard across the border for all wearables. After granting permission to pair and receive data to the device, the band is all ready to go with a neat UI that shows all important info in one glance. 

Pairing Xiaomi’s Mi Band 7 with the Mi Fitness app, however, wasn’t as smooth. Creating an account was easy and straightforward but when it came to linking two devices together, I ran into issues regarding verification of device ID which caused me to troubleshoot the problem before successfully pairing them together. 

WATCH: Huawei Watch Fit 2: A worthy upgrade!

Now, this could easily be an isolated case but apart from that, I still found Huawei’s Health app slightly more complete and easier to get information from. Xiaomi’s app isn’t bad, but could still use some fine tweaking to improve user experience, in my opinion.

Both have an always-on display if you want info and details seen all the time, but of course expect this to reduce battery life for both devices.

Speaking of batteries, they both have a two-week life from a single charge so that’s really good news. You wouldn’t have to keep on charging your device every so often and when it comes to charging, Huawei can fully top up the Band 7 in just an hour whereas Xiaomi needs a little less than two hours to fully charge its wearable.

Apart from that, you get the usual support for music playback, alarm, weather, and other standard functions on both watches.  

Final thoughts 

With all these considered, it’s a pretty close matchup between Huawei and Xiaomi’s Band 7. They come with the same essentials like all-day monitoring for heart rate and blood oxygen and reliably track your sleep to help improve quality. 

Fitness trackers are also very capable for both, albeit Xiaomi’s Band 7 comes with more workout modes. But if we’re talking about their differences that make them special, I would say that the fact that Huawei’s Band 7 comes with a bigger FullView screen makes it a more ideal everyday watch since you can see more in one glance and requires less swiping to accomplish tasks. 

Of course, pricing is also a consideration. The Xiaomi Band 7 is priced in the Philippines at PhP 2,399 while the Huawei Band 7 has a price tag of PhP 2,599. This means that Huawei kept the same price tag from its predecessor, Huawei Band 6, but now comes with better design and functionalities. Meanwhile, Xiaomi’s Band 7 increased in price from the previous Band 6 priced at PhP 1,999. 

While Xiaomi offers more workout modes, you do get a larger screen with a convenient physical button for Huawei’s Band 7, over 4,000 available watch faces, quick message replies, and all its fitness and health tracking features. 

I personally think that having a smartwatch-like form factor while enjoying a bigger display on top of it being really thin and lightweight more than justifies the PhP 200 price difference. 

The Huawei Band 7 can be purchased through the following links and is available with a special 7.7 offer:

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