The Unofficial POCO F1 Successor from Realme India
Realme’s latest offering the Realme X7 Max 5G looks like the successor to the Poco F1; however, from a different brand. Yes, the Realme X7 Max 5G is completely different from the Poco F1. However, it does feel like the right smartphone for enthusiasts, which happens to cover the basics of high-performance smartphones of 2021.
Starting at Rs. 26,999, the Realme X7 Max doesn’t have much competition, especially when considering the processor that powers this device. I have been testing the Realme X7 Max 5G with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage, which retails for Rs. 29,999, and here is our full review.
Realme X7 Max 5G Design: Not My Cup Of Tea
The Realme X7 Max 5G is one of the lightest high-performance smartphones that I have tested in 2021. The smartphone weighs 179g, making it lighter than the Mi 11x and the iQOO 7 5G, which are the closest competitors of the Realme X7 max 5G.
One of the main reasons that make the Realme X7 Max 5G a lightweight smartphone is the fact that it comes with a plastic frame and plastic back panel. Some phones with plastic back panels do look like glass. However, in this case, one can easily make out that the back panel is indeed made up of polycarbonate.
The back panel has a two-tone design, where most of the back has a matte texture with a glossy strip with the Realme logo. The company should have gone with a full matte or glossy finish, as just the glossy strip attracts fingerprints and makes the phone look cheap.
Practically, the design and the build quality of the Realme X7 Max 5G works well. However, most phones at this price range do feel more premium at a cost of lower performance, and Realme is doing the other way around. By the way, the phone does ship with a soft silicon case, which should protect the device from getting normal wear and tear.
Realme X7 Max 5G Display: High-Refresh Rate Panel
The Realme X7 Max 5G has a 6.43-inch AMOLED display with FHD+ (2400×1080) resolution. The display offers up to 120Hz refresh rate with 360Hz touch sampling rates, which should induce lower touch latency while playing games that require repeated touch input. The display is protected by 2.5D curved tempered glass but is it not protected by Corning Gorilla Glass.
The display has a tiny punch hole cutout on the top left corner with a screen-to-body ratio of 91.7 percent and it also has an in-display fingerprint sensor. Hence, the chin is slightly wider than the top and side bezels. On paper, the display on the Realme X7 Max 5G is similar to most of the flagship smartphones of 2021. However, it does lack a bit especially when it comes to brightness.
The device offers sRGB (gentle) and P3 (vivid) colour modes, and I tested the phone in the vivid mode for the most part. The screen on the Realme X7 Max 5G is slightly on the saturated side, especially when compared to phones like the OnePlus 8. Similarly, it also can’t get as bright as the OnePlus 8, which will be noticeable while playing HDR videos and under direct sunlight.
Due to the higher refresh rate, the phone does feel much smoother under normal day-to-day operations, which is an advantage over the other phones with either 60Hz or 90Hz refresh rate. However, setting the phone at a 120Hz refresh rate will consume more power, thus, you might get slightly lower battery backup when compared to auto mode or 60Hz mode.
In this case, the most practical thing to do is to set the screen refresh rate to auto mode, which dynamically changes the refresh rate, depending on the content displayed on the phone. However, I did notice a bit of a stutter while opening some apps when the screen refresh rate was in auto mode and I was able to overcome that issue by locking the refresh rate to 120Hz.
The AMOLED display on the Realme X7 Max 5G is not as good as the one found on the high-end smartphones from brands like Samsung or OnePlus. However, you can only notice that difference if you held those devices onto your eye level and compare them. Else, the Realme X7 Max 5G does have a great display that is good for regular usage, multimedia consumption, and gaming.
Great Media Consumption Experience
The sound output from the Realme X7 Max 5G does get loud with a bit of a bass and the sound doesn’t crack even at 100 percent volume. Do note that, the sound quality does depend a lot on the source of the music, and in my testing, I used Amazon music to test these features with music quality set to the highest. Even while playing music from YouTube, I didn’t notice any issue.
The Realme X7 Max 5G is also Widevine L1 certified and can playback HD content on platforms like Netflix and Prime Video. However, you won’t be able to play the HDR content on Netflix, which is a bummer. So, no matter which OTT platform you use for content consumption, the Realme X7 Max 5G handles everything like a charm.
To top it off, the smartphone has a 3.5mm headphone jack. So, with the Realme X7 Max 5G, you can either use a 3.5mm wired headphone, an USB Type-C headphone, or even a wireless Bluetooth headphone. Do note that, you need to enable OTG connection to use a USB Type-C earphone on the Realme X7 Max 5G.
