These are all shot from a budget phone

There are certain things we expect when we review budget phones: they have ok hardware, good enough software along with a mid-range feature or two to keep people buying them happy. One of the things we don’t expect from affordable smartphones is great photos, especially when it comes to low-light shooting.

That’s one of the reasons why we’re pleasantly surprised with the Realme 3. Not only does the phone deliver better than expected performance, features and hardware at its price range, it has pretty good low-light capabilities for a budget phone.

While the Realme 3’s camera sensors are typical of what you’d find on a budget phone nowadays (13-megapixel main camera with an f/1.8 aperture lens and a 2-megapixel depth sensor), the company put in AI capabilities, scene recognition and two main shooting modes that help in taking great photos: Nightscape as well as Chrome Boost.

Chrome Boost is basically an advanced HDR mode, shooting and combining multiple images with each other to produce better HDR and color saturation. Nightscape, on the other hand, is long exposure with the help of AI. It allows you to take hand-held long exposures without the accompanying blur.

For a lack of a better comparison, it’s sort of like Huawei’s night mode on its flagship smartphones. Of course, the tech being on a budget device has bigger limitations – you’ll have to keep your hands steadier when shooting at night, and the exposure time depends on how much ambient light is available.

Despite its imperfections, the implication here is that you’re getting a budget phone that can do low-light photography for not a lot of money. I know a lot of phones that are more expensive than the Realme 3 that give me blurry, unusable images any time I try to take photos at night, so much so that I just don’t try anymore.

Realme has been promising a lot of things with their newest phone, and from what we’ve experienced with our time with it, the new phone absolutely delivers on those promises.

Realme 3 Specs

• MediaTek Helio P60 octa-core processor
• 3GB/4GB RAM
• 6.2-inch HD+ LTPS IPS Dewdrop display, Gorilla Glass 3 protection
• 32GB/64GB of expandable storage
• 13-megapixel f/1.8 and 2-megapixel rear cameras with LED flash, PDAF, Chroma Boost, and Nightscape
• 13-megapixel f/2.0 front camera
• Dual SIM
• 3G, LTE
• WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS, fingerprint scanner, AI Facial Unlock
• 4230mAh battery
• Android 9 Pie with ColorOS 6