When Realme launched the 8-series a month ago, only the 8 Pro was promised for Europe, the 8 wasn’t coming. Well, it is now and it won’t be traveling alone – the Realme 8 5G is headed to the Old Continent as well. The Realme 8 will be available in May and it will start at € 200. That is a fair bit lower than the Pro model, which goes for € 300. Comparing the two, they share the same 6.4” Super AMOLED display (1080p+, 60 Hz), but have different cameras, chipsets and batteries.
The vanilla 8 has a 64MP main cam (vs.
108MP on the Pro), the 8MP ultrawide module is the same. It is powered by the
Helio G95 (12 nm) instead of the slightly faster Snapdragon 720G (8 nm).
Finally, the 5,000 mAh battery is slightly larger but slightly slower – the
included 30W charger gets it to 50% in 26 minutes and to 100% in 65 minutes
(the Pro has 4,500 mAh battery with 50W charging, so it’s 17 minutes to 50% and
47 minutes to full).
The Realme 8 5G is also coming to Europe
in May and it will cost the same - €200. That shouldn’t come as much of a
surprise considering that the 8 and 8 5G are more different than their names
suggest. A quick comparison shows that the AMOLED screen is swapped out for a
6.5” IPS LCD with 90 Hz refresh rate, the 64 MP main camera for a 48 MP one and
the ultra wide lens is gone completely. Also, the 5,000 mAh battery now tops
out at just 18W charging.
You do get 5G connectivity, of course, and
Europe already has many next-gen networks in operation. The Realme 8 5G is
powered by the Dimensity 700 chipset (7 nm), which may not have the GPU for 90
fps gaming, but it does have a sub-6 GHz modem capable of delivering speeds up
to 2.77 Gpbs.
If you care about connectivity more than
you do about the camera, then this model does make some sense. But check this
out. The older Realme 7 5G has an ultra wide camera, 30W charging and even the
LCD is better with 120 Hz refresh rate. It has been available for as low as
€ 220, which would make it a better deal, but it currently hovers around €260.
By the way, CEO Madhav Sheth mentioned
that early bird deals will be available, so it is perhaps too early for a price
comparison. We don’t know what those deals will be, that will be revealed as
the May launch date approaches.
