Realme 7 5G Review: It's a shame about the battery

The Realme 7 5G's Achilles Heel is right in its name: 5G. While the manufacturer is pitching the device as a handset that democratises the next generation network thanks to the $499 price point, 5G cripples the phone when it comes to day to day use. When connected to a 5G network, the Realme 7 5G can barely achieve three hours of screen time. There's no hope of it lasting anywhere close to a full day.

Most of us won't constantly spend the day connected to a 5G network just yet, but I'm one of the lucky ones with coverage both at home and the office. Unless I was barely using my phone, most days the Realme 7 5G would be in need of a top-up after finishing the workday to have any hope of making it through the night. It's far from ideal. Disabling the phone's high refresh rate display (another potential source of battery drain) barely made an impact.

On the other hand, disabling 5G made the Realme 7 5G feel like a whole different beast, more than doubling screen time to over six hours per charge. That's easily a full day of heavy usage, or a day-and-a-half of light. Of course, you shouldn't have to disable a flagship feature on any phone just to achieve a single day of use. Especially when it's right in the name. 

5G has been creating battery issues since launch, and we experienced similar problems with the OPPO Find X2 Pro, the Galaxy S20, and the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. However, as the technology has matured, the impact 5G has on battery life has diminished. A 5G network is more demanding than a 4G network, but there are plenty of 5G smartphones that are capable of achieving a full day of usage without disabling 5G. In our testing we found the $499 Moto G 5G Plus - a direct rival to the Realme 7 5G - was able to get seven hours of screen time per charge with 5G switched on.

If there's one small mercy, it’s that the Realme 7 5G has rather fast charging. A 30 minute charge should take you from flat to around 60%. It doesn't mitigate the awful battery life, but it could help in a pinch.

The Realme 7 5G's battery issues are a shame, because it's otherwise a solid mid-range phone. At $499, there isn't much to complain about. Performance is reasonably zippy, and I didn't have any issues in day-to-day usage.

The display is lovely and a 120Hz refresh rate display is a nice treat at this price-point. For those not familiar with high refresh rate displays, a standard smartphone screen runs at 60Hz. This means it updates 60 times a second. A 120Hz refresh rate screen doubles this, and as such, makes all motion look that little bit smoother. It's far from essential, but a nice touch.

Even camera quality is quite decent. Lowlight imagery is a pain point - as it tends to be for most more affordable handsets - but the Realme 7 5G primary lens still outdoes devices such as the Moto G 5G Plus when taking photos at night. It's easy enough to take a sharp photo of a mostly still subject, but any movement in your shot has a good chance of resulting in motion blur. It took far too many attempts to get a clear picture of Billie, despite the ambient lighting from the lamp and TV.

Here's a blurry shot: 

And here's a sharp one: 

The Realme 7 5G's ultra-wide lens does a good job in well-lit environments but is almost unusable in lowlight. Photos exhibit so much noise you'll think they came from an early '00s camera phone.

You'll also find a 2MP macro lens on the Realme 7 5G, but the resolution is too low to be useful. While you can get some interesting shots with it, they're clearly much worse quality than the phone's other cameras, as you can see below: 

Realme 7 5G - Final Thoughts

I'm in two minds about the Realme 7 5G. On one hand, it's pitched as an affordable 5G smartphone, but 5G destroys its battery life. It fails to live up to the promise. On the other, the Realme 7 5G is actually a pretty decent device if you disable 5G. It does well in performance and camera quality, and the battery life is much better when you're only using 4G networks.

Despite the name, perhaps its best to think of the Realme 7 5G as a 4G phone. 5G is far from essential right now, and you shouldn't be buying a phone just because it has next generation connectivity. While 5G is a nice little bit of future-proofing, it shouldn't be the driving force behind a purchasing decision. Even if there weren't battery issues, I wouldn't be recommending the Realme 7 5G just because it has 5G for $499.

If you're in the market for a phone around the $499 price-point, you can certainly do worse than the Realme 7 5G. Just don't forget to switch off 5G.

Realme 7 5G camera samples

Alex Choros

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Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

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