Author Archives: Aki Ukita

Xiaomi 17 Ultra Review: Lighter, Flatter, and Sharper Than Ever

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PROS:


  • Excellent main and telephoto photo quality

  • Big and bright 6.9-inch LTPO AMOLED display

  • Strong performance

  • Improved ergonomic and stylish design

CONS:


  • Limiting macro use with a minimum focus distance of 30 cm

  • Noticeable warmth during camera use

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra is a camera-first flagship that finally feels balanced in the hand, and even more balanced in its image processing.

Within the renamed family, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra is the boldest expression of what Xiaomi thinks a 2026 flagship should be. It arrives globally as a big, confident phone that refuses to blend into the background. It is unapologetically camera-centric, and it is packed with specs that read like a wish list.  

On paper, Xiaomi has the ingredients to back that up. You get a 6.9-inch LTPO AMOLED display, a Leica-tuned triple camera system with a 200 MP periscope telephoto, and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. The global model carries a 6,000 mAh battery with 90W wired and 50W wireless charging, which is still a serious setup even before real-world testing.

Designer: Xiaomi

The camera hardware also shifts in meaningful ways, with the main sensor switching from Sony to OmniVision, and the zoom strategy changing from two telephoto cameras to one lens with continuous 75 mm to 100 mm optical zoom. So does the Xiaomi 17 Ultra deliver ultra-level performance where it counts. After two weeks with it, here is what I found.

Aesthetics

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra is not a phone that tries to disappear in your hand or your pocket. The gigantic circular Leica camera island still dominates the rear panel, just like on the previous model, but there is a subtle shift in design language. With a flatter back panel and flat side frame, the 17 Ultra leans into a cleaner, more minimal look than the Xiaomi 15 Ultra. The small Ultra logo with its red underline sitting above the camera bump adds a bit of character without turning the phone into a billboard.

The color palette for the global model leans into classic tones. Xiaomi focuses on black, white, and green for most markets, skipping the violet shade that appears in China. The Starlit Green unit I received is the standout, with a deep moss green base and speckling that catches the light like a dusting of stars, which makes the name feel earned. The black option looks stealthy, but the red accent on the camera ring keeps it from feeling flat, while the white version goes for a high contrast look with the black camera bump and a silver ring and side frame to tie it all together. If you are coming from the Xiaomi 15 Ultra, the evolution feels more like refinement than reinvention, yet the 17 Ultra looks more cohesive and more modern from the rear.

Ergonomics

The first thing I expected to notice when I pick up the Xiaomi 17 Ultra is the weight and thickness. The phone uses a large battery, a complex camera stack, and a sturdy frame, and all of that adds up in the hand. That said, I was pleasantly surprised. At 8.29mm thickness and about 219g, Xiaomi managed to make the 17 Ultra the slimmest and lightest among its Ultra series. The device is still big and not exactly a lightweight phone, but it feels a lot more comfortable to hold than your eyes perceive.

Ergonomically, the device feels well-balanced in the hand, which is a welcoming improvement from the top-heavy feel you get from holding the Xiaomi 15 Ultra. Xiaomi 17 Ultra adapts a flat display, for the first time for its Ultra line, and helps with the grip. Because it’s well-balanced, the camera bump becomes a natural resting point on the back, which can actually improve grip. At the same time, this is not a one-handed phone in any universe, and if you are coming from something smaller, you will need to adjust how you hold it, how you pocket it, and even how you reach for the top corners of the screen.

The global Xiaomi 17 Ultra uses a 6,000 mAh silicon-carbon battery instead of the 6,800 mAh cell in the China model. Even with the smaller capacity, it should still be enough for a full heavy day for most people. Charging is excellent with 90 W wired and 50 W wireless, and the 90 W wired mode supports PPS or Programmable Power Supply, so you can get true fast charging with any PPS-compatible USB-C charger, not only Xiaomi’s own adapter.

Performance

The display on the Xiaomi 17 Ultra is built to impress at first sight. It is a 6.9-inch LTPO AMOLED panel with 120 Hz refresh, a 1.5K class resolution at around 1200 x 2608 pixels, and a claimed 3500 nits peak brightness. It looks sharp and vibrant, and the huge screen makes movies, games, and photo editing feel more immersive. Xiaomi also adds TUV Rheinland certifications for low blue light, flicker-free performance, and circadian-friendly tuning, which are designed to reduce eye fatigue during long viewing sessions.

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, and the global configurations come with 16GB of RAM paired with either 512GB or 1TB of storage. It is genuinely nice to see a 1TB option offered globally, since that is still not something every flagship brings outside China. The phone flies through heavy multitasking, high refresh rate gaming, and demanding camera workloads without stutter. On the software side, it runs Android 16 with Xiaomi’s HyperOS 3, which is Xiaomi’s unified platform designed to feel lighter and more connected across phones, tablets, and other devices.

The camera system is where the Xiaomi 17 Ultra really tries to separate itself. Xiaomi drops the older quad camera approach and commits to a triple setup. The main camera is a 23-mm equivalent 50 MP unit with an f/1.67 aperture, OIS, and OmniVision’s Light Fusion 1050L sensor. The 75-100mm equivalent telephoto is a 200 MP periscope with OIS using Samsung’s HPE sensor, with a f/2.39-2.96 aperture. Rounding it out is a 50 MP 14-mm equivalent ultra-wide with an f/2.2 aperture using Samsung’s JN5 sensor.

23mm, Leica Authentic

75mm, Leica Vibrant

100mm, Leica Vibrant

On the main camera, Xiaomi pairs the Light Fusion 1050L sensor with LOFIC technology. LOFIC stands for Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor, and it is designed to reduce highlight clipping by giving each pixel extra headroom before bright areas turn into flat white. In practice, it helps keep texture in skies and reflections while still holding onto shadow detail in high contrast scenes.

23mm, Leica Vibrant

200mm, Leica Authentic

Zoom is the other headline change. Instead of dual telephoto cameras, Xiaomi uses a floating lens structure to deliver continuous optical zoom from 75 mm to 100 mm, which makes it easy to pick between framing without obvious digital cropping. The limitation is that the range is fairly tight, so it is more about fine-tuning perspective than dramatically pulling faraway subjects closer. There is also a close-up trade-off, since the telephoto now focuses down to about 30 cm rather than the 10 cm I could get on the Xiaomi 15 Ultra, so it is less useful as a pseudo macro lens.

45mm, Leica Vibrant

100mm, Leica Vibrant

In real use, both the main camera and the telephoto produce excellent images with wide dynamic range, natural color, and strong detail in various lighting conditions. The images look clean rather than overprocessed or oversharpened. Portrait mode is especially flexible, offering eight focal lengths from 23 mm through 100 mm equivalents, with pleasant bokeh and strong separation, even if it can occasionally miss a fine strand of hair when I pixel peep. I also noticed the phone can get warm even after relatively short camera use, and hopefully Xiaomi can improve this with future updates.

75mm, Leica Vibrant

75mm, Leica Vibrant

100mm, Leica Vibrant

The ultrawide is solid but a step behind the main and telephoto in refinement. The upgraded 50 megapixel front camera with autofocus is a nice quality of life improvement, and it looks great in good light. In backlight or low light, selfies can come out a bit soft as the processing works harder to control noise.

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra’s triple camera system can shoot video up to 8K at 30 fps, and it also offers 4K at up to 120 fps, although the ultrawide tops out at 4K at 60 fps. The front camera can record up to 4K at 60 fps, which is plenty for vlogs and high-quality selfies. Dolby Vision is supported across the cameras, and Xiaomi also includes creator-friendly tools like LOG recording up to 4K at 120 fps with stabilization on, plus LUT import for quicker grading and a more consistent look.

100m, Leica Portrait

100mm, Leica Portrait,

100mm, Leica Portrait, B&W Hig Contrast Filter

In performance, the 17 Ultra generally produces sharp, well-exposed footage with a fairly wide dynamic range, and stabilization stays strong when I am walking or panning. Low-light video also holds up well, with impressive detail for a phone, thanks in part to the large main sensor. Autofocus is usually smooth, but it can struggle in tricky conditions like backlit scenes or low light, where it may hesitate or hunt before it locks.

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra China version gets a 6,800mAh battery, but globally, it comes with a 6,000mAh battery. It should last you a full day, even with heavy use. It supports 90W wired charge and 50W wireless charge. 90W wired charge is PPS, so you can take full advantage of fast charging with a PPS compatible charger, not just with Xiaomi’s proprietary brick.

Sustainability

Xiaomi’s sustainability story for the 17 Ultra is mostly about longevity rather than eco materials. The phone uses Xiaomi Shield Glass 3.0 on the front, and it carries an IP68 rating, which should help it survive years of drops, rain, and daily wear without needing an early replacement. That kind of durability matters because the most sustainable phone is often the one you do not have to replace early.

Software support strengthens that long-life angle. Xiaomi promises five major OS updates and six years of security updates, which is not class-leading, but it is enough to make long-term ownership feel realistic at this price. It also makes the phone a safer buy if you plan to keep it for several years or pass it on later. What Xiaomi does not really emphasize, at least from what I can find, is the use of recycled or more sustainable materials in the phone itself.

Value

For global buyers, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra starts at EUR 1,499, which is roughly $1,620 USD, for 16GB/512GB, with the 16GB plus 1TB configuration expected around EUR 1,699, roughly $1,840 USD. That puts it directly in the same bracket as the most expensive Samsung Galaxy and iPhone models. If you look at what the Xiaomi 17 Ultra offers, it is easy to see the value in hardware alone, especially in cameras, battery, and storage.

