Realme 7 5G review

Realme UI on top of Android 10

It's a familiar setup we have already seen on the vanilla Realme 7, among other devices - the company's own Realme UI 1.0, running on top of Android 10. The custom skin itself is surprisingly clean and welcoming. It has a real AOSP vibe to it, though it still manages to hide-away quite a few additional features under the hood and a great level of customizability.

Unlocking the Realme 7 5G is the first step in the OS tour. Here, it's a quick and reliable process via the side-mounted fingerprint reader. That is if you haven't accidentally blocked it through accidental touches just by holding the phone. There is face unlock to go for, as well, though it is less secure.

The launcher looks a lot like vanilla Android with no-nonsense homescreens, simplistic notification/toggles area, and easy-to-use task switcher. You can either go with a traditional App launcher or choose a flat home-screen organization instead.

Realme UI 1.0

Realme UI supports different icon packs, so if you are not happy with the default one, you can opt for material style, pebbles, or you can even fully customize them by your liking.

Dark Mode is available, too, and it can be manual or scheduled. You can also opt to force it on third-party apps, though this doesn't always end well.

Customizing icons • Customizing icons • Customizing icons • Dark Mode • Dark Mode • Dark Mode

Like we mentioned, there are more than a few entries within the Realme UI settings menu—plenty of things to tweak. Or, of course, you can just leave everything as it is and enjoy a hassle-free Android experience optimized by Realme's AI algorithms and machine learning.

Settings menu

Home screen mode can be easily switched around, including a Simple option, which boosts the overall size of the entire UI, including fonts for better legibility. Pretty much all of the icons and indicators on the status bar can be tweaked, same with notifications. The Convenience tools menu houses items like the system-wide navigation scheme, which can be set to traditional buttons or gestures. And there are plenty more gestures to explore beyond that. Including some that work with the screen turned off.

Home screen mode • Notifications and status bar • Convenience tools • Navigation • Gestures

Some other features are scattered here and there, including the productivity-oriented split-screen mode, complete with its own gestures and the descriptively-named App cloner. The realme Lab menu also has a periodically-changing selection of upcoming features you can beta-test early.

Split Screen • App cloner • realme Lab

Like the recent Galaxies, the Realme UI offers a Smart Sidebar on the edge of the screen - you can customize the actions and app shortcuts that appear there.

Smart Sidebar

The multimedia apps such as Gallery, Music, and Videos are provided by Realme. There is also a redesigned File Manager and even a Phone Manager app. This mostly completes the non-Google app list. There is also a nifty Game Space, a launcher, complete with all of the basics you would expect to enhance the gaming experience, like do not disturb modes to limit distractions. Game Space also offers automatic resolution scaling, as well as three performance modes - "Low power mode," "Balanced mode," and "Competition mode." We plaid around with these during our attempts to get the Realme 7 5G to do more than 60fps on its smooth 120Hz display with no success, so we remain a bit skeptical towards the actual usefulness of the toggles as a whole.

Game Space

We are fond of the Realme UI, and we like the new direction. The interface is snappy, clutter-free, and easy to use. Yet, it retains plenty of powerful tools should you choose to dig deeper and use them.

Performance and benchmarks

One of the arguably more-interesting bits about the Realme 7 5G is its Dimensity 800U chipset. As one of the first members of MediaTek's exciting budget-5G line to come through the office, we were instantly curious to see how it stacks up against other trendy chips. Unfortunately, the timing didn't quite work out for us to have test scores from really interesting silicon, like the Snapdragon 750 or the Dimensity 720, 820, or the 1000 parts. You can look forward to these intriguing comparisons in upcoming reviews, some of which are already in the pipeline.

What we can use for points of comparison is the new 5G-capable Snapdragon 690, fresh off of the review "presses." Then there are things like the Snapdragon 765G - one of the already existing chips trying to bring down the cost of 5G. And also, some of the still-popular 5G-less chips powering budget experiences, like the Snapdragon 720G and 730G, as well as the MediaTek Helio G85 and G95.

