Realme X7 Max review

The Realme X7 Max is a smartphone that tries to bridge the gap between a flagship phone and a budget phone with some compromises and some upgrades over the five-month-old Realme X7 Pro. 

With all brands now trying to introduce a phone in the sub Rs 30,000 segment, Realme has joined the list with its Realme X7 Max which will compete against the likes of Xiaomi Mi 11X, iQoo 7, and to some extent with the OnePlus Nord CE as well.

The Realme X7 Max is a rebranded version of the Realme GT Neo from China. The star of the show here is the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 flagship processor which also makes its debut in India. The processor performs well in terms of day-to-day as well as gaming. 

The display is now slightly smaller than the Realme X7 Pro spanning across 6.43-inch with Full HD+ resolution and super-smooth 120Hz refresh rate. But, the design of the phone fails to impress us as it’s not the best in the segment and we did not like the in-hand feel of the device as well. 

Moving to the camera segment, the Realme X7 Max performs well in terms of primary cameras and the ultra-wide and macro lens also performs fairly well. If you are a selfie freak, the phone will not disappoint you.  

In terms of battery life, the Realme X7 Max comes with a 4,500mAh battery unit backed by a 50W charging speed. The charging speed is also something that failed to wow us - as the device takes the same time as a 30W charger can deliver for the same battery capacity. 

For those who enjoy consuming content on the phone, the Realme X7 Max also brings a dual speaker setup and a 3.5mm headphone jack which should be ideal for most mobile gamers who’d love to play Battleground Mobile India as well. 

The Realme X7 Max is a good offering for those who need performance, good display, a good set of cameras and decent battery life. Starting at Rs 26,999 — undercutting the closest competitors such as the Xiaomi Mi 11X and the iQoo 7 by about Rs 5,000 for the same configuration.

Realme X7 Max price in India and availability

Sale from Feb 10

Check out Realme X7 Max on Flipkart

8GB + 128GB at Rs 26,999

12GB + 256GB at Rs 29,999

View Deal

The Realme X7 Max is available in India in two variants. The base variant comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage which is priced at Rs 26,999. The 12GB + 256GB variant is priced at Rs 29,999. The colour options include Mercury Silver and Asteroid Black. The flashy Milky Way colour option will be available later in India. The Realme X7 Max will be sold on Flipkart. 

The closest competitor is the Xiaomi Mi 11X, which is priced at Rs 29,999 6GB+128GB variant and the 8GB+128GB is priced at Rs 31,999. The iQoo 7 comes in three variants ー 8GB+128GB, 8GB+256GB, and 12GB+256GB priced at Rs 31,990, Rs 33,990, and Rs 35,990 respectively.

Design

When we saw the Realme X7 Max in the pictures, we were pretty impressed and excited to test out the device. But, things changed as soon as the device was in our hands. For starters, the Realme X7 Max comes in three colour options Mercury Silver, Asteroid Black, and Milky Way - the latter one will be available on a later date in India. We are using the Mercury Silver variant for our review and here is what we think.  

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The Realme X7 Max comes with a two-tone design with a glossy camera strip and the rest of the back with a matte finish that feels like sandstone back from the days of the OnePlus One. The device also now gets rid of the Big and Bold “Dare to Leap” branding on the back, but instead, you get a small box on the glossy strip bottom where the branding sits - a good move by Realme as many users didn’t like the bold branding. Further, the device is also quite light, weighing 179 grams and measuring 8.4mm thick. 

While the device looks fairly good and is ergonomic, we did not like the in-hand feel of the device, especially the matte finish part on the Silver variant. We’d any day pick the Realme X7’s in-hand feel over this. The headphone jack also returns which is a welcome change and the device is also IPX4 rated.

Display

Realme ticks all the right boxes when it comes to visuals. You are looking at a 6.43-inch Samsung made Super AMOLED display with 2400 x 1080 pixels resolution. It runs smoothly at a 120Hz screen refresh rate. Other display features include a 360Hz touch sampling rate, 91.7% screen to body ratio, 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut coverage, and Always-on-Display, dual light sensor. 

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In terms of playback, the device supports HDR10, HLG, and comes with Widevine L1 certification for HD playback on OTT platforms like Prime Video, Netflix. However, we could not play any HDR content on Netflix on the Realme X7 Max. The high refresh gives the device a more buttery smooth experience. 

The screen itself is bright and punchy enough to please your eyes. The colours are accurate and have the right amount of contrast to read or watch content. It does get fairly bright to read under the sun. Overall we think the Realme X7 Max display is good enough, but we still think the Mi 11X has the best display in the segment. 

The fingerprint scanner is also present on the display which is quite fast, but more often than not the face unlock works faster which gets rid of the need to use the fingerprint scanner. 

Performance

Realme is one of those brands that want to be one of the first to introduce something new with its every product. With the launch of Realme X7 Max, the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 processor made its debut in India. The Dimensity 1200 is an octa-core chipset consisting of one Ultra Arm Cortex-A78 core clocked at 3GHz, three Arm Cortex-A78 Super cores clocked at 2.6GHz, and four efficient Arm Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 2GHz. This chipset is said to bring 22% faster CPU performance and  25% more power-efficient compared to the last generation. It also supports a wide range of 5G bands in India.

The graphics are handled by the Arm Mali-G77 MC9 GPU and the company has also added its HyperEngine 3.0 gaming suite to offer better performance while gaming and performing graphics-intensive tasks. To keep thermals under check, the Realme X7 Max sports stainless steel vapour cooling which can reduce the temperature by up to 15°C. 