The challenge is that Xiaomi is not only competing with Samsung and Apple, but also with other camera-focused Android flagships that are expected to land this year. That means the 17 Ultra has to win on the full experience, not just its spec sheet, especially when buyers are cross-shopping within the same premium price tier. Even so, the 17 Ultra can justify its price if you care most about its Leica-tuned imaging, huge display, and fast charging rather than ecosystem lock-in.

Verdict

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra is one of the most complete camera-first flagships Xiaomi has shipped for the global market. It nails the fundamentals with a huge, bright display, top-tier performance, and charging that makes most rivals feel slow and old-fashioned. The bigger story is how coherent the imaging experience feels, since the main and telephoto cameras deliver natural color, wide dynamic range, and consistent results across lenses.

Of course, there are real trade-offs, too. The new 75 mm to 100 mm continuous zoom is great for framing, but it is not a massive jump in reach, and the longer minimum focus distance makes the telephoto less useful for pseudo macro shots than the Xiaomi 15 Ultra. The global price also puts it in direct competition with the biggest names, so this is no longer a value flagship by default.  Still, there is no doubt the 17 Ultra earns its Ultra name. It delivers a huge, gorgeous screen, genuinely fast charging, and one of the most enjoyable still photo experiences you can get on a phone, with Leica-tuned color that looks natural rather than overcooked. If those are your priorities, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra is an easy flagship to love.

The post Xiaomi 17 Ultra Review: Lighter, Flatter, and Sharper Than Ever first appeared on Yanko Design.

Realme P4 Power Review: Battery Anxiety is Finally Dead

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PROS:


  • Massive 10,001mAh battery with 80W wired fast charging

  • Bright and vibrant display

  • Solid mid-range performance

CONS:


  • Slightly heavier and chunkier compared to many mid-range devices

  • Ultra-wide and front-facing cameras are only average for the price

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

Realme P4 Power proves that killing battery anxiety is more useful than chasing benchmarks, wrapping a 10,001mAh cell, tough IP69 shell, and smooth performance into an honest mid‑range package.

Realme has built a reputation for pushing smartphone battery tech forward, from faster charging to bigger and more efficient cells. Instead of treating battery life as an afterthought, the brand has consistently tried to make it a headline feature that changes how often you actually need a charger. That focus has turned power and charging from a boring spec line into one of Realme’s main selling points.

The Realme P4 Power is the clearest expression of that idea so far. It packs a massive 10,001 mAh battery into a phone that still looks and feels familiar, then backs it up with 80W fast charging, 27W reverse charging, a bright 144Hz AMOLED display, and 5G performance aimed at everyday users and gamers alike. More than just another mid‑range phone with a slightly bigger battery, it’s a device built around the promise that you should be able to forget about battery anxiety for days at a time.

Aesthetics

The Realme P4 Power is a battery‑first phone that does not look like one at first glance. On the table, it reads as a modern, fashion‑driven slab rather than a chunky endurance tool, which is exactly what Realme is going for. It comes in two color variations, Flash Orange and Power Silver.

The upper third of the back panel has a distinctive pattern that creates an almost translucent effect, playing with reflections and depth when light hits it. The rectangular camera island is neatly integrated, with a clean ring‑based layout that avoids the oversized, fussy modules you see on some rivals. The overall look feels intentional and confident, not like a normal phone that accidentally got thicker to fit a bigger battery.

The design is more playful than minimalist, especially in the brighter Flash Orange variant, while Power Silver keeps a slightly more muted but still distinctive character. For a phone whose headline feature is a huge battery, it is surprisingly stylish and clearly aimed at people who care how their device looks on a desk or in a hand. Branding is present but not overpowering, so the rear stays relatively clean even with the layered graphics and that “under‑glass” pattern.

Ergonomics

Even when you pick it up, the P4 Power feels a little deceptive. This is not a featherweight device, coming in at about 219g and measuring 162.26 x 76.15 x 9.08mm. The large 10,001 mAh battery and sturdy build give it noticeable heft in the hand, and you will feel that if you are coming from a slim device. However, Realme has done a great job of balancing the mass so it does not feel awkward during normal use. For many users, the extra grams will be an acceptable trade‑off for the freedom from constant charging.

The shape helps more than the spec sheet suggests. The slightly curved 6.8‑inch display and curved‑edge back panel let your fingers naturally wrap around the device rather than pressing into a sharp edge. The matte back does a good job of hiding fingerprints and smudges, although it can feel a bit slippery, so a case might still be a smart idea.

The power and volume keys are within comfortable reach on the right side, so you do not have to stretch or shuffle the phone around to adjust volume or wake the screen. The in‑display fingerprint reader, on the other hand, sits quite close to the bottom of the display, which can make quick unlocks feel a bit forced, especially in one‑handed use. Overall, the build quality feels more premium than the price tag suggests, and ergonomics are good for a device built around such a large battery.

Performance

On the front, the P4 Power offers a quad‑curved 6.8‑inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 1280 × 2800 pixels and a maximum refresh rate of 144Hz. In practice, though, only a few native apps, such as Calculator, Compass, and Recorder, actually run at 144Hz, while most of the interface and third‑party apps stick to lower refresh rates.

Realme quotes typical brightness around 600 nits, a boosted mode up to 1800 nits, and a local peak figure of 6500 nits for small areas of the screen. In real‑world use, the display stays readable in harsh sunlight and bright outdoor conditions. The panel supports HDR10+ and 10‑bit color, so compatible streaming content looks rich, punchy, and pleasantly saturated.

Inside the P4 Power sits MediaTek’s Dimensity 7400-Ultra chipset. It is paired with 8GB or 12GB of RAM and 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. This combination places the phone firmly in the mid‑range. It is not chasing raw benchmark records, yet it is designed to deliver smooth performance in everyday tasks and mainstream games without obvious slowdowns or stutters.

Out of the box, the phone runs Android 16 with Realme UI 7.0 on top, and Realme also uses a dual‑chip approach. Alongside the main Dimensity processor, there is a dedicated Hyper Vision+ AI chip focused on display and gaming tasks, and there are a handful of AI image features such as AI Perfect Shot and 3D emoji. AI Perfect Shot recognizes faces and can fix closed eyes or awkward expressions by swapping in better face poses from other photos of the same person in your gallery, and AI also helps during gaming by quickly generating message replies in supported messaging apps so you can respond without fully dropping out of your game.

Battery life is the reason this phone exists. The 10,001mAh cell is dramatically larger than the 4,500 to 5,000mAh batteries found in many mainstream phones, and even bigger than the 6,000 or 7000mAh packs in endurance‑focused models. Realme achieves this using a third‑generation silicon‑carbon anode and a compact internal stacking design, which allows more capacity in roughly the same physical space.

In practical terms, this capacity is meant to deliver several days of mixed use. I used the Realme P4 Power as my primary device on a 3‑night, 4‑day scuba trip, with light screen time during the day, and it lasted the entire trip without a charge, still showing around 20 percent battery when I got back home. That kind of real‑world endurance is a clear step up from phones that need a nightly top‑up.

When you do need to charge, the P4 Power supports 80 W wired fast charging. It also supports 27 W reverse charging, so it can basically double as a power bank for your other gadgets when you are on the move.

The camera system on the P4 Power is straightforward. On the back, there is a 50MP main camera using Sony’s IMX882 sensor with optical image stabilization and an f/1.8 lens, paired with an 8MP ultra‑wide camera that offers a 112‑degree field of view. On the front, you get a 16MP selfie camera. For video, the main camera can record up to 4K at 30 fps, while the ultra‑wide and front‑facing cameras are capped at 1080p at 30 fps.

You can choose between Vibrant and Natural color modes. Natural mode is essentially a toned‑down look rather than a more accurate one, so it comes down to preference more than strict realism. The main camera takes good photos with pleasing detail and contrast in daylight, while the ultra‑wide is serviceable but nothing to write home about, with softer detail and more noise. The front‑facing camera delivers decent selfies that are fine for social media, though it does not stand out in this price range.

Natural Color Mode

Vibrant Color Mode

Portrait Mode

Sustainability

The oversized battery also has a clear sustainability angle. Because the 10,001 mAh cell gives you so much headroom, you are less likely to run it close to empty every day or charge it multiple times, which reduces the number of full charge cycles. Realme’s silicon‑carbon chemistry and battery management build on that, and the company claims the battery can retain over 94 percent of its original capacity after three years of typical use and around 80 percent after eight years.

The Realme P4 Power also leans on durability and software support. It is IP69, IP68, and IP66‑rated, so it is tested for dust tightness, high‑pressure water jets, and immersion, making it less likely to die from everyday splashes or rain. On the software side, Realme promises three major Android OS upgrades and four years of security patches, which is fine for a mid‑range phone but not class‑leading, and it slightly undercuts the otherwise long‑term hardware story.

Value

In India, the Realme P4 Power starts at around ₹25,999 (roughly $310) for the 8GB RAM and 128GB storage variant. That pricing puts it in the crowded lower mid‑range segment, where a lot of brands are fighting on specs and features. The Honor Win also features a 10,000mAh battery, but it is officially only available in China, so for most buyers, the P4 Power is the more accessible way to get this kind of battery size.

The phone is aimed at people who value endurance and reliability above camera experience or absolute thinness. That can include gamers, frequent travelers, delivery workers, content creators on the move, and anyone who is simply tired of carrying a power bank. At this price level, the P4 Power tries to stand out by solving a real‑world problem in a very direct way.

Verdict

The Realme P4 Power is a very focused product. It does not try to be the best camera phone or the thinnest fashion accessory. Instead, it aims to be the phone you do not have to think about charging, even on your busiest days. For many everyday users, that single promise can be more valuable than a slightly better zoom lens or a few extra benchmark points.

