Realme X50 Pro 5G review

Traditional quad-camera setup on the back, dual - at the front

The Realme X50 Pro lifts its main camera setup from the X2 Pro - it has a high-res primary shooter, an ultrawide snapper, a tele cam for 2x zoom, and a depth sensor for portraits. That's pretty much the traditional definition for the 4-camera arrangements and Realme obviously did things by the book.

The primary camera uses Samsung ISOCELL Bright GW1 1/1.72" sensor with 0.8µm pixels, Quad-Bayer filter, and f/1.8 26mm lens. Phase-detect autofocus is available.

There is also an 8MP snapper with f/2.3 13mm lens for ultrawide photos. It also features phase-detect autofocus and because of it - this 8MP cam is also used for super macro snaps. Nice!

The Realme X50 Pro features a 12MP imager behind f/2.5 52mm lens for 2x zoomed photos. It can do 5X hybrid zoom, whatever that means, and also 20X digital zoom. Phase-detection AF is available here as well.

The fourth and final snapper is the 2MP depth sensor without color filter, which Realme calls portrait lens. It should help boost the contrast when assisting the main camera and enhance retro effects if you decide to apply such.

The three active shooters all support AI Color - this was previously known as Dazzle Color or Chroma Boost. In addition to more saturated colors, it also applies HDR when necessary. When light is low, though, AI Color actually triggers Nightscape mode instead. And speaking of...

There is a new night mode - Nightscape 3.0. It works like before - taking a couple of snaps with different exposure and stitch them together. And it works on all three cameras - main, ultrawide, and zoom (although 2x is usually upscale from the main cam). But it has a new Tripod mode - if you leave the phone on a tripod it can shoot for as long as 50 seconds for some jaw-dropping shots. We can't wait to test this!

There are two selfie shooters at the front but none of them features autofocus. Still, the primary is a 32MP Sony IMX616 Quad-Bayer sensor with f/2.5 lens, while the secondary is an 8MP imager behind f/2.2 lens for 105° ultrawide selfies.

The camera app is familiar with a few tweaks here and there - there are less menus, which is good. You will notice zoom toggles switching between Wide, 1X, 2X, and 5X, but quite expectedly everything beyond 2X is only digital zooming.

In the Pro mode you get to tweak exposure (ISO in the 100-3200 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). You can use Pro with all three cameras, though the shutter speed for the ultrawide snapper maxes out at 1/2s.

Camera app

Image quality

The Realme X50 Pro main camera saves 16MP photos by default and those are great - the detail is abundant, the colors accurate, contrast is excellent, and the dynamic range is quite high.

There is some noise visible in areas of uniform color, but it doesn't get in the way.

The foliage isn't the best we've seen - the high complexity detail - grass and the tree branches - gets smeared by the algorithm. If we were to guess - all intricate things are mistaken for noise or the pixel binning just isn't as perfect. Either way, the photos are still great for this price tag and we'd say they are pretty close to current bests.

Realme X50 Pro 16MP photos

AI Color is what Realme now calls the old Dazzle Color and Chroma Boost. This is pretty much an HDR more with an additional color saturation depending on the scene - Skies, Greenary, Buildings, etc.

The photos with AI Color do present much livelier colors, but we don't think this unrealistic look will be everyone's cup of tea.

Realme X50 Pro 16MP photos with AI color

Shooting at the maximum 64MP resolution is possible and this will net you some extra detail, mostly in foliage, under the right conditions. Even so, there's a major price to be paid in terms of noise - full-res shots have a lot of it, they are slower to take, and eat up between 15 and 35 MB of space. We'd stick to the 16MP default mode.

Realme X50 Pro 64MP images

The 8MP cam with the ultrawide lens does a very good job - the detail is good for the ultrawide purposes, the colors are close to the real thing even if a bit washed out, and the dynamic range is higher than what we usually get from such snappers. The 8MP ultrawide snaps are noise-free and overall - among the better ones we've seen among the 8MP shooters.

There is automatic distortion correction applied, so there are no wrapped buildings.

Realme X50 Pro 8MP ultrawide photos

And here are some ultrawide photos with AI color on.

Realme X50 Pro 8MP ultrawide photos with AI color

The 8MP ultrawide camera supports autofocus and, in addition to the always on focus shots, you can get really close to a subject (4cm) and take some macro photos like the ones below. Detail isn't ideal, but they would still do for the occasional ladybug or cactus.

Realme X50 Pro 8MP macro samples

The 12MP photos from the zoom camera are a bit noisy but exhibiting flagship level of detail. The foliage presentation is better here, the sharpness - just right, the contrast and colors - excellent, and the dynamic range is pretty great.

Realme X50 Pro 12MP telephoto samples

A 5x toggle is also present in the viewfinder, and that does digital zoom from the 2x module. Images look okay at fit to screen magnifications but don't stand up well to pixel-level scrutiny.

Realme X50 Pro 12MP telephoto samples with AI color

The Realme X50 Pro shoots portraits with its main 64MP snapper and with the help of the 2MP so-called portrait camera. Realme says this tiny camera is not just a depth sensor but is also used to enhance the contrast of the said portraits.

