My honest opinion about Realme UI.

drshreenivaas

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With heavy heart, I just sold my Realme XT top variant for paltry sum. I had switched to Realme in September 2019 due to aggressive pricing, better quad cameras with better image processing and attractive looks. I had great epectations from Realme, but I was fed up with poorly ported colorOS with buggy updates, swiftly draining battery which worsened drastically with every update & too delicate AMOLED screen which might have needed replacement in near future, though I had used it quite carefully, always encased in flip cover.

The decision to sell was bolstered by pathetic Realme Ui update, conversion of almost all free themes and fonts to paid ones in theme store & introduction of ads (despite Realme CEO Madhav Sheth's claim of “We sell phones, not ads" during the launch of Realme 3). One is unable to halt downloading of ROM update. Installing procedure of ROM update is also buggy & can happen anytime with accidental click on pop-up which keeps appearing out of nowhere during routine use.

Difficult procedure of boot unlock & lack of official flash tool to downgrade stock ROM prohibited downgrade of ROM for which one has to visit service centre.

Lack of bugless custom ROMs closed the only available escape door. Also do note that all Custom ROMs can't make use of 64MP mode in camera (GCam shoots in 16 MP mode) & in-display fingerprint scanner. Even unlocking bootloader renders in-display fingerprint scanner useless on stock colorOS versions older than A16, but then they are the ones which provide excellent battery life.

At least with Redmi phones, MiUi is great to use & is known for great battery life. Themes and fonts are free to use. Ads are there with unified switch to diasable them & Xiaomi doesn't lie about ads like Madhav Sheth.

Unlocking requires waiting period, but is straight forward procedure greatly explained by Mi Community forum. Updates are not as horrendous as Realme. Also downgrading of ROMs is an easy procedure as a propriatory Mi flash tool to flash stock rom is avilable officially and all versions of stock ROM (fastboot as well as recovery) are always available for download on MI community forum. So one doesn't need to visit service centre to downgrade stock ROM.

Custom ROMs support is also good for almost all Snapdragon based Xiaomi devices. For noobs, MIUI based ROMs such as Xiaomi.eu provide hasslefree & adfree experience with excellent battery life. Being based on each device's China Developer ROMs, camera and all other functions also work flawlessly.

Just to give you example, I have restarted using my 3 yrs old Redmi Note 4. It was launched with Android 6.0 & is now running on android 9.0 based Xiaomi.eu ROM & battery still lasts for full 2 days with modrately heavy use.

Lot of people are choosing Realme devices these days. But beware of these pitfalls & then choose. In my opinion, Realme has a long way to go to achieve maturity of Xiaomi.
 
I am using Note 5 pro(miui 11, android 9 official)
Unblocked Boot loader within second . Didn't faced any waiting time
But not able to install Custom Recovery (pitch Black/orange fox).
I am using Ryzen 5 APU and usb 3.1 port to connect phone with original data cable , but expert says I need an usb 2.0 port. But I tried on different pc having RyZen 3 with usb 2.0 port . But still failure.
 
I am also using Realme XT from September. After update, Themes and Fonts are paid which is not good. Even I am not happy with in display fingerprint response.Yes, there are some bugs which they will clear in their future updates but overall I am happy with Realme UI.
Non technical people never do any tasks like boot unlock,ROM downgrade etc. They are just happy with Camera quality,Storage and looks.
Also, every brand has separate fanbase. Personally, I don't like MI phones as well as their MIUI based OS.
 
I am also using Realme XT, Fingerprint scanner has become more responsive after Realme UI update.

I also get about 1.75-2gb of free RAM always which was not the case in colorOS 6. Speed of the phone has also improved.

Yes, Bugs are there and i am sure realme will work on the same. The latest update they say they have improved system power consumption that means some more battery backup.
 
How much SOT do u get? I used to get barely 4 hours & phone didn't last even for 12 hours. For 4000Mh battery, it is pathetic performance.
 
I am a normal user, using Realme X2 from past few months. For me all these things on updtaes, custom ROM doesn't matter. Agree with Battery life point, where miui has upper hand
 
Even my Redmi Note 4 & Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1 last for 1.5 days on heavy usage. As compared with these two phones, Realme XT is pretty disappointment.
As I sold my phone via Olx, I also conducted survey on sellers selling recently purchased Realme & Redmi phones on OLX. I found 2 people selling Realme X2 Pro, one each selling Realme XT & Realme X2 and three selling Realme 5 Pro. Dor lower spec variants, low available RAMs & hang is complaint, Realme X2 Pro user was upset with device without any specific reason. Realme X2 user was unhappy about UI.
With Redmi, I found 3 users selling Poco X2, three users selling Redmi 8 Note Pro, five users selling Redmi Note 8. One Poco X2 user was unhappy about MIUI, other was unhappy about lack of feqatures as compared to Realme. Two Redmi 8 Note Pro users were unhappy about standby drain, one didn't reveal any reason. People using Redmi Note 8 were unhappy about poor PUBG performance & frequent WiFi drop and one was perticularly disappointed with dust in camera. Interestingly people using MIUI were interested about Realme phones & stock looking Realme UI
 
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