realme launched the realme 15 Pro, the company’s top-end smartphone in the number series, in India last week, which replaces the realme 14 Pro+. This gets a brighter display, faster SoC and a bigger 7000mAh battery while maintaining the sleek design. The telephoto camera is gone in favour of the bigger ultra-wide camera. Is this the best camera and multi-media-centric smartphone to buy in the Rs. 30,000 range? Let us dive into the review to find out.
| Box Contents |
| Camera |
| Battery Life |
| Conclusion |
Box Contents
- realme 15 Pro 5G 12GB + 256GB in Flowing Silver colour
- Protective case
- 80W SuperVOOC Charger
- USB Type-A to Type-C Charger
- SIM Ejector tool
- User manual and warranty information
Display, Hardware and Design
The realme 15 Pro sports a 6.8-inch (2800 x 1280 pixels) 1.5K 4D curved AMOLED display with up to 144Hz refresh rate, 240Hz touch sampling rate and 453 PPI, better than the 13 Pro+. 144Hz works in some stock apps, otherwise it mostly stays in 120Hz.
The display is bright since it has up to 6500 nits peak brightness, and the HBM or outdoor brightness can go up to 1800 nits, so the sunlight legibility is good. You can select lowest allowed brightness, which is useful in dark room which you want the display not to be bright.
It offers good colour output since it has 100% DCI-P3 color gamut. You can select from vivid, Natural and Pro screen colour modes. There are additional Cinematic and Brilliant modes.
The phone has a 4608Hz high-frequency dimming technology with AI eye comfort function, but there is no DC Dimming. The phone also has HDR 10 support, which works for YouTube, but it doesn’t work with Netflix.
The phone doesn’t have a notification LED, but this has an always-on-display that shows contextual info and notifications all day or as per schedule. The phone has 1.48mm ultra narrow side bezels. It has X-axis linear vibration motor. There is Corning Gorilla Glass 7i protection for the screen.
The phone has a tiny punch-hole that houses a new 50-megapixel camera. Above the display, there is an earpiece on the top edge that doubles up as a secondary speaker. It has an in-display fingerprint scanner.
Coming to the button placements and ports, the power button is present on the right side along with the volume rockers. There is nothing on the left. The Dual SIM slot, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the loudspeaker grill are present on the bottom. The secondary microphone is on the top, along with a speaker vent and, there is also an IR blaster on the top.
The Flowing Silver colour variant that we have has a unique sand-textured back cover, offering exquisite craftsmanship, says the company. This has a plastic back, which looks attractive, but it could have been more premium. It also comes in Velvet Green with a vegan leather finish and the Silk Purple that has a matte finish.
There is multi-color pulse light on the back, inside the camera deco, which is customizable.
You can adjust the brightness of it, set active period, enable it for notification, alarm, music, battery, GT mode, camera timer, and also keep it always on along with speed of the breathing light. This is useful if you are a person who places the phone upside down.
The model we have is 7.79mm thick, and the Silk Purple version is just 7.69mm. Even though the phone packs a 7000mAh battery, it weighs 187 grams, and the weight distribution is good. It comes with an IP68/IP69 rating, which means it offers the highest level of water and dust resistance.
Camera
- 50MP rear camera with 1/1.56″ Sony IMX896 sensor, OIS, f/1.8 aperture
- 50MP ultra-wide camera with 1/2.88″ OV50D sensor, f/2.0 aperture
- 50MP front-facing camera with 1/2.88″ OV50D sensor, f/2.4 aperture
The camera UI in the realme UI 6 is familiar. There is Pro mode, Panorama, Film, Slo-mo, Time-Lapse, Dual-View video, Underwater mode text scanner, and tilt-shift. The rear camera offers 12.5MP output after pixel binning, and the front camera images are 14.6MP in size.
Daylight shots came out well, thanks to the large 50MP sensor. The dynamic range is better with auto HDR. There is AI mode which recognizes different photo scenes and automatically adjusts camera settings to make boost the colours. There is no macro mode, but 2x macro shots from the main camera is good.
Portrait shots are good as well with a lot of details. It offers up to 20x zoom, and the quality of the image might not be the best when you zoom in beyond 10x, mainly due to the lack of the telephoto camera. Ultra-wide camera is good in daylight. Low light shots are good as well, and the night mode is useful, but it takes a few seconds to process. The front camera is way better than the realme 14 Pro+, thanks to the new 50MP sensor. Images are crisp, and the portrait shots from the front camera are good as well.
The new MagicGlow 2.0 adjusts skin tones and lighting in portraits, Party Mode that adds filters, lighting effects, and frames based on scene detection, said the company. There are Starburst and Heart lighting effects, and the company has added custom party watermarks.
Check out the camera samples
It can record videos at up to 4K 60 fps from the font and rear cameras, and there is slow motion 1080p at 120fps. Portrait video mode is limited to 1080p 30fps. There is also ultra-steady video shooting, but it is limited to 1080p 60fps, and the phone also comes with HDR support from the main camera at 4K 30fps. OIS does a good job for the rear camera.
Software, UI and Apps
It runs Android 15 based realme UI 6.0 out of the box. It has Android security patch for June 2025. The phone should get 2 Android updates and 3 years of security updates, similar to other phones mid-range realme phones 3 Android updates and 4 years of security updates. realme UI 6.0 offers improved self-developed technology for smooth performance, and enhanced safety and privacy tools.
There is AI Ultra Clarity, AI Snap mode, AI Eraser, AI Glare remover, and AI Landscape. There are also AI writer, AI recording summary, AI smart loop 2.0, AI reply suggestions, Circle to search and more.
