Realme 14 Pro+ Hands-On: What You Need to Know
For a first hands-on look at the new Realme 14 Pro+, Realme invited us to Denmark. This is more of a preview than a full announcement because important details about the Pro+ and its sibling, the Realme 14 Pro, are still being kept under wraps.
The company will soon do a full reveal. For now, let’s talk about the exterior. It’s no accident that we’re here; Realme collaborated with Valeur Designers, based in Copenhagen, for the exterior.
Normally, the Realme 14 Pro+’s back is pearl white, but when the thermometer drops to 16°C (61°F) or below, bright blue swirls show up on the back. They rapidly return to off-white after the phone has warmed up.
This is the first time that such a material has been used on a smartphone. Note that Realme considers this a “bonus feature” – this effect will fade over time as sunshine causes it to deteriorate. It is expected to last around 12 months under normal use.
They collaborated to create a previously unheard-of color-changing design for the rear. Some phones, including the Realme 9 Pro+, have changed color in the past when exposed to sunshine. This one is different; it responds to cold temperatures instead, which is appropriate for the time of year.
In keeping with the aquatic theme, Realme used actual seashell pearl powder for the back, mixed with microcapsules that contain special color-changing pigments. The powder mix is not uniform, so each phone has a unique pattern on its back panel.
The phone is rated IP68 for submersion and IP69 for hot water jets. The underwater photo mode allows you to take a picture using the volume keys because touchscreens don’t work well in water.
We can say that the Realme 14 Pro+ will be the only device in the series with a periscope camera, but we are unable to discuss the camera in detail at this time.
Take a closer look at the back, where three LED flash modules are positioned in a circle with a 120° gap between them. This is known as “MagicGlow” by Realme and is used to evenly illuminate photographs taken at night. This gives your subjects more natural lighting. You can also see that the lights have varied color temperatures when the flash is turned on.
As a result, the camera can regulate the color temperature of the portraits it captures.
Additionally, the 14 Pro+ will have the only quad-curved display in the series. The display seems nearly bezel-less from all four sides thanks to the curves that are limited to the very edge of the screen and make the already small 1.6mm bezel appear even narrower. And it’s a great quality panel too, but details on it will have to wait for the full reveal.
The latest Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 powers the Realme 14 Pro+. The 7s Gen 2 is fabbed on a 4nm TSMC node instead of a 4nm Samsung node, and it has ARMv9 Cortex-A720 and A520 cores together with a next-generation Adreno 810 GPU (as opposed to the earlier chip’s A78/A55 CPU cores and Adreno 710).
According to Qualcomm’s official figures, the 7s Gen 3 boasts a significantly faster GPU (+40%) than the 7s Gen 2, as well as improved CPU performance (+20%) and an acceleration for AI workloads (+30%). The new CPU cores are a staggering 45% more efficient than the old ARMv8 cores, while it also uses 12% less power overall.