If your top priority is battery life, with smooth performance and a bright display for gaming and media, the P4 Power is an easy device to recommend in its price range. If you care more about advanced photography features, ultra‑lightweight design, or wireless charging, you may want to look at other options. For everyone else, this is a rare phone that tackles a common frustration head‑on and mostly succeeds.

The post Realme P4 Power Review: Battery Anxiety is Finally Dead first appeared on Yanko Design.

Realme P4 Power Review: Battery Anxiety is Finally Dead

Posted on by

PROS:


  • Massive 10,001mAh battery with 80W wired fast charging

  • Bright and vibrant display

  • Solid mid-range performance

CONS:


  • Slightly heavier and chunkier compared to many mid-range devices

  • Ultra-wide and front-facing cameras are only average for the price

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

Realme P4 Power proves that killing battery anxiety is more useful than chasing benchmarks, wrapping a 10,001mAh cell, tough IP69 shell, and smooth performance into an honest mid‑range package.

Realme has built a reputation for pushing smartphone battery tech forward, from faster charging to bigger and more efficient cells. Instead of treating battery life as an afterthought, the brand has consistently tried to make it a headline feature that changes how often you actually need a charger. That focus has turned power and charging from a boring spec line into one of Realme’s main selling points.

The Realme P4 Power is the clearest expression of that idea so far. It packs a massive 10,001 mAh battery into a phone that still looks and feels familiar, then backs it up with 80W fast charging, 27W reverse charging, a bright 144Hz AMOLED display, and 5G performance aimed at everyday users and gamers alike. More than just another mid‑range phone with a slightly bigger battery, it’s a device built around the promise that you should be able to forget about battery anxiety for days at a time.

Aesthetics

The Realme P4 Power is a battery‑first phone that does not look like one at first glance. On the table, it reads as a modern, fashion‑driven slab rather than a chunky endurance tool, which is exactly what Realme is going for. It comes in two color variations, Flash Orange and Power Silver.

The upper third of the back panel has a distinctive pattern that creates an almost translucent effect, playing with reflections and depth when light hits it. The rectangular camera island is neatly integrated, with a clean ring‑based layout that avoids the oversized, fussy modules you see on some rivals. The overall look feels intentional and confident, not like a normal phone that accidentally got thicker to fit a bigger battery.

The design is more playful than minimalist, especially in the brighter Flash Orange variant, while Power Silver keeps a slightly more muted but still distinctive character. For a phone whose headline feature is a huge battery, it is surprisingly stylish and clearly aimed at people who care how their device looks on a desk or in a hand. Branding is present but not overpowering, so the rear stays relatively clean even with the layered graphics and that “under‑glass” pattern.

Ergonomics

Even when you pick it up, the P4 Power feels a little deceptive. This is not a featherweight device, coming in at about 219g and measuring 162.26 x 76.15 x 9.08mm. The large 10,001 mAh battery and sturdy build give it noticeable heft in the hand, and you will feel that if you are coming from a slim device. However, Realme has done a great job of balancing the mass so it does not feel awkward during normal use. For many users, the extra grams will be an acceptable trade‑off for the freedom from constant charging.

The shape helps more than the spec sheet suggests. The slightly curved 6.8‑inch display and curved‑edge back panel let your fingers naturally wrap around the device rather than pressing into a sharp edge. The matte back does a good job of hiding fingerprints and smudges, although it can feel a bit slippery, so a case might still be a smart idea.

The power and volume keys are within comfortable reach on the right side, so you do not have to stretch or shuffle the phone around to adjust volume or wake the screen. The in‑display fingerprint reader, on the other hand, sits quite close to the bottom of the display, which can make quick unlocks feel a bit forced, especially in one‑handed use. Overall, the build quality feels more premium than the price tag suggests, and ergonomics are good for a device built around such a large battery.

Performance

On the front, the P4 Power offers a quad‑curved 6.8‑inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 1280 × 2800 pixels and a maximum refresh rate of 144Hz. In practice, though, only a few native apps, such as Calculator, Compass, and Recorder, actually run at 144Hz, while most of the interface and third‑party apps stick to lower refresh rates.

Realme quotes typical brightness around 600 nits, a boosted mode up to 1800 nits, and a local peak figure of 6500 nits for small areas of the screen. In real‑world use, the display stays readable in harsh sunlight and bright outdoor conditions. The panel supports HDR10+ and 10‑bit color, so compatible streaming content looks rich, punchy, and pleasantly saturated.

Inside the P4 Power sits MediaTek’s Dimensity 7400-Ultra chipset. It is paired with 8GB or 12GB of RAM and 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. This combination places the phone firmly in the mid‑range. It is not chasing raw benchmark records, yet it is designed to deliver smooth performance in everyday tasks and mainstream games without obvious slowdowns or stutters.

Out of the box, the phone runs Android 16 with Realme UI 7.0 on top, and Realme also uses a dual‑chip approach. Alongside the main Dimensity processor, there is a dedicated Hyper Vision+ AI chip focused on display and gaming tasks, and there are a handful of AI image features such as AI Perfect Shot and 3D emoji. AI Perfect Shot recognizes faces and can fix closed eyes or awkward expressions by swapping in better face poses from other photos of the same person in your gallery, and AI also helps during gaming by quickly generating message replies in supported messaging apps so you can respond without fully dropping out of your game.

Battery life is the reason this phone exists. The 10,001mAh cell is dramatically larger than the 4,500 to 5,000mAh batteries found in many mainstream phones, and even bigger than the 6,000 or 7000mAh packs in endurance‑focused models. Realme achieves this using a third‑generation silicon‑carbon anode and a compact internal stacking design, which allows more capacity in roughly the same physical space.

In practical terms, this capacity is meant to deliver several days of mixed use. I used the Realme P4 Power as my primary device on a 3‑night, 4‑day scuba trip, with light screen time during the day, and it lasted the entire trip without a charge, still showing around 20 percent battery when I got back home. That kind of real‑world endurance is a clear step up from phones that need a nightly top‑up.

When you do need to charge, the P4 Power supports 80 W wired fast charging. It also supports 27 W reverse charging, so it can basically double as a power bank for your other gadgets when you are on the move.

The camera system on the P4 Power is straightforward. On the back, there is a 50MP main camera using Sony’s IMX882 sensor with optical image stabilization and an f/1.8 lens, paired with an 8MP ultra‑wide camera that offers a 112‑degree field of view. On the front, you get a 16MP selfie camera. For video, the main camera can record up to 4K at 30 fps, while the ultra‑wide and front‑facing cameras are capped at 1080p at 30 fps.

You can choose between Vibrant and Natural color modes. Natural mode is essentially a toned‑down look rather than a more accurate one, so it comes down to preference more than strict realism. The main camera takes good photos with pleasing detail and contrast in daylight, while the ultra‑wide is serviceable but nothing to write home about, with softer detail and more noise. The front‑facing camera delivers decent selfies that are fine for social media, though it does not stand out in this price range.

Natural Color Mode

Vibrant Color Mode

Portrait Mode

Sustainability

The oversized battery also has a clear sustainability angle. Because the 10,001 mAh cell gives you so much headroom, you are less likely to run it close to empty every day or charge it multiple times, which reduces the number of full charge cycles. Realme’s silicon‑carbon chemistry and battery management build on that, and the company claims the battery can retain over 94 percent of its original capacity after three years of typical use and around 80 percent after eight years.

The Realme P4 Power also leans on durability and software support. It is IP69, IP68, and IP66‑rated, so it is tested for dust tightness, high‑pressure water jets, and immersion, making it less likely to die from everyday splashes or rain. On the software side, Realme promises three major Android OS upgrades and four years of security patches, which is fine for a mid‑range phone but not class‑leading, and it slightly undercuts the otherwise long‑term hardware story.

Value

In India, the Realme P4 Power starts at around ₹25,999 (roughly $310) for the 8GB RAM and 128GB storage variant. That pricing puts it in the crowded lower mid‑range segment, where a lot of brands are fighting on specs and features. The Honor Win also features a 10,000mAh battery, but it is officially only available in China, so for most buyers, the P4 Power is the more accessible way to get this kind of battery size.

The phone is aimed at people who value endurance and reliability above camera experience or absolute thinness. That can include gamers, frequent travelers, delivery workers, content creators on the move, and anyone who is simply tired of carrying a power bank. At this price level, the P4 Power tries to stand out by solving a real‑world problem in a very direct way.

Verdict

The Realme P4 Power is a very focused product. It does not try to be the best camera phone or the thinnest fashion accessory. Instead, it aims to be the phone you do not have to think about charging, even on your busiest days. For many everyday users, that single promise can be more valuable than a slightly better zoom lens or a few extra benchmark points.

If your top priority is battery life, with smooth performance and a bright display for gaming and media, the P4 Power is an easy device to recommend in its price range. If you care more about advanced photography features, ultra‑lightweight design, or wireless charging, you may want to look at other options. For everyone else, this is a rare phone that tackles a common frustration head‑on and mostly succeeds.

The post Realme P4 Power Review: Battery Anxiety is Finally Dead first appeared on Yanko Design.

Naoto Fukasawa on Poetic Observation and Designing the realme 16 Pro Urban Wild

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With the realme 16 Pro series, Naoto Fukasawa and realme reunite for their fifth collaboration. Past Master Edition phones have been anchored in concrete metaphors such as onion and garlic for food, concrete and brick for architecture, a suitcase for exploration, and paper for sustainability. This time, the theme is Urban Wild Design, which combines a softly textured, bio-based back with a mirror-polished camera island and frame so that the phone feels less like a gadget and more like something between a pebble, a wheat field, and a piece of jewelry.