The day-to-day performance of the Realme X7 Max performed well with heavy usage and even during gaming sessions, the phone handled it well without overheating. The phone comes in two variants: 8GB RAM with 128GB UFS 3.1 storage and 12GB + 256GB. However, there is no microSD card slot on board. 

The performance was excellent and better than the OnePlus Nord CE and similar to the Mi 11X and iQoo 7 which are powered by the Snapdragon 870 processor. While the Mi 11X heats with heavy usage and gaming, the Realme X7 Max keeps everything under control. 

The high refresh rate makes things buttery smooth and flies through anything you throw at it. For those who care about the benchmark scores, the Realme X7 Pro secured 7,09,604 which is quite impressive and it is also more than what Realme X7 Pro managed to score.

The Dimensity 1200 is a capable chipset and we were pretty happy as well as impressed with the chipset. In the coming months, the Poco F3 GT with Dimensity 1200 will be launched in India as well.

Cameras

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The Realme X7 Max comes with a three-camera setup on the rear with a 64MP Sony IMX682 main camera with f/1.8 aperture, an 8MP ultra-wide camera and a 2MP macro lens. Selfies are handled by a 16MP selfie shooter on the front, housed inside a punch-hole cutout. 

Some of the camera modes include the new Pure RAM mode which uses a night scene algorithm to reduce noise. It processes images with 64MP and brings them down. Apart from that you also get AI passport photo, portrait, super nightscape, 960fps slow-mo, 4K 60fps, and more. 

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The pictures captured from the primary camera are by default at 16MP and they do not disappoint for the most part. You get well-detailed images with good dynamic range and saturation levels. The white balance is also fairly well balanced here. As with most other phones, the Realme image processing also tends to over saturate the images a bit, but that's what most users like and it’s not overly done to make the image look fake. For those who need brighter and vibrant images, the HDR mode will do a great job.  

The portrait clicks of humans are also processed pretty well with good depth of field and sharpness. During the night, you can take advantage of the dedicated night mode which does reduce the noise and brings up more details. 

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The 8MP secondary sensor gives a wider view of the image, but it does lose out on colour when compared to the main sensor. The dynamic range isn’t as good as the main camera either. The images look good at first glance, but once you crop in, you will notice muddy pixels. 

The 2MP macro camera is capable of capturing some good close up shots given you have a bit of patience to get the focus right. While this is not the Xiaomi Mi 11X level macro snapper, it does a daily good job with a macro sensor. 

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Selfies come out well, but if you prefer natural-looking selfies, we suggest you turn off the beauty mode which is turned on by default. When the beauty mode is turned off, the selfies come out well and it works great for portrait shots as well. 

Lastly, the phone can shoot videos up to 4K 60fps, but the device lacks OIS and on the front, the video recording is capped to Full HD at 30fps. While the quality is good enough, the lack of stabilization is a major miss, especially if you are looking to vlog. 

Software

The Realme X7 Max runs on Realme UI 2.0 based on Android 11 which brings many new features as well as customization options. With Android 11 you get a security feature that gives you more control over app permissions. Realme does throw in a few apps that can be considered as bloatware, these include FinShell, Theme, HeyTap, Community, Phone Manager, and Theme store. Other pre-installed apps include Amazon, Netflix, YT Music, Snapchat, and Flipkart among the major ones. 

The Realme UI 2.0 also brings some neat additions to the software such as new icon customization, customizable accent colours, Always on Display customization, dark mode, enhanced privacy mode, floating windows and mini windows.  Everything feels smooth and snappy, except for some push notifications from apps like Theme and HeyTap - which can be blocked with one click. 

We did not notice any major bugs during our usage. But, the software is not bug-free - on a couple of occasions, WhatsApp froze, so I had to reboot. We faced the same issue with the Netflix app as well once.  and a couple of times, the phone even restarted itself, however, this issue was fixed with an OTA update and over the past couple of weeks, we did not face the reboot issue. 

Overall, the Realme UI 2.0 performance was solid apart from the couple of things that we've mentioned. The smooth 120Hz lag-free experience based on Realme UI 2.0 should be enjoyable for most of the crowd.

Battery

Similar to the Realme X7 Pro, the Realme X7 Max also comes with a 4,500mAh battery unit, but in terms of fast charging, you get 50W support instead of 65W. However, the company is bundling a 65W adapter in the box. 

In terms of battery life, the device did manage to go above average. With extensive social media usage, a few minutes of gaming and calls, the phone could last an entire day with five to six hours of screen time - which should be ideal for most people. The OnePlus Nord CE is still the best phone in the segment  we’ve tested. 

As for the charging, the phone took about an hour to charge from 5% to 100%, which is quite disappointing given that its cheaper phones take much less time to charge. For instance, the Realme 8 with a 5,000mAh battery charges the device from 0 to 100% in an hour with a 30W charger. Also, the OnePlus Nord CE with the same battery capacity as the Realme X7 Max and 30W charger took 60 minutes as well.

Audio

The smartphone comes with a dual stereo speaker setup which gets pretty loud and enjoyable. However, what might make the device even more exciting is the presence of the 3.5mm headphone jack which was gone on the Realme X7 Pro. The device supports Hi-Res audio and Dolby Atmos audio as well. 

Verdict

Buy it if…

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Don’t buy it if…

Sale from Feb 10

Check out Realme X7 Max on Flipkart

8GB + 128GB at Rs 26,999

12GB + 256GB at Rs 29,999

View Deal

• Best phones under Rs 25,000 in India
• Xiaomi Mi 11X review| Realme X7 Pro review
• OnePlus Nord CE review

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