Realme X7 Max 5G
If you bought a Realme X7 Pro 5G when it launched in February this year, you're going to be quite upset that it is already being superseded. On the other hand, if you waited before making your purchase decision, you might be delighted. The new Realme X7 Max 5G offers better specifications than its sibling, but what's most surprising is its considerably lower official starting price. Realme is clearly worried about competition, which is suddenly hot in the sub-Rs. 30,000 space thanks to several recent and upcoming launches. This rapid pace of launches certainly keeps things interesting, and we're going to find out whether the company's latest premium model can keep up.
Realme X7 Max 5G price in India
Realme says it developed this new model based on consumer feedback, and is trying to offer the latest specs at affordable prices. A company spokesperson declined to clarify why the older X7 Pro 5G is still officially on the market at its original price, so as a buyer, you'll have to be aware of what's going on – the newer model has far better specifications despite this disparity.
In terms of competition, the Realme X7 Max 5G looks set to take on the heavily rumoured and leaked OnePlus Nord successor. It will also challenge the Mi 11X (Review) and upcoming Poco F3 GT from Xiaomi, the Samsung Galaxy A52 (Review), iQoo 7, Vivo V21, and quite a few others.
Realme X7 Max 5G design
We really did not appreciate Realme emblazoning its brand slogan in huge letters across the back of the Realme X7 5G (Review) and X7 Pro 5G, and it looks like we weren't alone. Realme says that customer feedback prompted it to come up with a new design – a much smaller box with both the Realme logo and slogan as one unit. This is still quite attention-grabbing since it's highly reflective with an iridescent finish, but it's an improvement.
Construction quality is one area in which Realme seems to have cut back in order to achieve a lower price point. The rear panel of the X7 Max 5G is all plastic and frankly doesn't feel very premium at all. It has a textured matte finish except for a thick, glossy off-centre stripe that encloses the camera module and the new boxed logo. While most of the back remains free of fingerprints and smudges, the stripe picks them up very easily, and that actually makes them more noticeable. Realme has also gone with a simple camera module design – it only just barely protrudes, and is flat with no attention called to the individual lenses.
The rear panel looks and feels more like what we'd expect from Realme's entry-level C-series and Narzo series phones than a premium model. It even flexes a little when pressed near the centre. You won't notice or be bothered by any of this if you use the X7 Max 5G with a case, but I would buy an opaque one rather than use the smoky translucent one that comes in the retail box.
The 6.43-inch screen is smaller than the 6.55-inch screen of the X7 Pro 5G. It has relatively narrow borders, and a protective film is pre-applied. There's a camera hole in the top-left corner which is thankfully not too distracting. You also get an embedded fingerprint sensor near the bottom, and this worked quite well throughout the review period.
Many people will be pleased to see that there's a 3.5mm jack on the bottom, which is a feature that the X7 Pro 5G does not have. The power and volume buttons are on the right and left respectively, and are placed conveniently enough. The tray on the left has two Nano-SIM slots but there's no provision for microSD storage expansion.
At 179g in weight and 8.4mm in thickness, the Realme X7 Max 5G is quite convenient to carry around and use. The dual textures on the rear feel a little awkward when holding this phone to talk or even when using it in the hand, but at least it isn't slippery at all. The body is rated IPX4 splash-resistant but there's no official mention of screen reinforcement.
In addition to the Asteroid Black of the unit you see here, this phone is also available in Mercury Silver and Milky Way. The latter option is hard to describe, even according to Realme itself – it looks like a purplish gradient with a much more prominent stripe.
The main reason for launching a new model is that it uses the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 SoC, rather than the Dimensity 1000+ that's in the X7 Pro 5G. This SoC is said to be significantly more powerful as well as power efficient thanks to a new 6nm manufacturing process and a more modern mix of CPU cores. There are four high-performance Cortex-A78 cores, one of which runs at up to 3GHz while the other three run at 2.6GHz, and another four 2GHz Cortex-A55 efficiency cores. The integrated Mali-G77 GPU is unchanged, but the image signal processor is improved.
The Dimensity 1200 also has integrated 5G capabilties, and Realme boasts of support for seven 5G bands while many other companies advertise one or two – there aren't any 5G service providers in India yet, but this might be a factor if you travel a lot. There's also dual-SIM dual-standby, 5G carrier aggregation, VoNR (Voice over New Radio).
Performance should also said be snappy thanks to the use of dual-channel UFS 2.1 storage and Wi-Fi 6. There's a 4500mAh battery and support for 50W fast charging. Just like with the rest of the X7 series, you get a 65W charger in the box which is great for multi-device flexibility, though it doesn't seem to be USB-PD compliant at 65W.
The X7 Max has a 6.43-inch Super AMOLED panel with a 1080x2400 pixel resolution, 120Hz maximum refresh rate and up to 360Hz touch sampling rate. Other specs worth noting are the stereo speakers, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.1, NFC, and GPS.
My review unit was running Realme UI 2.0 on top of Android 11 on arrival, with the March 2021 security patch, but it received an update with the May 2021 patch at the time of this review. Realme UI does have a number of preloaded Realme apps plus third-party bloatware. Not all these unnecessary apps can be removed, and some of them including Theme Store, Browser, and Heyfun throw up tonnes of spammy, clickbait notifications. At least ads on the lockscreen are disabled by default.
Realme UI does have some neat features, though. You can enable or disable an app drawer, or choose a simple mode with enlarged icons instead. There's an always-on display option, which goes off automatically when the phone is stationary for a while to save power. You can override this so it is truly always on, or even set up a schedule. Within the Settings app you'll find an “experimental” sleep mode that's intended to help reduce distractions, as well as shortcuts and gestures for things like call handling and taking screenshots. There are also various navigation shortcuts and tools.The ‘Quick Return Bubble' lets you minimise games while waiting for rounds to begin and then jump back in. Swiping in from the left of the screen pulls up Realme UI's Game Assistant panel, which shows CPU and GPU usage as well as a handy frame counter. There are toggles for call handling, screen recording, touch sensitivity, and “4D vibration” in supported games. Note that the ‘Game Focus' mode will disable alarms and all notifications, so use this with caution.With such a powerful processor, it comes as no surprise that the Realme X7 Max 5G is exceptionally smooth and responsive in everyday use. Realme UI doesn't bog down the hardware at all, and you shouldn't have any trouble multitasking even between multiple heavy apps. The screen is crisp and while not the most vibrant, it's fine for entertainment. Stereo speakers are always nice to have, and the X7 Max 5G can get quite loud without sound distorting.
The Realme X7 Max is recognised by many diagnostic apps and tests as ‘Realme GT Neo', which isn't too surprising considering that based on specifications, the company has simply brought the same phone to India and marketed it differently.
If you're curious about just how well the Dimensity 1200 SoC stacks up against its competition, it scored 704,855 in AnTuTu as well as 972 and 3,301 in Geekbench's single-core and multi-core tests. That's a significant step up from the Realme X7 Pro's scores. These figures indicate slightly higher CPU performance than what we saw on the OnePlus 9R, which is powered by the Snapdragon 870. Qualcomm's Snapdragon 888 still maintains a comfortable performance lead. Even so, the performance that Realme offers here is especially noteworthy considering the price of the X7 Max 5G.
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