To understand the thinking behind Urban Wild and where smartphones sit in his larger body of work, we spoke with Fukasawa in Tokyo. What emerged was a conversation about optimal solutions, poetic observation, and the slow transformation of phones from tools into objects we might someday find in a jewelry boutique.

Smartphones after the “optimal size”

Designer: Naoto Fukusawa

Fukasawa has designed furniture, appliances, and a wide range of everyday objects. When we ask how he now sees the smartphone in our lives, and whether it feels closer to a tool or to a companion, he does not answer with a metaphor about friendship or dependence. He goes straight to something more concrete, which is size, and explains that mobile phones kept shrinking until they reached the smallest form that people could still use comfortably, then stopped. For him, that point, where going any smaller would make them difficult to handle, is roughly where the smartphone’s footprint settled, and in terms of size, we have already reached something close to an optimal answer.

Once that size is fixed, the phone stops being just an efficient tool and, because we always carry it, becomes part of daily life. As new functions and applications accumulate, the phone becomes more than a neutral object. It starts to feel like something that responds to you, and something you relate to on an emotional level as well as a functional one. In that sense, the smartphone has moved closer to a partner than a simple instrument.

From gadget to accessory

Over the last several years, Fukasawa has watched both the devices and the surrounding market change. For a long time, selling more products meant multiplying variations, and that approach helped companies grow, yet also made everyday life feel crowded with choices. “People used to believe that the more options you had, the happier you would be,” he says. “Now, with so many choices, life has become overwhelming and even a little painful.”

From his perspective, the next step is not to say here is another option, but to say this is the object that suits you best. If designers can get closer to a true optimum, there may be less need for endless variations, and in the extreme case, one type might actually be enough. For him, the smartphone is already close to a final archetype, and the real work now lies in how it feels in the hand and how it lives with us each day.

Once the basic form and functions have settled in this way, what separates one phone from another is less about what is inside and more about how it is expressed on the outside. That is where collaboration and brand character start to matter. realme is a relatively young brand, its identity closely tied to youth, and that youthfulness was part of the attraction for Fukasawa when the collaboration began in 2019 with the realme X Master Edition.

Smartphone hardware has almost converged, and most major brands now work with similar capabilities, which means the design, appearance, and feel of the device become more important. In that context, the 16 Pro series became a way to explore something he feels is still rare, a sense of quiet luxury for a young audience. Youth and luxury are not usually linked, and young users are often expected to settle for things that look cheap or temporary, but with realme he wanted to offer something more refined without losing accessibility.

“We had not really thought about it from that side before,” he says. He wanted to treat the phone not only as a gadget, but also as something closer to an accessory that people might choose in the same way they choose a watch or a piece of jewelry. He thinks smartphones are now heading in that direction. The hardware inside will keep evolving, yet the design on the outside will increasingly be judged like something you adorn yourself with and show in public.

realme’s target is young users, but he did not want to make something throwaway. Instead, he aimed for a slightly more grown-up kind of elegance, the kind of subtle sparkle a young person might want when walking through the city. That balance between youth and a touch of luxury is, for him, a key part of what makes the 16 Pro feel different.

Urban Wild, bringing nature into the city

For Fukasawa, the starting point for the 16 Pro was a human wish to bring nature into urban life. He feels that wish has grown stronger after decades of rapid growth and increasingly inhuman city environments. More people now seem drawn to things that feel closer to natural phenomena or handmade objects, and to smaller quantities of more considered products. He senses a shift in what people value, away from volume and speed and toward calm and presence.

He wanted the phone to carry that feeling in a direct, physical way. The first idea was a touch that did not feel cold, and a back surface that felt slightly soft and warm in the hand, almost like paper or fabric rather than hard plastic or rubber. At the same time, he knew the design would include accents that could take on a mirror finish, so it became a deliberate contrast, with a soft and quiet body paired with shiny, jewelry-inspired highlights.

To him, this mix of natural warmth and precise shine points to where value is moving. “That is where value will be,” he says. For Fukasawa, what feels valuable now is not more noise, but a calm presence that still has intensity. In that sense, his idea of wildness is broader than the way the word is often used in marketing.

The word wild is usually attached to something loud and extreme, but for him, it can just as well describe a kind of clarity and simplicity that stands out in the middle of a noisy world. “In a very noisy environment, when something is extremely simple, that can also be wild,” he suggests. In the same way that Super Normal objects are, in his words, super special, Urban Wild is less about spectacle and more about a stripped-back intensity where quietness itself becomes the bold statement. The phrase Urban Wild came later, after the design already existed and had made people quietly say “wow,” so it was a name that followed a feeling rather than the other way around.

True to nature color and texture


The 16 Pro series launches in Master Gold and Master Gray. Both are positioned as True to Nature colors, but Fukasawa is careful not to treat nature as something that simply appears without human choice. He points out that in both fashion and product design, there are always people and organizations thinking about what colors the world needs next.

Trends do not appear from nowhere. They only succeed if they resonate with a mood that is already forming around the world. Right now, that mood is moving away from aggressive, saturated hues toward quieter tones you might find in a landscape. Beige, for example, might be a slightly yellow beige or a sand beige with a hint of warm brown, and those small shifts are where design happens.

For the 16 Pro, Fukasawa worked with that global sense of “this is the color of now,” but tuned it toward natural calm rather than toward fashion drama. Texture plays an equal role in the experience. A fabric-like grain on the surface can make the same color feel much softer and more approachable, and that combination of controlled hue and subtle texture is what gives Master Gold and Master Gray their understated presence.

A back that feels closer to skin than rubber


The most radical part of the 16 Pro hardware is the back material, a bio-based organic silicone made from plant-derived straw. It is soft, faintly elastic, and subtly leather-like, and Fukasawa sums it up by saying that it has moved closer to human skin, not just to soft rubber. For him, this is not only about one smartphone, but part of a wider change in how technology touches the body.

He connects it to a broader shift in robotics, where early humanoid robots were metal blocks and newer soft robotics explores flexible, cushiony structures that can interact more gently with people. The 16 Pro is still a highly precise gadget, but introducing a genuinely soft and skin-like element into that precision feels to him like one step up in the evolution of devices. It hints at a future where high technology does not have to feel hard or distant from the body.

On sustainability, he is clear that recyclability alone is not the end goal. “Sustainable means able to be sustained,” he points out, and recycling discarded materials is only an intermediate step in a longer journey. If people feel that a material truly suits them, and it continues to be used across generations of products, then it does not become obsolete or unwanted, and in his words, that is the strongest form of sustainability.

Curves decided by human experience


realme describes the overall silhouette as an All Nature Curve Design, with continuous curves linking the back, mid frame, and screen. Within the rigid rectangle of a smartphone, it is not obvious where there is room to change the feeling in the hand, yet for Fukasawa, the answer lies less in formal theory and more in accumulated human experience. Over time, our hands learn what feels right and what feels wrong, and those memories build a shared sense of which shapes are comfortable and which ones look natural.

He gives the simple example of a table edge, and as he talks, he runs his fingers along the corner in front of him, which we expect to be neither too sharp nor too rounded. Sharp corners can look cool but feel harsh, while very rounded edges can look sloppy or tired, and the sweet spot sits somewhere in between. Once the size and thickness of the phone are fixed, the gentle line that naturally fits those dimensions almost decides itself, and he describes the final curves as something that emerged rather than something he forced into place. “I was not trying to think up a shape,” he says. “It formed naturally,” and that naturalness is part of what makes the phone feel calm in the hand.

A phone that belongs in a jewelry boutique

He imagines taking the phone out of the electronics aisle and placing it in a boutique that sells luxury bags and jewelry, and he wanted a smartphone that could sit there without feeling out of place. “If we always stay in the gadget section, we will always be seen as gadgets,” he says, and that is precisely what he wants to move beyond.

With the 16 Pro, he wanted people to feel drawn to it in the same way they are drawn to a beautiful accessory, and not through spectacle or aggressive styling. Instead, he aims for a sense of calm quality and high sensibility that invites people closer and rewards touch. The ideal first reaction is not a shout, but a soft “wow, this feels nice” that might never be spoken aloud.

Poetic observation and advice for young designers

Toward the end of our conversation, we moved from smartphones to design education. Fukasawa believes that design has grown up alongside industry, but that not all of that growth was right. He feels that today, technology has finally caught up enough that designers can aim closer to the essence of human life. What is needed now, he says, is not only observation in the marketing sense, which means staring at the market, but a different kind of observation directed at people and environments.

The problem is that simply telling young designers to observe often leads nowhere, because they open their eyes and still see nothing. To make the idea more concrete, he and a cognitive psychologist friend began using the term poetic observation instead. He likens it to writing a short poem, a haiku, about what you see, and when you look at the world with that mindset, things start to appear more human and more connected, and small scenes begin to feel like stories.

“It is like listening to a song whose lyrics suddenly turn the whole scene into a story and make everyone in it a kind of main character,” he says, and he believes poetic observation can do the same for everyday life. When I suggest that this sounds less like looking with the eyes and more like seeing with the heart, he nods and says, “Yes, exactly. Poetic means bringing in emotion. That is how you should look at the world.”

It is not only for designers, but he adds, because if everyone could see the world that way, the world would become better. Urban Wild is therefore not just a styling exercise for a mid-range smartphone, but one expression of Fukasawa’s larger project to make the tools we live with calmer, more human, and a little more poetic, even in the middle of the city.

The post Naoto Fukasawa on Poetic Observation and Designing the realme 16 Pro Urban Wild first appeared on Yanko Design.