The short story is that the Dimensity 800U definitely holds its own in this crowd. Especially in the CPU department, with its Octa-core (2x2.4 GHz Cortex-A76 & 6x2.0 GHz Cortex-A55) CPU configuration. Unlike the two big Kryo 570 cores inside the Snapdragon 750 or the Kryo 560 units inside the Snapdragon 690, the two Cortex-A76 ones inside the Dimensity are slightly older and not based on the new Cortex-A77 design. However, they do manage to clock a bit higher, with a maximum of 2.4 GHz, compared, say, to the 2.05 GHz Cortex-A76 units inside the MediaTek Helio G95 inside the vanilla Realme 7.

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
  616
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  608
• Realme 7 5G
  598
• Huawei P40 Lite
  591
• Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
  589
• Realme 7 Pro
  576
• Redmi Note 9S
  570
• Realme 6 Pro
  565
• Realme 7
  536
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  521
• Realme Narzo 20
  385
• Redmi Note 9
  361
• Realme Narzo 20A
  314
• Realme 7i
  312

The raw performance graphs reflect this extra clock speed nicely, though it does seem that when faced with the newer Cortex-A77 designs, as seen in the OnePlus Nord N10 5G, the Realme 7 5G does start to lose some ground. Overall, however, these remain very comparable in CPU terms.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
  1927
• Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
  1898
• Huawei P40 Lite
  1862
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  1848
• Realme 7 Pro
  1811
• Realme 7 5G
  1794
• Redmi Note 9S
  1785
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  1694
• Realme 7
  1681
• Realme 6 Pro
  1666
• Realme Narzo 20A
  1400
• Realme Narzo 20
  1328
• Realme 7i
  1318
• Redmi Note 9
  1292

AnTuTu and its more-compound tests appear to be even more-favorable towards the Realme 7 5G. It's particularly interesting to see that it edges-out Snapdragon 756G devices, as well as the aforementioned OnePlus N10 5G and its Snapdragon 690. This could be down to any number of specifics about the Realme 7 5G. While we can't say for sure that it is fully utilizing the capabilities of the Dimensity 800U, the latter does have support for LPDDR4X RAM speeds up to 2133MHz and UFS 2.2 storage. The storage chips on the Realme 7 5G are known to use UFS 2.1, which is still quite snappy.

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  325777
• Realme 7 5G
  318535
• Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
  318117
• Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
  299926
• Realme 7
  292828
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  279579
• Realme 7 Pro
  278414
• Realme 6 Pro
  268785
• Redmi Note 9S
  254000
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  253271
• Redmi Note 9
  200414
• Realme Narzo 20
  193912
• Realme 7i
  172933
• Realme Narzo 20A
  169543

The Dimensity 800U arguably got the shorter end of the stick in the GPU department, though. Its Mali-G57 MC3 is, on paper, a worse chip than the Adreno 620 in the Snapdragon 765G and even the Mali-G76 MC4 inside the MediaTek Helio G95.

GFX Manhattan ES 3.0 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
  55
• Realme 7
  54
• Huawei P40 Lite
  53
• Realme 7 5G
  51
• Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
  50
• Redmi Note 9S
  42
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  42
• Realme 6 Pro
  41
• Realme 7 Pro
  41
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  32
• Realme Narzo 20
  25
• Realme Narzo 20A
  19
• Realme 7i
  19

GFX Manhattan ES 3.0 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  49
• Realme 7 5G
  48
• Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
  48
• Realme Narzo 20
  44
• Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
  43
• Realme 7
  42
• Realme 6 Pro
  37
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  37
• Redmi Note 9S
  36
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  36
• Realme 7 Pro
  35
• Realme Narzo 20A
  33
• Realme 7i
  32

The relevant off-screen performance graphs tend to reflect that in most cases, but crucially, the difference really isn't that major. These chips seem to trade blows back and forth and are about comparable in terms of raw performance.

