Realme has been releasing phones at an unprecedented rate since May of this year, they released three generations of phones including the Realme 2 Pro all competing in the super competitive budget sector, this newest phone promises to address some of the issues of the first two devices, but where does that leave it in comparison to the rest of the market. Is it going to be enough to be our top pick? This is our full review of the Realme 2 Pro.
Realme 2 Pro

Even though Realme 2 Pro is a budget phone it doesn't look cheap, there's a limit to how much real me can change each generation since their release schedule is so short, so one of the most effective ways they differentiate their new phones is using aesthetics.

True to form the back has a gorgeous new paint job that catches the light especially in the ice lake color, on the front the phone has slim bezels and an elegant water droplet notch, it holds the selfie camera and a tiny earpiece, you can't hide the notch, but it isn't very obtrusive, you can also choose whether it cuts into full screen content or not depending on the app so you can game with the notch and watch videos without it or vice versa. I can only hope other manufacturers get inspired by these options.
Realme 2 Pro

The Realme 2 pro feels nice in the hand and has a solid weight, despite being made of plastic entirely of plastic, that includes the steel like paint job on the edge of the phone and the glass like back. Unfortunately despite attracting fingerprints like a glass phone the back lacks any Gorilla Glass protection against scratches, so we recommend using the case included in the box.

There's no waterproofing either, but honestly I'd be shocked if they included it at this price point, it would have been less suprising if they'd included and if see an IR blaster or USB-C port but we're out of luck, hopefully we'll move past the microUSB port with the next generation and maybe get NFC in the generation after that.

What you do get is a quick face unlock with 120 recognition points and a fingerprint reader that's just as fast, the face unlock isn't quite as secure as Apple's but you can't fool it with a picture, even at first glance the screen is much improved it's large in the 6.3 inch IPS LCD has a 1080p resolution, it also has a decent pixel density and if you opt for a warmer color temperature in settings it becomes very color accurate for its class.

The panel gets nicely bright at more than 530 nits and is perfectly usable outdoors despite being an LCD the phone also has deep blacks and thus has an excellent contrast ratio, in short it's significantly nicer than the Realme 1 & 2.

With its 19 point 5 by 9 aspect ratio it's a tall phone and can be a bit of a stretch if you're swiping from the top, however it's not impossible to use and a thin bezels help it from becoming too bulky for comfort.

The Realme 2 pro has a single bottom firing speaker with very good loudness and good quality, though with a focus on mid-tones. Like many in the lower mid-range the device still has a headphone jack in our lab tests with headphones plugged in we did see some distortion at higher levels but output is still decent. Sadly there's no FM radio so you have to use your data or store songs on the phone itself.

Thankfully it comes with a decent amount of base storage and it supports up to 256 gigabytes with a micro SD card.

The Realme 2 pro has a smaller battery and a more powerful chipset than the Realme 2, so unsurprisingly it has a much lower battery endurance however considering the Realme 2 had monstrously long battery life the 2 Pro still scored an excellent reading on a proprietary tests and it will last you ages, sadly there's no quick charge so when you do eventually run out of battery you'll have to be patient for it to top up.

The Realme 2 pro uses a snapdragon 616 chipset that's slightly under clocked this makes it a bit slower than phones like the Xiaomi A2 in benchmarks, but in real life you don't really notice a slowdown and the phone never heats up or throttles.

The phone comes with either 4 6 or 8 gigs of RAM and the latter two options should prevent a slow down over time and prevent hiccups while multitasking.

Software wise the 2 pro comes with Oreo 8.1 and color OS on top this is a familiar UI to anyone who's used an Oppo phone in the past but fans of stock Android will be disappointed, making matters worse there's no theme store which means you're stuck with a default theme and the lack of app drawer unless you install a third-party launcher like Nova, when I tried it worked but it was difficult to gauge how to swipe for currently open apps and how to swipe for the app drawer still despite being feature-rich the UI doesn't feel very laggy and the navigation gestures feel very intuitive, I much prefer them to navigation buttons and I make the phone less cumbersome to use.

Swipe up for the home screen swipe and hold for recent apps and swipe with three fingers for split screen mode, not every app works in split-screen mode but important ones do.

There's an edge bar that's reminiscent of Samsung's phones and it conveniently holds a few shortcuts of your choosing like YouTube messages and Facebook you can also use it to take screenshots, but I think pressing the power button and lower volume button simultaneously saves more time.

The UI's phone manager handles memory cleaner functions security and encryption but you won't need to use it most of the time, if you're into gaming the 2 Pro also has an improved gaming space which lets to handpick performance modes and notification options.

Realme hasn't ignore the camera and you'll find quite a few upgrades there too, the dual camera setup now features a brighter F 1.7 main lens with an upgraded sensor in daylight photos are sharp with plenty of detail, excellent contrast and nice colors. The dynamic range isn't the best but that's where the HDR comes in especially handy, photos are sharper and less noisy than on the Realme 2 and low-light shots in particular we're massively better, well they aren't the best we've ever seen they're still excellent for this class.

Portrait mode subjects separation worked well and portraits were quite decent, the portrait lighting modes however or less convincing so you can just skip them.
If you're into video 4k videos aren't bad, but they are not amazing they have very good contrast and color reproduction but details average and dynamic ranges is even worse. 1080p footage is similar quality wise, but it has the added benefit of electronic image stabilization.

On the front there's also a new 16 megapixel snapper, selfies have more than enough detail good sharpness and nice colors, there is HDR for the mediocre dynamic range and a respectable simulated bouquet.

Where the Realme 2 inspired doubt, the Realme 2 Pro seems to have solidified its place as the budget phone to beat, it has a lower price than as competitors while offering a better screen, better performance, a better camera and even more storage, sure it doesn't have every feature out there, but for its price it's a beast and I easily recommend it.