Honor Magic8 Lite: The Lightweight Phone That Lasts Three Days

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PROS:


  • Excellent multi-day battery life with a huge 7500 mAh cell

  • Lightweight feel for its size

  • Strong durability story with IP69K, IP68, IP66 ratings

CONS:


  • Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 performance is only mid-tier

  • Unimpressive camera performance

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

Honor’s Magic8 Lite trades raw speed for stamina and toughness, and in doing so becomes one of the few phones you can trust to stay light in your pocket and alive for days at a time

There are phones that chase benchmarks and spec sheets. Then there are phones that quietly decide to solve a very boring and very real problem, which is running out of battery at the worst possible time. The Honor Magic8 Lite belongs firmly in that second group, and that is exactly what makes it interesting.

From the moment you pick it up, the Magic8 Lite feels almost contradictory. It carries a huge 7500 mAh battery, yet it settles into your hand with the easy lightness of a much smaller phone. That contrast sets the tone for the whole experience and gives the phone a very specific kind of charm.

Designer: Honor

This is a device that wants to disappear into your day rather than dominate it. It is not trying to shout about performance or AI tricks, and it does not weigh you down in your pocket or your bag. Instead, it leans into battery endurance, a bright OLED display, and a surprisingly tough body that is happy to live without a case if you are brave enough to try.

This is not a flagship, and it does not pretend to be one. If you are chasing the fastest processor or the most experimental camera system, you will not find that here. What you do get is a phone that feels designed for regular people who want something light, long-lasting, and resilient, a phone that survives a few accidents and still looks good on the table at the end of the day.

Aesthetics

The Honor Magic8 Lite is a reminder that “Lite” does not have to look cheap. Honor uses a plastic frame and plastic rear panel, which helps keep weight in check despite the oversized battery and keeps the phone feeling approachable in the hand. The camera island design has been updated. You get a large circular module that sits high on the rear panel, almost like a watch face sitting on the spine of a book, which continues the design language from its predecessor.

Instead of a single black disc, Honor has adopted a ring-based layout for the Magic8 Lite camera island. The black outer circle houses two cameras and the LED flash, while the inner circle carries the “Matrix AI Vision Camera” text as a graphic centerpiece. The circle is bold enough that your eye goes straight to it, which instantly gives the phone a recognizable appearance from almost any angle. It feels more like a deliberate design motif than a simple camera bump, and that makes the back visually memorable.

The Honor Magic8 Lite is available in Forest Green, Midnight Black, Reddish Brown, and Sunrise Gold in some markets, each one giving the camera ring a slightly different personality. The Reddish Brown version features a vegan leather finish that adds warmth and tactility, while the others use a matte surface that keeps fingerprints under control. The Sunrise Gold option adds a subtle, waterpaint-like pattern that shimmers as you tilt it, giving the phone a more premium character than the materials list would suggest.

Ergonomics

On paper, a 6.79-inch phone with a 7500 mAh battery sounds like a brick waiting to happen. In the hand, the Magic8 Lite is more balanced than you might expect. At 189 grams and roughly 7.8 millimeters thick, it is not featherlight, yet it avoids the dense, top-heavy feel that big battery phones often suffer from.

The matte back panel and brushed metal-like frame both do a good job of resisting fingerprints and smudges. You can use the phone without a case, and it still looks clean at the end of the day, which fits the whole low-maintenance character of the device. The surfaces feel practical rather than precious, so you are less worried about babying it in everyday use.

The flat sides help with grip, while the curved edges at the back soften the transition into your palm. Since the phone leans toward the wider side, you will still want two hands for extended typing or navigation, especially if you have smaller hands. The weight distribution feels centered, so the phone does not constantly try to tip forward when you reach for the top of the screen.

There is one ergonomic misstep. The fingerprint scanner on the side is positioned very close to the bottom edge, which makes the movement from holding position to unlocking feel less natural. Your thumb has to dip down in a way that breaks the otherwise smooth hand position, and it takes a little getting used to if you are coming from a phone with a higher side sensor.

Performance

Inside, the Magic8 Lite runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 with 8 GB of RAM and either 256 or 512 GB of storage. This combination sits firmly in the capable but not aggressive category. For messaging, social media, web browsing, and casual apps, the phone feels smooth enough, especially with the 120 Hz refresh rate helping animations and scrolling feel more fluid. You do start to feel the limits in heavier multitasking and demanding games.

Running MagicOS 9 on top of Android 15, the Magic8 Lite offers Google Gemini out of the box along with a suite of AI features, including AI photo editing tools and AI Translate. These extras sit quietly in the background until you need them, which suits the phone’s everyday focus.

The display is one of the Magic8 Lite’s strongest visual arguments. You get a 6.79-inch OLED panel with a resolution of 2640 x 1200 and a 120 Hz refresh rate. Honor quotes a theoretical peak around 6000 nits, and while you will not hit that number in regular use, outdoor visibility is excellent. The 3480 Hz PWM dimming also aims to make the display more comfortable for sensitive eyes during longer sessions.

Honor gives the Magic8 Lite a 108 MP main camera with a 1/1.67 inch sensor, optical image stabilization, and phase detect autofocus, paired with an ultrawide camera and a 16 MP selfie shooter. The main camera does a relatively good job in most everyday scenarios, delivering detailed images in good light. You can zoom up to 10x, but image quality drops off quickly, and the camera struggles to freeze motion, even in daytime, so it is best treated as a 1x to 2x camera for reliable results. The main camera can record video up to 4K at 30 FPS, and the results are good for the price range.

The ultra-wide camera performs as expected for this class. It is useful for landscapes and group shots, but detail and dynamic range are a step down from the main sensor, so you use it when you need the extra width rather than for pure image quality. The front-facing camera does a decent job, giving natural-looking skin tones and texture. For video recording, both ultra-wide and front cameras are capped at 1080p at 30FPS.

Battery life is the headline act, and the Magic8 Lite fully leans into it. The 7500 mAh silicon carbon battery is significantly larger than the 5000 mAh units that have become standard in many phones. Combined with the efficient Snapdragon 6 Gen 4, this translates into genuinely impressive endurance that reshapes how often you think about charging.

Portrait Mode

In mixed everyday use, you are looking at three full days with comfort, and four days or more if you are a lighter user. Long sessions of streaming, navigation, or social scrolling barely make a dent compared to what you might be used to. This phone simply does not provoke range anxiety, which makes it a very easy recommendation for anyone who hates watching the battery percentage.

Charging is handled by 66W wired fast charging, provided you use Honor’s SuperCharge standard. Some regions include the charger in the box, and others do not, so you may need to factor that into the overall cost. Once plugged in, the phone refuels quickly enough that even a short top-up before you leave the house can add several hours of real use, which fits perfectly with the “charge less, worry less” personality of the Magic8 Lite.

Sustainability

The Magic8 Lite approaches sustainability from a practical angle. The device carries IP69K, IP68, and IP66 certifications, which are unusually comprehensive for this class. That combination means full dust protection, resistance to high-pressure water jets, and safety during water immersion. In daily use, it translates into a phone that can handle heavy rain, spills, and rough handling while still functioning as normal.

Honor claims the Magic8 Lite boosts resilience with its industry-first Ultra Bounce Anti-Drop Technology. This system pairs ultra-tough tempered glass with a reinforced internal structure to better absorb everyday impacts. The idea is simple: keep the phone alive longer by surviving the kind of accidents that usually send devices to repair shops or landfills.

Value

The Honor Magic8 Lite is priced at £399.99, which works out to roughly $510 at current exchange rates. At that level, it sits in the crowded upper mid-range, where you can find phones with faster processors or more ambitious camera systems. What most of those rivals cannot match is the combination of huge battery, lightweight feel, and serious durability that the Magic8 Lite offers as a package.

If your priorities lean toward performance or advanced photography, you may find better raw specs for similar money. You are paying here for peace of mind, long gaps between charges, and a design that does not feel fragile in everyday use. For regular users who value stamina and resilience over benchmark scores, the overall value proposition is quietly compelling.

Verdict

The Honor Magic8 Lite is not the phone for spec chasers, and that is exactly its appeal. It is built for people who care more about getting through a long weekend on one charge than hitting the highest frame rates in the latest game. If you can live with “good enough” performance and the main cameras that are solid but not flagship level, you get a phone that feels light in the hand, tough in daily use, and genuinely low maintenance to own.

Where the Magic8 Lite really wins is in how all those choices line up around a single idea. The oversized battery, the bright and efficient OLED, the comprehensive water and drop protection, and the fingerprint-resistant finishes all work together to reduce friction in everyday life. It is the phone you grab when you are not sure where the next outlet is, or when you know it might get caught in the rain, and you do it without a second thought.

The post Honor Magic8 Lite: The Lightweight Phone That Lasts Three Days first appeared on Yanko Design.

Satechi’s Thunderbolt 5 CubeDock Is A Minimalist Dock With Maximum Bandwidth

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Satechi’s Thunderbolt 5 CubeDock with SSD Enclosure is built to look as sophisticated as the devices it serves. The compact 5 x 5 x 2-inch footprint mirrors the proportions of Apple’s Mac mini, so the two stack neatly into a clean, monolithic tower on your desk rather than a cluttered pile of hardware. The solid aluminum body and soft, rounded corners pick up Apple’s visual language in a way that feels intentional, making the CubeDock read like an extension of a modern Mac setup instead of an aftermarket add‑on.

Designer: Satechi

That design focus does not mean the dock is only for Mac users, though. Satechi is positioning the CubeDock as a cross‑platform, Thunderbolt 5‑first hub for creative professionals and power users on both Windows and macOS. Built on Intel’s Thunderbolt 5 technology, it doubles the bandwidth of previous generations, delivering 80 Gbps of bi‑directional bandwidth and up to 120 Gbps with Bandwidth Boost for external graphics and multi‑display configurations. On supported Windows machines, it can drive triple 8K displays at 60 Hz or triple 4K panels at 144 Hz, while on newer Apple silicon systems, it supports dual 6K at 60 Hz, all from a single cable.