The new AI Edit Genie, a voice-based editing assistant, supports over 20 languages and can perform tasks such as background changes, glare correction, and applying visual effects using voice input.
Apart from the usual set of realme apps and Google apps, it comes with several preloaded apps such as Facebook, Netflix, Snapchat, LinkedIn, PhonePe and more. These apps can be uninstalled, but come back once the phone is reset. There are also Hot Apps and Hot Games. Since it has an IR blaster, you get IR remote feature.
Out of 12GB LPDDR4X RAM, you get 11.02GB of usable RAM, and about 7GB of RAM is free when default apps are running in the background. It also has DRE or dynamic RAM expansion feature, which uses the built-in storage as RAM. This has up to 14GB of additional RAM expansion. Out of 256GB UFS 3.1, you get about 221.45GB of free storage.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
It has an in-display fingerprint sensor that unlocks the phone quickly, but it is not as fast as a physical fingerprint sensor. You can add up to 5 fingerprints. You can also use the fingerprint for app local and payments in apps. Furthermore, you can change the fingerprint animation and also disable it, and also enable quick launch option to launch apps directly from the lock screen by holding the fingerprint. The phone also has face unlock feature.
Music and Multimedia
YouTube Music is the default Music Player. It has customizable Smart, Movie, Game and Music modes, but doesn’t have Dolby Atmos. It doesn’t have FM Radio support. Audio through the stereo speakers is good without any distortion even in full volume. Audio through earphones is good as well.
This has Widevine L1, so that you can play HD content on Netflix and other streaming apps. HDR works for YouTube and Netflix.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
The realme 15 Pro has support for 5G SA and NSA n1/n3/n5/n8/n28B/n40/n41/n77/n78 Network Bands in India. It has 4G Wi-Fi and VoLTE, with support for Carrier Aggregation on 4G. Other connectivity options include Wi-Fi 6 802.11 ax (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.4, GPS / GLONASS / Beidou. It has OTG support, doesn’t have NFC support. Moving on, the call quality is good, and we did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume was loud. It has stock dialer with call recording support.
The realme 15 Pro’s body SAR is 0.464W/Kg and head SAR is at 1.186/Kg, which is similar to the 14 Pro+ which is comes to head SAR, and the body SAR is much less. This is well under the limit of 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g) in India.
Performance and Benchmarks
This is the first phone in India to be powered by the latest Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 Mobile Platform, which is a considerable upgrade compared to the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 used in the realme 14 Pro series. This has 1 x 2.8 GHz ARM Cortex-A720 prime core, 3 x A720 performance cores at up to 2.4 GHz, and 4 x Cortex-A520 efficiency cores at up to 1.84 GHz.
There is Adreno 722 GPU offers good gaming performance and promises 30% faster GPU graphic renderings, compared to the 7 Gen 3. The phone has 7000mm² VC Cooling System to help keep the phone cool. We did not face any issues or frame drops in the graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact.
In BGMI HDR Ultra and Extreme works. Both BGMI and Call of Duty Mobile features 90 fps gaming out of the box, and there is GT Boost technology. The AI gaming coach uses AI to analyse games and offers assistance through voice or notifications.
In 3D Mark wild life stress test, it scored 99.2% which is better than realme 14 Pro+. The temperature increased from 29 to 42 degrees, which is fine. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
As you can see, this is clearly a good upgrade compared to Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, but the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 and 8s Gen 3 are better, and there are even phones with 8s Gen 4 in the price range with more coming in the future.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 7000mAh (typical) built-in Titan battery, compared to 6000mAh battery in the realme 14 Pro series. It lasts for a whole day with Wi-Fi, but with 4G or 5G and dual SIMs it should be less.
I got over 6 and half hours of screen on time with over 2 days of use, mostly on Wi-Fi, and occasional 5G use in 144Hz, which is impressive. This has 80W SuperVOOC Charge, same as the predecessor. It can charge up to 50% in less than half an hour and up to 100% in less than an hour with the bundled 80W charger, which is good.
There is smart charging and an option to stop charging at 80% to improve the battery health. However, this doesn’t show the battery health. This also has bypass charging when gaming, so the charging current bypasses the battery to go straight to the motherboard, so it doesn’t affect the battery.
Conclusion
At a starting at Rs. 31,999 for the 8GB + 128GB model, the realme 15 Pro brings notable upgrades to its screen, performance, and battery life, offering a compelling package. While it retains a familiar design, the reliable main camera, and improvements to its ultra-wide and front cameras are welcome.
However, the absence of a telephoto camera makes zoom tough. Furthermore, the persistence of bloatware, the lack of NFC support, and an unchanged software upgrade cycle — aspects also noted in the 14 Pro+ review — mean realme still has ground to cover to truly match its competitors in some areas.
Pricing and availability
The realme 15 Pro 5G is priced at Rs. 31,999 for the 8GB + 128GB model, 8GB + 256GB model costs Rs. 33,999, 12GB + 256GB costs Rs. 35,999 and the top-end 12GB + 512GB model is priced at Rs. 38,999. There is Rs. 3000 bank offer, which makes the effective starting price Rs. 28,999.
It is now available for purchase on Flipkart, realme.com and across offline stores.
Alternatives
The OnePlus Nord 5 has a good enough main camera, front camera, and better performance at a cheaper rate. The OPPO Reno14 is a good alternative if you need a telephoto camera and a better build quality, but you need to spend more. Nothing Phone 3a Pro is also good option.
Pros
- 144Hz curved AMOLED display is brilliant
- Smooth performance
- Good cameras
- Good build quality, IP69 ratings
- Excellent battery life with fast charging
Cons
- Bloatware
Only 2 OS updates