realme just launched the P3 Ultra, the company’s latest top-end smartphone in the P series, in India today. This retains the similar quad curved display with sleeker bezels, and a large, 6000mAh battery, but gets a faster SoC. Is this the best smartphone to buy in the under Rs. 30,000 range? Let us dive into the review to find out.
| Box Contents |
| Camera |
| Battery Life |
| Conclusion |
Box Contents
- realme P3 Ultra 12GB + 256GB version in Glowing Lunar White color
- 2-pin 80W SuperVOOC fast charger
- USB Type C Cable
- SIM Ejector tool
- Clear protective case
- User Guide and Warranty information
Display, Hardware and Design
The realme P3 Ultra sports a 6.83-inch (2800 x 1272 pixels) 1.5K 42° 3D curved AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate, 240Hz touch sampling rate and 450 PPI pixel density. The display is bright since it has up to 1500 nits peak brightness.
It offers good colour output since it has 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, and the sunlight legibility is good as well. You can select from vivid, Natural and Pro screen colour modes. There are additional Cinematic and Brilliant.
The phone has a 3840Hz high-frequency dimming technology with AI eye protection function. There is also 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 1.6mm ultra narrow bezels on all the sides, making it compact to hold. It has X-axis linear vibration motor.
The phone has a tiny punch-hole that houses a 16-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 white colour that we have features glow-in-the-dark Lunar Design that incorporates a light-sensing color shift that produces a green halo in low-light conditions, complementing the lunar soil texture created through micro-sculpting techniques. The device also features a “Starlight Ink Process,” embedding star-like particles on the surface.
However, the glow is only on a part of the back compared to the whole back in the P3 Pro.
It also comes in Neptune Blue and Orion Red variants that feature a vegan leather finish.
The model we have is just 7.38mm thick, thinner than the P3 Pro, since this has flat sides. Even though the phone packs a 6000mAh battery, it weighs 183 grams, and the weight distribution is good.
The device is TÜV Rheinland-Certified for rugged smartphone protection, and Military-level shock resistance certification making it resistant to various environmental factors. It comes with an IP66/IP68/IP69 rating, which means it offers the highest level of water and dust resistance.
Camera
- 50MP 1/1.56″ Sony IMX896 sensor, f/1.88 aperture, OIS
- 8MP portrait sensor with f/2.2 aperture
- 16MP front-facing camera with Sony IMX480 sensor, f/2.45 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 16MP in size.
Daylight shots came out well, thanks to the 50MP sensor, and 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.
Portrait shots are decent, and it offers up to 20x zoom, and the quality of the image might not be the best when you zoom in beyond 10x. Ultra-wide camera is decent in daylight, but you can’t expect much from it. Low light shots are decent, but could have been better. The night mode is useful, but it takes a few seconds to process. The front camera is decent, but could have been better.
Check out the camera samples
It can record videos at up to 4K 60 fps from the rear camera, and there is slow motion 1080p at 120fps, but the front camera can only shoot up to 1080p 60 fps videos. Portrait video mode is limited to 1080p. There is also ultra-steady video shooting, but it is limited to 1080p 60fps. 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 February 2025. The phone should get 2 Android updates and 3 years of security updates, similar to other phones. realme UI 6.0 offers improved self-developed technology for smooth performance, and enhanced safety and privacy tools.
There is AI Ultra Clarity 2.0, AI Snap mode, and AI Eraser 2.0, an enhancement to AI features that were present in the realme UI 5.0. There are also AI writer, AI recording summary, AI smart loop 2.0, AI reply suggestions, Circle to search and more.
Apart from the usual set of realme apps and Google apps, it comes with several preloaded apps such as Facebook, Amazon, Snapchat, LinkedIn and more. These apps can be uninstalled, but come back once the phone is reset. There are also Hot Apps and Hot Games.
Out of 12GB LPDD4X RAM, you get 11.22GB 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 222.6GB 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, but it doesn’t work on Netflix.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
The realme P3 Pro has support for SA:n1/n3/n5/n8/n28B/n40/n41/n77/n78; NSA:n1/n3/n40/n41/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.
The realme P3 Ultra’s body SAR is 0.802W/Kg and head SAR is at 1.18/Kg, which is slightly less than P3 Pro, and it is well under the limit of 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g) in India.
Performance and Benchmarks
This is the first phone to be powered by MediaTek Dimensity 8350
Ultimate 4nm processor, compared to Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 in the realme 14 Pro series and the realme P3 Pro. This has 4x Arm Cortex-A715 at 3.35GHz and 4x Arm Cortex-A510 at 2.2GHz. The SoC is fabricated using the TSMC’s second generation 4nm process technology.
There is Mali-G615 6-core GPU that offers good gaming performance. The phone has 6050mm² 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. However, on intensive gaming you will feel the phone warm.
In BGMI HDR Extreme works, features 90 fps gaming out of the box, and has GT Boost technology, co-developed with KRAFTON that promises AI Ultra-Steady Frames, Hyper Response Engine, AI Ultra Touch Control, and AI Motion Control, enabling console-like precision, gesture-based gameplay, and esports-level responsiveness, according to the company.
In 3D Mark wild life stress test, it scored 60.4% which is better than realme GT 6T. However, the temperature increased from 33 to 47 degrees, that is higher compared to both the realme GT 6T and the GT 6. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
As you can see, this comes close to the performance of Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 when it comes to AnTuTu score, but can’t beat it in the Geekbench CPU benchmark.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 6000mAh (typical) built-in Titan battery, similar to the P3 Pro. It lasts for a whole day with Wi-Fi, but with 4G or 5G and dual SIMs it should be less.
I got over 5 hours of screen on time with one and half days of use, mostly on Wi-Fi, and occasional 5G use in 120Hz. This has 80W SuperVOOC Charge, same as the predecessor. It can charge up to 50% in about 24 minutes 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.
Conclusion
At a starting price of Rs. 26,999 for the 8GB + 128GB model, the realme P3 Ultra is yet another good mid-range competitor in the range. The curved AMOLED display with minimal bezels is good, and the battery life is good as well. However, it still has bloatware and the phone gets heated quickly on intensive tasks such as gaming.
Alternatives
The iQOO Neo 10R is the direct competitor at a similar price that offers better battery life, and a faster chip that offers better gaming performance. If you need LTPO panel, there is realme’s own GT 6T that is a good deal at a cheaper price after discounts.
After the price cut, you can also consider the OnePlus 12R if you are looking for a gaming phone. Other options are POCO X7 Pro and POCO F6.
Pricing and availability
The realme P3 Ultra 5G is priced at Rs. 26,999 for the 8GB + 128GB model, the 8GB + 256GB costs Rs. 27,999 and the 12GB + 256GB model is priced at Rs. 29,999. The phone is available for pre-order from realme.com, Flipkart and offline stores.
With Rs. 3000 bank offer, the effective starting price is Rs. 23,999, and there is additional Rs. 1000 discount on exchange, and 1-year extended warranty for pre-orders.
Pros
- Curved AMOLED display is brilliant
- Smooth performance and good gaming performance
- Eye-catching design, IP69 ratings
- Main camera is good in daylight
- Good battery life with fast charging
Cons
- Bloatware
- Only 2 OS updates