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
  21
• Huawei P40 Lite
  21
• Realme 7
  20
• Realme 7 5G
  20
• Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
  19
• Realme 6 Pro
  18
• Realme 7 Pro
  18
• Redmi Note 9S
  18
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  17
• Realme Narzo 20
  16
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  14
• Realme Narzo 20A
  7.2
• Realme 7i
  7

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Realme Narzo 20
  18
• Huawei P40 Lite
  18
• Realme 7
  17
• Realme 7 5G
  17
• Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
  17
• Realme 6 Pro
  16
• Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
  16
• Redmi Note 9S
  15
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  15
• Realme 7 Pro
  14
• Realme Narzo 20A
  13
• Realme 7i
  13
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  13

On a more-positive note, the Realme 7 5G and its Dimensity 800U clearly have the OnePlus N10 5G and its Snapdragon 690 beat in GPU terms.

To be clear, though, none of these chips are anywhere close to graphic powerhouses. When faced with a truly harder workload, they quickly show their budget colors.

Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
  12
• Realme 6 Pro
  11
• Realme 7
  11
• Realme 7 5G
  11
• Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
  11
• Redmi Note 9S
  9.9
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  9.9
• Realme 7 Pro
  9.7
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  8.7
• Huawei P40 Lite
  8.6

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
  18
• Realme 7
  12
• Realme 7 5G
  12
• Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
  12
• Huawei P40 Lite
  12
• Realme 6 Pro
  11
• Redmi Note 9S
  10
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  10
• Realme 7 Pro
  9.7
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  5.7

That, however, is to be expected and not really crucial in real-world terms. The important takeaway from these graphs is that the Dimensity 800U not only holds its ground, but even manages to snatch a high performance spot within its class.

3DMark SSE ES 3.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
  3294
• Realme 7 5G
  3163
• Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
  3031
• Huawei P40 Lite
  2818
• Realme 7
  2709
• Realme 7 Pro
  2541
• Realme 6 Pro
  2506
• Redmi Note 9S
  2494
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  2467
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  2166
• Realme Narzo 20
  1400
• Realme Narzo 20A
  1065

3DMark SSE Vulkan 1.0 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
  3080
• Realme 7 5G
  3028
• Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
  2821
• Realme 7
  2772
• Huawei P40 Lite
  2603
• Realme 7 Pro
  2358
• Redmi Note 9S
  2357
• Realme 6 Pro
  2334
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  2248
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  2012
• Realme Narzo 20
  1382
• Realme Narzo 20A
  1111

Since the question of thermal behavior on the MediaTek Dimensity 800U has come up, we decided to run it through a stress test and see if it thermal-throttles. Or rather, more specifically, when and how it thermal-throttles, since that is basically an inevitability on a passively-cooled modern smartphone.

CPU Throttling test

The Realme 7 5G and its chipset have what we would describe as a graceful, even if a bit choppy thermal-curve. Instead of pushing the CPU hard and to the limit from the get go in the interest of elevated benchmark scores, Realme has instead elected to try and sustain a more consistent and moderated level of performance through the phone’s CPU governor. There are the occasional dips and highs in the graph, but the oscillations are never sudden and severe enough to actually cause stutters and hiccups while gaming. That’s the ultimate goal when choosing a moderated performance curve, so job well done.

It is great to see that the Dimensity 800U also maintained the same average level of performance for nearly 50 minutes under maximum CPU load. A drop is observable after that, but it is a small and gradual one. In terms of surface temperature, the Realme 7 5G never got even close to uncomfortable to hold. In fact, we had to feel-around on the back panel to find the one slightly warmer spot where the chipset resides.

The Dimensity 800U has plenty of "oomph" for the average Android user out there and never felt lacking in performance during our time with it. The far-more noticeable advantage it has on its side is the 120Hz display refresh rate, which offers a tangible increase in perceived performance. Everything just feels and looks snappier and more responsive at 120fps.

Crucially, the Realme 7 5G has no issues maintaining a mostly stable 120fps within its UI and in most productivity scenarios (app refresh-rate idiosyncrasies permitting, of course). The only real performance gripe we have with the device is its apparent current inability to actually run games at anything above 60fps.