Realme 3 review

A familiar dual-camera with brighter lens

The Realme 3 lifts its main camera from the Realme 2 and U1 - it's a 13MP+2MP camera combo. Only the 13MP one can be used on its own, while the 2MP module is used for depth detection (read: portrait shots with defocused backgrounds).

The primary sensor sits behind f/1.8 lens (up from f/2.2 on the Realme 2 and U1). Phase-detection autofocus, and a LED flash complete the camera specs.

The camera app offers AI scene recognition - you'll see a small icon when a scene is successfully recognized, and the software will tweak all settings accordingly. Food, snow, pets (dogs and cats), sunsets, grass, among other scenes, are caught mostly correctly.

The app has three major modes - Photo, Portrait and Video - and you can swipe between those. The new Chrome Boost toggle is on the other end, accompanied by the HDR and flash settings. The Chrome Boost is an advanced HDR mode, which stacks a couple of images and offers even further improvements in the dynamic range and occasionally - better color saturation.

Camera app

There is also a hamburger menu with a few more shooting modes - Expert (manual settings), Pano, Time-lapse, Slow-mo, and Nightscape. The latter is the so-called long-exposure handheld mode for night photos, which is the thing to have these days. And kudos to Realme for bringing it on such a budget phone!

There is also a 2X zoom toggle, but it does a simple digital zoom - there is no telephoto lens on the Realme 3.

Image quality

The daylight photos we snapped with the Realme 3 turned out sharp and with enough resolved detail, excellent contrast, and accurate colors. The dynamic range is about average - there are clipped highlights here and there, but nothing that the HDR can't fix. The noise control is balanced - you can see noise mostly in areas of uniform color. The foliage presentation is pretty good, too, but the grass could still benefit from some further improvements.

Overall, those are among the better photos we've seen from the latest bunch in this price bracket.

Realme 3 13MP camera samples

The 2x zoom is purely digital, there is no telephoto lens on the Realme 3. But Realme still opted for a toggle on the viewfinder, so here is what you'll get if you use it.

Realme 3: 2x digital zoom camera samples

The HDR mode works nicely on the Realme 3. You also get auto mode, which does a good job of jumping in, sometimes is even more trigger happy than it should be. HDR processing is not too extreme and generally helps rescue some details in shadows and highlights.

Then there is the Chrome Boost mode, which you must enable from the viewfinder. You should use this only for improving even further the dynamic range and if you think the colors are somewhat duller than they should be. It indeed improves the dynamic range further than the HDR thanks to some more advanced image stacking, but you will lose some fine detail in the process.

Regular • HDR • Chroma Boost

Regular • HDR • Chroma Boost

And here are a couple of more shots for a quick comparison.

HDR • Chroma Boost • HDR • Chroma Boost

Chroma Boost is perfect for sunsets or sunrises and you can tell by the samples below.

Normal • Chroma boost • Normal • Chroma boost

The 13MP camera on the Realme 3 has a bright f/1.8 lens, and it does help the pictures at night. The photos we took with the Realme 3 are quite acceptable for a phone from the budget class. There is enough detail despite the high noise levels.

Lots of the highlights are clipped, as expected, but the HDR mode will succeed in restoring some of those. And you might even get a little bit more detail, too.

Normal • HDR • Normal • HDR

The Realme 3 is among the cheapest phones to offer a proprietary night mode called Nightscape. But it does a rather poor job though and we often found the HDR photos to be better than the Nightscape. Again, bear in mind these were all shot handheld.

Normal • Nightscape • Normal • Nightscape

Normal • Nightscape • Normal • Nightscape

We've decided to try the Chroma Boost mode in low-light and it produced some nicely balanced shots.

Realme 3 low-light 13MP photos with Chroma Boost

So, we are a bit disappointed by the Nightscape mode, though we believe Realme will work it out via software updates. Meanwhile, the Chroma Boost and HDR are more than enough for some very good photos.

And once you're done examining the real-life samples you can have a look at our Photo compare tool for some studio shots. We've pre-selected the Realme U1 and the Realme 2. You can, by all means, pick any other set of phones to compare once you're there.

Realme 3 against the Realme U1 and Realme 2 in our Photo compare tool

Portrait mode

The Portrait Mode spits out high-res 13MP images. The photos are very good - subject separation works well, there aren't many abrupt transitions from sharp to blurred, the bokeh is nice, and overall - those are among the better portraits we've seen, flagships included.

The thing is these take a while to shoot meaning you have to keep your hand steady for 1-2 seconds. It's not something we can't forgive at this price, just something to consider.

Realme 3 13MP portrait shots

Selfies

The Realme 3 has a 13MP selfie camera sitting behind a f/2.0 lens. It's a fixed-focus lens; there is no dedicated flash or anything else fancy of the sorts.

The 13MP selfie cam does a very decent enough job. Despite the unimpressive dynamic range (there is an excellent HDR mode for that though), there is really not much to complain about. There is more than enough detail, the colors are nice, and the images are sharp enough.

Realme 3 13MP selfie samples

The selfie cam also offers the simulated bokeh, just like many other Oppo and Realme selfie snappers. It saves the images in 8MP, but other than that (and a few smeared ears and headphones) it does a pretty fine job shooting portraits for them social networks.

Realme 3 8MP selfie portraits

Oh, and a Beautification mode is available as well, including an AI-powered one, but those are just not our thing to test, sorry.

Video recording

The Helio P60/P70 can do 4K videos, but for some reason, the Realme 3 can't. There is no 1080p at 60fps mode; EIS is not present either.

The 1080p video is captured with stereo sound and have plenty of resolved detail for the class. The dynamic range is about the average. The colors are accurate, and the noise is handled well. Overall, we are happy with the videos we got from the Realme 3.

You can also download the 1080p@30fps (10s, 22MB) video sample taken straight off the Realme 3.

The last stop is, of course, our Video compare tool where you can compare the Realme 3's output against other phones we've tested. We've pre-selected the Realme U1 and the Realme 2, but a different set of devices is only a few clicks away.

1080p: Realme 3 against the Realme U1 and the Realme 2 in our Video compare tool