Realme 6 Pro review

Design

Realme is no stranger to bold and eye-catching paint jobs, but even by the company's standards, the 6 Pro is quite something. The back panel has a lightning effect that changes its outline and intensity depending on the angle you're looking at it from, hence all the color schemes are called Lightning plus a color.

Speaking of colors, our review unit is in a bit of an underground colorway. Realme doesn't list it in its specs pages, where there's only Lightning Blue and Lightning Orange. Ours was originally bound for Russia, and 'Krasnaya Molnia' can easily pass for Lightning Red, though we're getting more of fuchsia vibe.

Hues aside, the Realme 6 Pro's rear panel is made of glass, while the frame is plastic. The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 5, but there's also a factory-applied screen protector on top. Realme's press materials advertise a three-layer waterproofing design with glue dispensing for putting the parts together, silicone gel to seal the earpiece and USB port openings, and foam rings for the SIM card slot and other component connectors. In any case, there's no IP rating on the 6 Pro, but it's good to know that extra measures have been taken to keep water out in case of an accident.

The 6.6-inch display on the front has what could best be described as 'average' bezels - nothing too fancy, but not really objectionably thick either. The sides and the top are about the same thickness, with some more meat on the bottom.

The top bezel is home to the earpiece at the very edge where the glass meets the frame. The ambient light and proximity sensors are to its right.

It's not what we see here at a passing glance, though, is it? The dual selfie camera is a bit of an eye-sore, the pill-shaped cutout eating into the status bar. Still, we find it very well justified - having an ultra-wide selfie cam is super useful, and we'd easily live with the offset notifications.

Let's do the tour around the frame, starting on the bottom. Here you'll find the USB-C port in the center, the loudspeaker to its right and the primary mic and headphone jack on the left.

On the left of the Realme 6 Pro, you'll find the volume controls - two discrete buttons as opposed to a rocker. They're plastic too, but they do click nicely. Near the top is the SIM card slot and it's our favorite variety - it can take two nano SIMs and a microSD all at the same time.

Up top a lone pinhole reveals where the secondary mic is.

Charging and sound on the bottom • Volume controls on the left • Mic on top

Which brings us to the power button/fingerprint sensor on the right. Positioned just above the midpoint, the button has a capacitive reader embedded and serves as the most natural unlock method. A bit too natural at times even - on occasion we found ourselves unlocking the phone while putting it back into our pockets.

It works best for right-hand users and thumb operation, but we found it to be nearly as good for left-hand index finger use - we'd say it's better for lefties than most other such solutions. In the settings, you can select whether a press is required for unlock or just a tap will do, and we're all for just the tap.

The Realme 6 Pro measures 163.8x75.8x8.9mm, which is about what you'd expect for a 6.6-inch midranger. It weighs 202g, and that too doesn't strike us as unreasonable. The Redmi Note 9 Pro (the Max, too) is a couple of millimeters larger alongside the X and Y axes and marginally larger at 209g but comes with more battery and ever so slightly bigger display. Meanwhile, the Galaxy A51 is substantially lighter at 172g and slightly smaller in footprint for almost the same-sized display as the Realme.