The CubeDock’s compact size hides a serious amount of connectivity. It boasts Thunderbolt 5 downstream ports, multiple 10 Gbps USB‑C and USB‑A ports, UHS‑II SD and microSD card readers, and 2.5 Gb Ethernet. For photographers, filmmakers, and 3D artists, that means fast card ingestion, wired networking, and external drives all plug into one cube that visually recedes into the background. A 180 W smart power supply delivers up to 140 W back to the host laptop, plus 30 W of Power Delivery for phones and tablets, so the dock can replace multiple separate chargers on the desktop.

One of the most thoughtful touches is the integrated NVMe SSD bay. Instead of forcing users to add yet another external enclosure, Satechi has built a PCIe 4×4 slot into the CubeDock itself, supporting up to 8 TB of storage at speeds up to 6000 MB per second. That turns the dock into both a visual anchor and a primary working drive, ideal for 4K and 8K video, large RAW photo libraries, or CAD files. Adaptive active cooling keeps the cube whisper‑quiet even under heavy workloads, maintaining performance without adding fan noise to your workspace. For anyone building a refined, minimal workstation around a Mac mini or modern laptop, yet wanting the flexibility to move between platforms, the CubeDock offers a rare combination of industrial design, raw bandwidth, and integrated storage in one small aluminum cube.

The post Satechi’s Thunderbolt 5 CubeDock Is A Minimalist Dock With Maximum Bandwidth first appeared on Yanko Design.

When a Robot Compliments Your Blue Sweater: Inside AGIBOT’s Surprisingly Natural Humanoids

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Agibot entered the U.S. spotlight at CES 2026 as a company that has been busy actually building and shipping robots instead of just talking about what might be possible someday. Founded in 2023 with the ambition of creating robots that can live and learn alongside people, it has already moved 5,000 humanoid units into real deployments worldwide. That number matters because it puts AGIBOT past the prototype stage, where many humanoid projects still sit, and into a space where robots are expected to be reliable, repeatable, and ready for everyday use.

Instead of centering everything on one showpiece machine, AGIBOT has built out a broad portfolio that stretches across very different environments. At CES 2026, the company showed full-sized humanoids for public and customer-facing spaces, compact expressive robots for entertainment and research, industrial units aimed at factories and logistics centers, quadrupeds for inspection in complex terrain, and a dexterous robotic hand system. Each product has its own job, but they all share a simple expectation. Robots should be able to move through the world, communicate with people, and carry out useful work without constant human babysitting or elaborate staging.

Designer: Agibot

You really feel that philosophy when you stop reading spec sheets and just stand in front of one of the robots. On the CES show floor, my colleague in a blue sweater walked up to an AGIBOT A2 and greeted it from directly in front. The robot answered with an easy “hello,” then followed up with a friendly compliment that referred to her as “the lady in blue.” The recognition landed instantly with no visible lag, no frozen expression, and no glitchy audio. The exchange felt less like triggering a scripted demo and more like stepping into a light, everyday interaction with a staff member who just happens to be a humanoid robot.

The A2’s digital face helped make that moment feel approachable rather than uncanny. Instead of a fixed set of cartoon features, the display shifted through different visual modes as the interaction unfolded. At times, it showed a simple, stylized face that made it clear where its attention was focused. At other moments, it flipped into a flowing heart animation or playful emoji-like graphics that matched the energy of the show floor. Those changes acted as live signals that the robot was listening, processing, or responding, and they gave the encounter a kind of emotional rhythm that pulled people in instead of pushing them away.

A second interaction underlined how aware the robot could be of what people were doing around it. While I stood in front of the A2 snapping photos, the robot clocked what I was doing and casually acknowledged that I was taking pictures. It did not sit there waiting for a wake word or a preset gesture. Instead, it folded that small piece of context into the way it responded, treating the camera as part of the scene rather than a distraction. In the middle of a crowded, noisy hall, that ability to notice and adapt in real time made the robot feel present and attentive rather than mechanical.

What makes these scenes interesting is not simply that a robot can spot a blue sweater or a raised smartphone. It is that the whole exchange runs at a human pace. There are no long pauses while the system silently catches up, no handlers stepping in to reset things, and no sense that the robot is about to break character. The conversation and the gestures move forward with the timing you expect from a front desk host or a showroom guide. That sense of ease is hard to fake, and it hints at how much careful engineering it takes to keep perception, speech, and movement in sync under real-world pressure.

Agibot’s broader deployment history helps explain why those details feel so polished. The company’s robots are already working in reception and hospitality roles, performing in entertainment settings, supporting industrial manufacturing, sorting items in logistics operations, patrolling for security, collecting data, and serving as platforms for research and education. Each environment stresses the systems in different ways, from handling background noise to navigating cluttered layouts and unpredictable human behavior. The lessons from those deployments fed directly into the behavior visitors saw at CES 2026, where the robots had to cope with constant traffic and curious crowds without losing composure.

Looking back at the show, Agibot’s U.S. debut feels less like a distant promise of what humanoid robots might one day become and more like a grounded snapshot of where they already are. Multiple robots moved in coordinated demonstrations, interacted with people, and handled small but meaningful tasks in full view of a demanding crowd. In that context, the A2 recognizing a passerby in blue and another visitor behind a camera is not a show trick. It is a quiet, convincing example of a company that has decided to measure progress by what its robots can do on an ordinary day, in a very public place, with no second take.

The post When a Robot Compliments Your Blue Sweater: Inside AGIBOT’s Surprisingly Natural Humanoids first appeared on Yanko Design.

Honor Magic8 Pro Review: Brilliant Night Shots, Big Battery, Built to Last

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PROS:


  • Versatile camera system with great low-light performance

  • Comfortable ergonomics

  • Comprehensive AI features

CONS:


  • Some users will prefer a completely flat screen instead of the gentle curve.

  • Slower shutter speeds, especially in low light

  • No teleconverter-style telephoto option like some close rivals offer

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

The Honor Magic 8 Pro feels like a carefully considered flagship, not a spec stunt. It mixes bold battery life, a genuinely comfortable design, and a playful yet reliable camera system with impressive low light performance, then adds long-term software support to tie it all together.

You might already have seen the Honor Magic 8 Pro, and you might already know all the specs. You might have caught its debut in China or noticed it arriving in parts of Asia and the Middle East last year. Now, Honor is finally bringing this big battery, big camera flagship to Europe, where it steps onto a larger global stage.

On paper, the Honor Magic 8 Pro is all about a trio of promises. It leans on a suite of AI features that aim to make the phone feel smarter and more helpful in the background. It builds around a camera system that claims strong low-light performance and long-range telephoto power. It wraps everything in a premium OLED display that is bright, sharp, and clearly meant to impress the moment you turn it on.

Aesthetics

At first glance, the Honor Magic 8 Pro looks like a confident evolution of modern flagship trends rather than a radical break. It will look very familiar if you have seen the Honor Magic 7 Pro, with a similar silhouette and camera layout that signal continuity rather than reinvention. The proportions, curves, and overall stance feel like a refined second draft rather than a fresh sketch, which can be reassuring if you liked the previous generation.

Honor uses a large camera island that feels more like a sculpted element than a simple bump, and the overall back design reads as deliberate and composed rather than purely functional. The round camera unit sits on a raised, rounded square plate with ring chamfers, which adds depth and a sense of jewelry-like layering when light hits the edges. The black camera unit houses four circles, three of which are actual cameras, plus a small oval-shaped LED flash that tucks neatly into the composition instead of looking like an afterthought.

Color choices for the Magic 8 Pro include Sunrise Gold, Sky Cyan, and Black. The black unit I received features a matte, frosted glass-like finish that feels understated and professional in the hand. The other two color options also use a matte finish, but they add a subtle wave-like pattern, which gives the phone a more playful, tactile character. All three color variants use a color-matching camera island base and side frame, which helps the phone read as a single, continuous object rather than a sandwich of mismatched parts.

Ergonomics

The Honor Magic 8 Pro measures 161.15 mm x 75 mm x 8.4 mm, and weighs 213 g, which puts it on the lighter side of premium flagship smartphones in this size class. The slightly narrower width and relatively low weight make one-handed use more manageable than you might expect from a phone with such a large display and battery. Honor also sticks with a curved screen while many premium flagships have moved back to flat panels, yet the curve here is very slight, so it feels like it borrows the best parts of both approaches without the usual drawbacks.

The curvature of the side frame and back is carefully tuned, which matters a lot for comfort over a full day. The edges of the otherwise flat side frame curve just enough to soften the contact points without creating a slippery, knife-like profile that digs into your palm. The back panel has a gentle bow that nestles into your hand and helps the phone feel slimmer than the numbers suggest, even when you use it without a case.

Button placement is conventional, with the volume rocker and power button located on the left side where your fingers naturally rest. These are joined by a new AI button placed just below, which works a bit like the camera button on an iPhone and gives you quick access to Honor’s smart features. The AI key is slightly raised and has a distinct click that helps avoid accidental presses, and the ultrasonic fingerprint scanner sits high enough on the display that unlocking and general use feel smooth and natural.

Performance

Honor gives the Magic 8 Pro a 6.71-inch LTPO OLED panel with a 1.5K resolution of 2808 x 1256 px and a 120 Hz refresh rate. The company claims 6,000 nits of HDR peak brightness and 1,600 nits of global peak brightness, and while you will not see those numbers all the time, outdoor visibility is excellent even under strong sunlight. In everyday use, the screen feels crisp, fluid, and bright enough that you rarely have to think about legibility or glare.

