VERDICT:
The Realme P3 Ultra is a strong performer, especially for gamers, and one of the best gaming smartphones under Rs 30,000. Unlike the iQOO Neo 10R, it doesn’t compromise on design. The glowing back panel is attractive but requires a UV light, which isn’t included. The display and camera are decent, but there are better camera-focused options available. While the battery life could be improved, the Realme P3 Ultra remains a good gaming phone with appealing looks and satisfactory cameras and display.
Realme P3 Ultra Review: We have seen a lot of smartphone launches under the price tag of Rs 30,000 between February and March. One of the latest ones is the Realme P3 Ultra, the elder sibling of the Realme P3 Pro (review), which also focuses on performance and gaming. It is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 8350 Ultra processor, which is paired with up to 12GB RAM and 256GB storage, along with a hidden element in its design.
I have been using the Realme P3 Ultra for a couple of weeks now and during this time, we put this phone to all Digit testing, and guess what happened? Actually don’t, just read the review!
Realme P3 Ultra and its good looks
The first thing that I noticed about P3 Ultra’s design was its thickness and I have to tell you the Realme P3 Ultra is quite sleek, measuring only 7.38mm. Not just looks but it is also decently durable. You get Gorilla Glass 7i protection on the display and IP69 rating protection against dust and water.
How do I feel about the looks? Well, it is one of the most interesting and fascinating-looking smartphones in the segment. And I have two reasons to say that:
- First up, it has a quad-curved design which gives a better and more comfortable grip.
- Secondly, even though the Realme P3 Ultra features a plastic back, it looks premium due to the integration of an acrylic material that gives it a glossy look.
Not only that, but it also has a really cool moon print on its back, which glows in the dark. And it really looks very impressive.
A Natural Display
The Realme P3 Ultra features a 6.67-inch AMOLED display with up to 120Hz refresh rate. It is a 1.5K panel that retains details brilliantly. If you are a BGMI player, you can play BGMI on this phone at 90FPS, and if you want high graphics, it goes up to ‘HDR’.
Moreover, the colours this AMOLED produces are more towards natural tone and less towards enhanced and boosted colours. If we talk about its display’s brightness, it is bright enough for comfortable usage under direct sunlight. On our lux meter, we recorded the Realme P3 Ultra scoring 2050 nits on manual mode, which is an impressive number for the price.
Realme P3 Ultra Performance: Serves the purpose
The Realme P3 Ultra has been launched as a strong-performance phone under Rs 30,000. So let’s start that conversation with its benchmark scores. On the AnTuTu benchmark test, the Realme P3 Ultra scored under 1.4 million points, which is decent number for a sub-Rs 30,000 smartphone. The scores, although decent, could not beat the iQOO Neo 10R, the direct competitor of the P3 Ultra, which scored over 1.5 million points on the same test.
Same with Geekbench, the Realme P3 Ultra scored decently in this benchmark but couldn’t keep up with the iQOO Neo 10R. So, if you are purchasing a smartphone only for gaming and high performance under Rs 30,000, these two smartphones are your safest bet.
We have talked about how powerful the Realme P3 Ultra is, and it’s a decent performance phone regardless of the Neo 10R being in the picture. It has its own pros, like better design and durability. However, it’s time to see how stable this power is. For this, we ran a 20-thread CPU throttling test on it for 15 minutes. As you can see in this graph, it’s mostly green. This means the smartphone didn’t throttle much, but after a certain point, the performance dips on the Realme P3 Ultra. Moreover, one more thing I noticed during stress tests is that it heats up and then takes a lot of time to cool down
So these were benchmark numbers, when I put it to real-life stress situations, it still did a pretty good job. It was able to run BGMI at 90fps and that too smoothly. However, the P3 Ultra does heat up a little and that takes a lot of time to cool down.
Coming to its UI – Realme UI 6.0, based on the latest Android 15, has all the latest features that you want in a smartphone. However, the aesthetics of this UI are weirdly bright and the animations could be better. And yes, there’s bloatware too that you can obviously delete, but again, it doesn’t look good.
Realme P3 Ultra is not a camera phone, but check this out
Now, Realme itself didn’t market its camera much because the big thing here is performance, but if you buy a smartphone, you use the camera, right? So, it comes with a dual camera setup, which houses a 50-megapixel main camera and an 8-megapixel ultrawide lens.
In good lighting conditions, the main camera clicks acceptable shots. Like its display, its camera also captures colours more on the natural side and they are not overly saturated. It manages to capture details nicely as well.
The dynamic range is decent, but shots taken against the light or in harsh light can appear hazy.
If you like clicking portrait shots, try using its mode Portrait mode on 2x turn out better. It gives a good depth effect on portraits. Now, edge detection on them is nice, but in some places, it misses out on creating a good bokeh. As usual, the skin tones appear natural but there’s smoothening that doesn’t look good at all.
And laslty, the 16-megapixel front camera captures bright and colourful selfies. However, it doesn’t capture all the details, and hence some smoothening. But I liked them.
Good battery life, but could be better
The Realme P3 Ultra is packed with a 6000mAh battery with 80W wired charging support. On the PC Mark battery life test, the Realme P3 Ultra lasted for 15 hours and 39 minutes.
According to our testing, it consumed 4% in a 30-minute HDR video streaming and a similar battery consumption was seen in gaming as well. Moreover, Google Maps is a battery gruzzler on smartphones. On the P3 Ultra, an hour of Google Maps takes 9% of its juice. For more context, smartphones such as Nothing Phone 3a, iQOO Neo 10R, and Realme 14 Pro consumed between 4% and 6%.
So, what do we think about the Realme P3 Ultra?
In my opinion, the Realme P3 Ultra is a tough performance smartphone, especially for gamers. It is one of the best gaming smartphones under Rs 30,000, and that too not at a cost of design, unlike the iQOO Neo 10R. The glowing back panel is really attractive but it’s a hit and miss feature because it requires an UV light that you don’t get in the box.
Apart from that, the display and camera of the Realme P3 Ultra is also doable but if you are particularly looking for a camera smartphone, you have other options in the market that come with better cameras.
Yes, the battery life could be better but still it remains a good gaming phone with appealing looks and satisfactory cameras and display.
