Realme 8i review

A budget triple camera

The Realme 8i has three snappers on its back - a primary 50MP camera with a wide-angle lens, a 2MP macro shooter, and a 2MP monochrome depth sensor. There is also a 16MP selfie camera within the screen's round hole.

The Realme 8i's primary camera utilizes a 50MP Samsung ISOCELL S5KJN1 1/2.76"" sensor with Tetracell filter and 0.64µm pixels (same as on Redmi 10). The sensor is coupled with an f/1.8 lens and supports PDAF. Night Mode is available on this camera.

The macro camera has 2MP GalaxyCore GC02M1 sensor with 1.75µm pixels and f/2.4 aperture but lacks autofocus.

Finally, there is a 2MP OmniVision OV02B1 monochrome depth sensor.

The selfie camera uses a 16MP SK Hynix Hi-1634Q 1/3" sensor with 1.0µm pixels. This one has f/2.05 lens, and the focus is fixed.

The camera app is the familiar Oppo/Realme one with a few tweaks for the latest version. There are fewer menus - most of the modes are now on the main rolodex, which is good. The Macro camera is still in the More section listed as Ultra Macro mode, though.

The app offers AI Scene Enhancement (also known as Chroma Boost or Dazzle Color) - it's like an advanced HDR mode, which may stack several images to offers even further improvements in the dynamic range. Still, the most prominent "improvement" is the higher color saturation.

In the Expert mode, you get to tweak exposure (ISO in the 100-6400 range and shutter speed in the 1/8000s-32s range, white balance (by light temperature, but no presets), manual focus (in arbitrary 0 to 1 units with 0 being close focus and 1 being infinity) and exposure compensation (-2EV to +2EV in 1/6EV increments).

Camera app

Photo quality

Quite expectedly, the main camera saves 12.5MP photos by default and those are simply outstanding! There is plenty of resolved detail, punchy and lively colors, absurdly good contrast and dynamic range. The noise is incredibly low, too.

The photos show balanced sharpness, and the foliage looks natural in most scenes.

The colors are a bit more saturated than they should be, but for this budget class, we'd say this is an issue we are perfectly fine to live with.

Main camera, 12.5MP

The HDR setting was set on Auto by default, and that's how we shot the samples you just saw. We noticed the camera app uses HDR quite often, so we decided to snap a few photos without HDR.

The non-HDR photos are sharper, even over-sharpened at times, and expectedly the dynamic range is not as great, though still rather good. The colors are not over-saturated here and are as close to the real scene as possible.

So, it's up to you whether you prefer the balanced but punchy HDR photos, or the sharper and accurately colored non-HDR images.

Main camera no HDR, 12.5MP

There is also AI mode, previously known as Dazzle Color, Chroma Boost, etc. Shooting with the AI option boosts the color saturation a lot, especially when skies of trees are detected. If you like these popping colors, then you may want to keep the AI toggle on. They weren't our cup of tea, though.

Main camera with AI, 12.5MP

There are zoom toggles on the viewfinder, but the camera does not offer lossless zoom. The photos you will see below were made by digitally zooming - meaning simply cropping the center of the regular image and upscaling it.

The images are soft, yes, but they do look okay on the phone's screen and on social networks, so the 2X zoom has its uses for sure. Plus, it's easier to let the camera do it automatically while shooting than later from the image editor within the Gallery and saves you some time and hassle.

Main camera 2x, 12.5MP

There is a 50MP mode, and the unprocessed 50MP photos are pretty good - they are sharp and detailed, with accurate colors, good dynamic range and contrast. There is visible noise and some image artifacts here and there, but if you downscaled these to 12MP, you'd get an incredibly detailed and natural-looking photo. That is, if you have the time and patience to do it manually by downloading the photo to a PC, use a good image editor and then export it with the right settings. It's a hassle, yes, but we do appreciate the given opportunity.

Main camera, 50MP

The Realme 8i features a 2MP monochrome camera on the back, which is used as a depth sensor when shooting portraits with the main camera. And those turned out great, especially for this budget class. The portrait photos show detailed and sharp subjects, well-exposed, and proficiently separated from the background. The simulated blur looks nice, too.

Main camera portraits, 12MP

There is also a 2MP macro camera with a fixed focus at about 4cm or so. It can take good and sharp photos, but you need to take the photos from the right distance, or else it will turn out blurry and soft. Once you get the gist of this camera, you can snap the occasional bug, flower petal, tree bark, etc.

The 2MP photos are detailed enough, but the colors are a bit washed out.

Macro camera, 2MP

Shooting photos at night without Night Mode is a bad idea. These are plenty soft and overrun by noise. They offer good exposure and saturated colors, but that's the only good thing we can say.

Main camera, 12.5MP

The Night Mode works great, and it takes 2 seconds to shoot and another 2 seconds to process the photo. They are sharp and detailed, with proficiently cleaned noise, excellent exposure, lovely color saturation and superb contrast. All previously blown highlights are restored, while the shadows are kept natural-looking.

Overall, the Night Mode does a remarkable job, especially when considering that the Realme 8i is a budget phone.

Main camera with Night Mode, 12.5MP

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Realme 8i. Here's how it stacks up against the competition. Feel free to browse around and pit it against other phones from our extensive database.

Realme 8i against the Realme 8 and the Redmi 10 in our Photo compare tool

The 16MP selfies are very likable - the subjects are detailed, the colors are accurate, and the noise is low. If the Auto HDR triggers, the sharpness will drop, but the dynamic range will get a nice boost.

Selfies, 16MP

Selfie portraits are possible, but they look good only outside. If the light is not ideal, they are soft, and the subject separation accuracy rapidly deteriorates.

Selfie portraits, 16MP

Video recording

The Realme 8i captures videos up to 1080@30fps with its main camera. There is no 4K mode, 60fps shooting is not available either.

The video bitrate is ridiculously at 50Mbps (the 30sec footage is 180MB!), while audio is recorded in stereo at 288kbps bitrate. There is always-on electronic stabilization.

The clips from the main camera have accurate white balance, and great colors, the contrast and the dynamic range are good, too. The level of detail is okay for 1080p footage but not as sharp as we'd expected it to be, probably because of the always-on EIS.

Shooting at 2x zoom, the 1080p videos are even softer than the regular ones but still pretty usable. They look fine on the screen and on Facebook, so the Realme 8i users can occasionally enjoy 2x video capturing and won't end up with terrible footage.

Finally, here is the Realme 8i in our video comparison database.

1080p: Realme 8i against the Poco M3 Pro 5G and the Redmi 10 in our Video compare tool