The panel supports 1.07 billion colors and covers 100 percent of the DCI P3 wide color gamut, so photos and video look rich and saturated without instantly blowing out detail. Color profiles and temperature sliders let you nudge the tone toward either punchy or more neutral, depending on your taste. It is an easy display to enjoy, whether you are scrolling social feeds, reading long articles, or watching HDR content in a dark room.

Honor also pushes very hard on eye comfort. The Magic 8 Pro stacks features like 4320 hertz PWM dimming, Circular Polarized Display 2, Chip Level AI Defocus Display, Dynamic Dimming, Circadian Night Display, Natural Tone Display, and Motion Sickness Relief. These are meant to reduce eye fatigue, support healthier sleep patterns, and adjust color temperature more intelligently over the course of the day.

Audio gets similar attention. The Magic 8 Pro features dual speakers with a large 8 cubic centimeter sound chamber and Honor’s own spatial audio algorithms, which together offer a richer and deeper sound than you might expect from a slim phone. Volume is strong enough for video watching and gaming, and there is a satisfying sense of width and body to music and dialogue.

Portrait Mode

The Honor Magic 8 Pro’s camera system is built to impress on paper and feels very capable in real use, especially once the light starts to drop. At the hardware level, you get a triple rear setup built around a 50 MP main camera with an f/1.6 aperture, a 1/1.3 inch sensor, optical image stabilization, and CIPA 5.5 rated shake compensation. This is joined by a 50 MP ultra wide with an f/2.0 aperture and a 122 degree field of view, plus a headline-grabbing 200 MP telephoto with an f/1.6 aperture, a 1/1.3 inch sensor, optical image stabilization, and CIPA 5.5. Turn it around, and you find a 50 MP front-facing camera for selfies and video calls. Beyond the hardware, Honor has pushed its AiMage system with upgraded image engines that aim to improve detail, color, and low-light performance across all lenses.

The main camera and the telephoto handle most everyday scenes well, with good dynamic range, pleasing color accuracy, and a natural look that avoids heavy over-sharpening. Skin tones in particular look natural, which helps portraits feel more believable and less filtered, even when taken with the phone. Focus is quick and decisive in most situations, so you can frame and shoot without feeling like you are waiting on the phone.

Ultra-wide

In low light, the processing leans toward brightening the entire scene, often making it look noticeably more illuminated than what you actually see with your own eyes, while highlights stay well controlled, so streetlights and signs do not immediately blow out. The trade-off is that shutter speeds tend to be on the slow side, whether you use Night mode or stick with the standard Photo mode, yet stabilization works very well, so handheld shots still come out sharp more often than you might expect from the exposure times involved.

Honor also layers on a few creative tools that make the camera feel more playful. Magic Color gives you professional-like color tuning in a single tap, letting you mimic golden hour warmth or blue hour coolness even when you are not shooting at those exact times of day. Moving Photo now includes Motion Trail, Motion Clone, and Slow Motion effects, which let you capture a bit of motion around your subject and then stylize it without leaving the gallery, so everyday scenes can turn into something closer to a mini motion poster.

Video recording is similarly flexible, though not perfect, with the main camera able to shoot up to 4K at 120 frames per second, while the rest of the rear cameras and the front-facing camera are capped at 4K at 60 frames per second. Stabilization and exposure are solid, but colors can look a bit washed out compared to still photos, and while there is a Log recording option for more serious creators, it is limited to the main camera and only up to a 2x zoom range.

Magic Color – Warm Sunset

Motion Clone

Motion Trail

Inside the Magic 8 Pro, Qualcomm’s latest top-tier processor, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, paired with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, handles everything you throw at it. It is built for high performance in both traditional workloads and AI-heavy tasks. Day-to-day navigation feels snappy, with apps opening quickly and multitasking between social networks, messaging, and media happening without visible stutter. Even with many background apps, the phone maintains a fluid feel that matches its premium positioning.

Honor gives the Magic 8 Pro a dedicated AI button and plenty of AI features, including tools for image editing and productivity. A long press on the AI button analyzes whatever is on screen and suggests context-aware actions such as Circle to Search, AI Photo Agent, AI Summary, and Blur Private Info. It does not always guess exactly what you want, yet it genuinely reduces the number of steps between seeing something on screen and acting on it, which makes AI feel like a physical part of the phone rather than just another icon in the app drawer.

If you do not fancy AI, you can still customize its behaviour, so a single press, double press, or press and hold can trigger different actions. That flexibility turns the AI button into a handy shortcut for whatever you use most, whether that is voice control, the camera, or a specific app you open dozens of times a day. Over time, it starts to feel less like a novelty and more like a small, well-placed tool that quietly adapts to your habits rather than forcing you into a specific way of using the phone.

The Magic 8 Pro packs a 6,270 mAh silicon carbon battery, which is still huge by flagship standards even if it is not quite as oversized as some of the more extreme phones on the market. In everyday use, that capacity translates into very comfortable endurance, with enough headroom to get through a heavy day and, for lighter users, even stretch into a second. Charging is handled by HONOR SuperCharge at up to 100 W wired and up to 80 W wireless, so topping up never feels like a chore, whether you plug in or drop it on a stand.

Sustainability

Honor approaches sustainability on the Magic 8 Pro through durability and longevity rather than bold recycled material claims. The phone carries IP68, IP69, and IP69K ratings, so it is protected against dust, immersion, and even high-pressure water jets, which makes it easier to treat as a true everyday object instead of something fragile. On the front, the HONOR NanoCrystal Shield promises up to ten times better drop resistance than conventional glass and is backed by an SGS 5 Star Drop Resistance Certification, which should help it survive the usual pocket and desk-level accidents with fewer scars.

Software support is the other major part of the story. Honor promises seven years of OS updates for the Magic 8 Pro, which puts it among the longest supported Android phones and encourages you to keep it far beyond a typical two or three-year cycle. Combined with the robust build and strong water resistance, that long support window turns the Magic 8 Pro into more of a long-term device and less of a short-lived gadget, which is a practical, user-friendly angle on sustainability.

Value

In the UK, the Honor Magic 8 Pro is priced at £1,099.99, around $1,350, for the model with 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. That puts the phone firmly in the ultra-premium flagship space, yet the pricing is aggressive in a quiet way when you line it up against the obvious rivals. An iPhone 17 Pro Max with 512 GB of storage sits noticeably higher on the price ladder, and a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra with 512 GB tends to land in a similar or slightly higher bracket once you match storage. Honor counters with a bigger battery, a well-balanced, great-performing camera system, and very fast wired and wireless charging, which helps the package feel competitive even without the same brand pull.

If you look at closer competition, the Magic 8 Pro sits more naturally alongside phones like the Vivo X300 Pro and Oppo Find X9 Pro. All three offer well-rounded flagships with industry-leading camera performance and a strong focus on telephoto. Both the Vivo X300 Pro and Oppo Find X9 Pro add teleconverter-style lenses for extra flexibility, while Honor leans on well-integrated AI features, a display with one of the most complete eye comfort feature sets on the market, and long software support to make its case.

Verdict

The Honor Magic 8 Pro feels like a very confident statement from Honor. It is not chasing a single headline spec at the expense of everything else. Instead, it combines a sleek design, a genuinely comfortable in hand feel, a bright and eye-friendly display, and a camera system that is both capable and fun, then backs it all with a huge battery and long-term software support.

It is not perfect. Video colors could be richer in some scenarios, the shutter can feel slow, and the price is firmly in ultra-premium territory. Yet when you look at the full package, especially the 6,270 mAh battery, the long OS support, the AI implementation, and the well-tuned cameras, the Magic 8 Pro stands out as one of the more thoughtful big flagships of this cycle. If you want a phone that looks and feels high-end, lasts all day and then some, and leans into AI without feeling gimmicky, this is a very easy device to recommend.

The post Honor Magic8 Pro Review: Brilliant Night Shots, Big Battery, Built to Last first appeared on Yanko Design.

I checked out Motorola razr fold at CES 2026, and I’m excited for its launch

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Motorola’s razr has generated quite a bit of attention and gained loyal fans in the niche flip segment. Now, Motorola is expanding the iconic razr family with a bold new chapter in foldable design, introducing the Motorola razr fold as its first book-style foldable. A lot is still under the cover, but here is what we learned from the preview at CES 2026, and even in this early look, the device already feels like a significant step for the razr line.

From the outside, the Motorola razr fold presents a slim, striking silhouette anchored by a 6.6-inch external display. This outer screen gives you a familiar candy-bar style experience for everyday tasks and quick interactions, so it behaves much like a standard flagship when closed. It helps the phone feel practical and complete on its own, rather than a secondary screen you only tolerate between unfolds.

Designer: Motorola

Open the device, and it transforms into an 8.1-inch 2K LTPO inner display. This larger panel stretches into a tablet-like space that invites multitasking, media, and creativity in a way a normal phone simply cannot match. Both the outer and inner displays support the moto pen ultra stylus, adding precision for note-taking, sketching, and editing when you want a more deliberate, pen-driven experience.

In hand, the hinge feels sturdy yet pleasantly smooth to open and close. It gives a reassuring sense of durability without feeling overly stiff or crunchy during use. The design is not completely gapless when folded, but it comes close enough that the profile still looks clean and modern.

The crease on the inner display is also handled well and is not very noticeable. It tends to fade from view once the content is on screen. This helps the large display feel more like a single continuous canvas rather than a technical compromise.