Realme X7 Max 5G Camera: Gets The Job Done
The Realme X7 Max 5G has a triple camera setup at the back with a 64MP primary sensor, 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens, and a 2MP macro lens. At the front, there is a 16MP selfie camera with 1080p video recording capability and it can also be used to unlock the smartphone (which is not as secure as Face ID on iPhones).
The main 64MP camera on the Realme X7 Max 5G is a Sony sensor (IMX682) with an F/1.8 aperture and 26mm focal length. None of the sensors is optically optimized on this device, which means, you won’t get stable videos, especially at 4K resolution, as the EIS and ultra steady modes are limited to 1080p.
Also note that you can use both the selfie camera and the main camera at the same time, which is a useful feature for bloggers. At 1080p, the sensor crops the image and offers stable footage, especially with ultra steady mode turned on. If you have stable hands or even a gimbal, you can also get stable videos at 4K 30/60fps.
Realme X7 Max 5G Performance: Sets A New Benchmark In Its Class
The Realme X7 Max 5G is the smartphone in India to feature MediaTek Dimensity 1200 SoC. This is the flagship processor from MediaTek based on 6nm fabrication, which is more power-efficient when compared to Snapdragon 865/870 which is based on 7nm fabrication. On top of that, it is also one of the few processors with a 3.0GHz CPU clock speed.
The CPU design follows 1+3+4 architecture. The top high-performance core and the other three powerful cores are based on ARM Cortex-A78, while the four efficient cores with 2GHz clock speed are based on ARM Cortex-A78. The Dimensity 1200 comes with Arm Mali-G77 MC9 GPU, capable of supporting up to 168Hz refresh rate display.
At the time of launch, the company claimed that the Realme X7 Max 5G scored over 7,00,000 points on Antutu. However, we ran the Antutu benchmark (V9) three times and obtained an average score of 6,88,286, which is slightly less than what the company claims. The Realme X7 Max 5G has outperformed both Mi 11x and the iQOO 7 in the Antutu test.
On Geekbench 5 CPU test, the smartphone scored 972 points on single-core CPU performance, while the average multi-core CPU logged is 3269. In comparison, both the iQOO 7 and the Mi 11x have slightly lower single-core CPU scored despite having higher clock speed.
Gaming Performance: Can Handle Any Android Game
We tested popular games like BGMI and COD: Mobile and I was impressed with the overall gaming experience. On both titles, the smartphone was able to maintain 60fps even with continuous gameplay, and the phone also didn’t get that hot even with over 30 hours of gameplay.
On COD: Mobile by default the graphics and framerate are set to high quality and you can also change that to very high quality. Nonetheless, in both settings, I didn’t notice any sort of slowdown on the Realme X7 Max 5G. The same goes for the BGMI as well, the whole gameplay was pretty smooth without any frame drops.
Realme X7 Max 5G Battery Life: All-Day Battery Life
The Realme X7 Max 5G is equipped with a 4500 mAh battery with support for a 50W fast charger included in the retail package. The phone comes with a 65W fast charger, which can be used to fast charge Realme, Oppo, and OnePlus smartphones.
On a regular day, the phone did offer me around 6 hours of Screen On Time, where I would use the phone mostly for WhatsApp, browsing social media, navigation, listening to online music, and light gaming (less than an hour). So, even with mixed usage, the phone can easily last for a day. If you are a heavy user, then there is a chance that you might have to refill the battery by the end of the day.
In case of recharging the battery, the phone does recharge quickly, where, the phone can charge from 0 to 50 per cent in just 16 minutes and can fully charge in under 50 minutes. However, the phone does get a bit warm while charging, which is something that I have noticed on other phones with either 30/50/65W of fast charging support.
Verdict: Truly Value-For-Money 5G Smartphone
The Realme X7 Max 5G is a device that might not look pretty from the outside but it is one of the most powerful smartphones that one can get around Rs. 24,000 (after bank discounts). Even if you get the base model, you get 8GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage, which should be more than enough for regular usage.
If you overlook the cheap build quality, the smartphone has everything that one might expect from a high-performance smartphone, a fast processor, a vivid display with a higher refresh rate, a medium-sized battery with fast charging, and the latest Android OS.
If you are looking for a smartphone for around Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 30,000, then the Realme X7 Max 5G could be an ideal device. If you feel the build quality is not up to the mark, then, invest in a good case, which should improve the looks and aesthetics of the Realme X7 Max 5G.
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