Well, we can't be certain what's going on behind the scenes, but the Realme X50 Pro takes very good portraits with competent subject detection and convincing background blur. Stray hair was much of a challenge either and overall, the shots are exemplary for this class.

Realme X50 Pro 16MP portrait photos

Enough with the daylight photos, let's look at a bunch of pictures we shot at nighttime.

The X50 Pro performs very good when the light is low, although we've seen better from some recent Galaxy and Xiaomi phones. Anyway, the detail is enough and there is lots of noise left, but the photos show outstanding color saturation and contrast, and good dynamic range.

Realme X50 Pro 16MP low-light photos

Using AI Color will always trigger Nightscape, so here are some Nightscape photos. These got a visible boost in the shadows, improved highlights, and the color saturation gets even better, if somewhat over the top. There is no loss in detail, but some noise does vanish and that's just great.

Realme X50 Pro 16MP Nightscape photos

The Tripod option of the Night Mode triggers a 20 or so seconds shooting with the main camera and it yeilds great photos. Those are brilliantly balanced, with excellet color retention, there are stars in the skies, and no highlights were blown in the process. The car tails were removed instead of blurred on the images, which is another thing we like about the algorithm. If you have a tripod and want to take an amazing photo at night, this is the way to go.

Tripod Night Mode

The ultrawide shooter does an acceptable job at night - the images are soft, and detail is scarce, but still - we've seen much worse.

Realme X50 Pro 8MP low-light ultrawide photos

Nightscape does an excellent jot in improving the ultrawide shots and it is not at the price of standing still for 10 seconds. The images are brighter and have higher dynamic range, the captured detail is more, too. The colors and contrast improve as well and, in the end, - if ultrawide picture is a must - Nightscape is what you need to get it right.

Realme X50 Pro 8MP Night Mode ultrawide photos

The 2X switch doesn't trigger the dedicated zoom camera at night and instead - uses digital zoom over the main snapper. Still, for when the snapper does fire - it takes good enough pictures, but these can be much better with Nightscape.

2x zoom • 2x zoom • 2x zoom Night Mode

Once you're done with the real world samples, head over to our Photo compare tool to see how the Realme X50 Pro stacks up against other phones.

Realme X50 Pro against the Realme X2 Pro and the Realme 6 Pro in our Photo compare tool

Selfies

The main selfie camera on Realme X50 Pro has a 32MP sensor behind 26mm f/2.5 lens, while the secondary snapper is an 8MP 17mm f/2.2 shooter for ultrawide selfies. There is no autofocus on either shooter.

The image quality of the selfies is very good. The resolved detail is average, but everything else is excellent - contrast, colors, dynamic. We suspect this 32MP sensor is of the Quad Bayer kind - thus the reduced detail in full resolution - and for the record - we would have been very satisfied with 8MP snaps out of this 32MP sensor.

Realme X50 Pro 32MP selfies

The 8MP selfie portraits are very detailed with proficient separation, nice blur and lively colors.

Realme X50 Pro 8MP selfie portraits

The 8MP ultrawide selfies came with very good detail, too, and they show superb contrast and colors. Overall - the entire selfie experience on the Realme X50 Pro left us only with positive impressions.

Realme X50 Pro 8MP ultrawide selfies

Video recording

The Realme X50 Pro records video at up to 2160p with its main camera, which can also record 1080p at both 30fps and 60fps. The ultrawide-angle and telephoto cams top out at 1080p/30fps. You get to pick between the h.264 and h.265 codecs, too.

The main camera captures detailed enough 4K footage though at 50Mbps bit rate we did expect more. Colors are pleasingly saturated without going to extremes and the contrast is nice. The dynamic range could have been higher, but it's not bad either.

The 1080p clips at 30fps aren't exhibiting a great deal of detail either, some over-sharpening is at play, while the colors and dynamic range are a match for the 4K footage.

Finally, the 1080p at 60fps videos, even though shot at the same 20Mbps bit rate as the 30fps, are somewhat richer in detail and the sharpness is just right. We suspect the always-on EIS of the 30fps clips is to blame for the said imperfections.

The 1080@30fps clips from the tele camera are flawless - the detail is superb, the contrast and dynamic range - flagship grade.

Finally, the 1080p vids from the ultrawide camera are uninspiring with average quality across the board - detail, colors, dynamic.

Electronic stabilization is available on all 1080p@30fps options, no matter the type of camera.

There's also a two-tiered Ultra Steady mode (shot at 1080p@30fps) you engage with a toggle in the viewfinder. In its 'base' mode, it uses the main cam while flipping a second toggle into Max mode engages the ultrawide-angle shooter. We found the results obtained this way to be inferior to what you'd get without Ultra Steady.

Here's a glimpse of how the Realme X50 Pro compares to rivals in our Video compare tool.

Realme X50 Pro against the Realme X2 Pro and the Realme 6 Pro in our Video compare tool