For the camera, the Motorola razr fold is built around a versatile triple 50MP system on its rear. The main 50MP camera features a Sony LYTIA sensor, although the exact model is not revealed, suggesting Motorola is still keeping some details in reserve. Alongside it, a 50MP ultra-wide camera and a 50MP 3x periscope telephoto camera round out the array for sweeping scenes, tight interiors, and distant subjects.

For selfies, the Motorola Razr fold features a 32MP camera in the external display and a 20MP camera on the internal display. The outer selfie camera works with the large cover screen, making it easy to frame high-quality shots while the phone is closed and still feel fully in control. The inner camera is positioned for video calls and content capture when you are using the big internal display, keeping the experience consistent in both folded and unfolded modes.

Motorola offers two colors, PANTONE Blackend Blue and PANTONE Lily White. These finishes give the phone distinct personalities, from deeper and moodier to lighter and more minimal, so the hardware can better match different style preferences. It also has a textured matte back, which is pleasant to touch and helps the device feel secure in the hand, adding a subtle sense of grip and refinement. Although the exact launch timing of the Motorola razr fold remains unknown, it has already been gaining a lot of attention and looks poised to push the razr name firmly into the book-style foldable space.

The post I checked out Motorola razr fold at CES 2026, and I’m excited for its launch first appeared on Yanko Design.

Realme 16 Pro+ Review: Naoto FUkusawa Helped Make a Battery Beast Beautiful

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PROS:


  • Sleek design by Naoto Fukusawa

  • Strong portrait camera performance for the price range

  • Huge 7,000mAh battery with 80W wired charging

CONS:


  • Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 is carried over from the previous generation

  • No wireless charging

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

By combining Naoto Fukasawa’s Urban Wild design with a 7000 mAh battery and a sharp 200 MP portrait camera, realme 16 Pro+ proves that refinement and stamina can matter more than chasing raw benchmark numbers.

The realme 16 Pro+ seems to be a modest upgrade in the company’s Number Series. While it is not packed with major improvements in every area, it tries to win you over as a well-rounded package built around design, battery life, and cameras. On paper, it still reads like a wish list: a 200 megapixel main camera with 3.5x telephoto, a 6.8 inch 144 Hz AMOLED display, a 7000 mAh battery with 80 W charging, IP68 and IP69 protection, and a Naoto Fukasawa-designed back made from bio-based silicone.  

It also arrives with a few important caveats. The Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chipset is carried over from the realme 15 Pro rather than being a big step up, and the rumoured pricing pushes the 16 Pro+ toward affordable flagship territory rather than a classic, value mid-ranger. That raises a clear question. Does the mix of master level design, big battery stamina, and creator-focused camera hardware do enough to justify the price, or are you better off with a more conventional spec monster? We took a closer look.

Designer: Naoto Fukasawa x realme

Aesthetics

For the realme 16 Pro+, realme partnered again with world-renowned product designer Naoto Fukasawa. The brand has previously collaborated with Fukasawa on the realme X Master Edition, X2 Master Edition, GT Master Edition, and GT2 Pro Master Edition, and this new phone continues that lineage. The design fuses natural elements with contemporary style in what realme calls the Urban Wild Design, aiming to bring a calmer, more tactile character to a very modern device.

The Urban Wild Design is articulated through a deliberate contrast of the mirror-polished camera deco set against a natural texture back panel. The back is built around what realme calls a Metal Mirror Camera Deco, a mirror finish metal plate that frames the lenses like a piece of jewellery on top of a matte, softly grained surface. The back panel uses a bio-based organic silicone derived from plant-based straw, processed with an eco-friendly method that the brand positions as an industry-first eco material. The result is a surface that feels soft, finely textured, and grippy, with a visual warmth and calmness you do not usually get from glass or glossy plastic.  

The 16 Pro+ comes in two colors in most markets. Master Gold is described as the soft golden glow of ripened wheat, with a gentle shimmer that catches the light without looking flashy. Master Black is inspired by the smooth, muted sheen of river pebbles, giving a more understated and refined look. Each variant features a color-matched mirror-polished camera bump and side frame, so the camera island, mid frame, and back panel read as one coherent piece rather than separate parts.

Ergonomics

On paper, the realme 16 Pro+ is not a small phone, yet it feels more considered than the raw numbers suggest. The phone is 8.49 mm thick and weighs 203 g, which puts it firmly in the large phone camp without feeling unwieldy. The square camera bump does not protrude too much, and its sloped edges merge into the back panel to create a smooth transition. The back panel resists fingerprints and smudges quite well, though the glossy camera bump is a different story and picks up marks easily.  

Thanks to the balanced weight and the gentle flow from the slightly curved display to the slightly curved side frame to the slightly curved back panel, the phone is very comfortable to hold in the hand. The volume rocker and power button are positioned where they are easy to reach, so basic controls fall naturally under your fingers. The fingerprint scanner, on the other hand, sits close to the bottom edge of the screen, which makes the move from unlocking the phone to actually using it feel a bit less smooth than it could be.

Performance

Since there was no Pro+ version of the realme 15, there is no direct predecessor of the realme 16 Pro+, but many specs are unchanged from the realme 15 Pro, including the chipset. The 16 Pro+ is powered by Snapdragon 7 Gen 4, Qualcomm’s upper mid-range chipset. While it does not deliver brute flagship power, it is more than strong enough for long gaming or browsing sessions without noticeable throttling. In daily use, the chipset has no trouble keeping up with realme UI 7.0, based on Android 16. Swiping through the 144 Hz interface feels fluid, apps open quickly, and multitasking between social media, messaging, and browsing remains consistently smooth.

The realme 16 Pro+ features a 6.8-inch AMOLED display with a 1280 by 2800 resolution and up to 144 Hz refresh rate. According to the spec sheet, it supports a 240 Hz touch sampling rate, 1.07 billion colors, 100 percent DCI P3 coverage, a 5,000,000 to 1 contrast ratio, and a peak brightness of 6500 nits. It is a sharp, bright, and vibrant panel that looks flagship-grade and comfortable in day-to-day use.

Realme brings a 200 megapixel camera to its Number Series for the first time. The triple camera setup consists of a 200 MP main camera, a 50 MP 3.5x telephoto camera, and an 8 MP ultra wide camera, with a 50 MP front-facing camera handling selfies. In the camera app, you can choose between Vibrant and Natural color modes for the rear cameras, depending on whether you prefer punchier social media-ready shots or a more restrained look.

The 23 mm equivalent 200 MP main camera uses Samsung’s HP5 sensor with an f/1.8 aperture lens and both optical and electronic image stabilisation. It can capture very detailed shots with a wide dynamic range in good lighting conditions, and stabilisation helps keep images sharp when light levels drop. In the standard Photo mode, you also get an AI composition feature that analyses your framing and suggests small adjustments for a stronger composition, nudging you to tilt, reframe, or shift your subject for a more balanced shot. This tool is not available in Portrait mode, but it is genuinely helpful for quick point-and-shoot photography.

The 80 mm equivalent 50 MP 3.5x telephoto camera uses Samsung’s JN5 sensor behind an f/2.8 aperture lens, again with OIS and EIS. Portrait mode lets you shoot at 1x, 1.5x, 2x, 3.5x, and 4x, and results across these focal lengths are consistently strong, with pleasing separation and natural-looking depth. realme also packs in a wide range of dedicated Portrait filters, so you can switch between more cinematic, vintage, or punchy looks without leaving the mode.

The 15 mm equivalent 8 MP ultra wide rounds out the rear trio. It does the job for landscapes, interiors, and group shots, but image quality is more functional than exciting, with less detail and dynamic range than the main and telephoto cameras. On the front, there is a 50 MP OmniVision OV50D selfie camera with an f/2.4 aperture lens. This is unusually ambitious for the class. It can capture crisp selfies with plenty of detail.

As for video, the main and front-facing cameras both support 4K recording at up to 60 FPS. The telephoto and ultrawide cameras are limited to 1080p at 30 FPS, which feels a bit disappointing on the telephoto side, especially given how capable it is for stills. It would have been nice to see at least 4K 30 fps from the zoom camera to fully match the rest of the system.

realme 16 Pro+ is built around a huge 7000 mAh battery, and you feel that capacity in day-to-day use. With this much headroom, it comfortably handles a full day of heavy messaging, social media, camera use, and streaming, and lighter users can easily stretch into a second day without reaching for the charger. When you finally do need to charge, the 80 W wired charging support keeps downtime short.

Sustainability

realme 16 Pro+ makes a stronger effort on sustainability than many mid-range phones. The most visible element is the back panel material. Instead of conventional petroleum-based plastic or glass, realme uses a bio-based organic silicone derived from plant-based straw, processed through an eco-friendly method. It is designed to be safer for the skin, gentler on the environment, and more resistant to aging, dirt, and wear, which should help the phone look fresh for longer and reduce the urge to replace it early.

Durability also plays into sustainability. The phone carries both IP68 and IP69 ratings, meaning it is tested for dust tightness, immersion in water, and high-pressure water jets. In practical terms, that level of protection makes the 16 Pro+ far more likely to survive everyday accidents, from rain and spills to brief drops into water. A device that shrugs off this kind of abuse is less likely to be written off early, which again extends its usable life.

On the software side, realme commits to three years of Android OS updates and four years of Android security patches. That is not at the very top of the industry, but it is long enough that you can realistically keep the phone for a full contract cycle and beyond without falling behind on major features or basic security. Combined with the durable hardware and more sustainable back panel material, it makes the 16 Pro+ feel like a phone designed to be used hard and kept in service rather than quickly replaced.

Value

At the time of writing, realme has not confirmed official pricing, but multiple leaks suggest the realme 16 Pro+ will start at INR 39,999 (around $445) for the 8 GB and 128 GB variant. The 8 GB and 256 GB model is rumoured to land at INR 41,999 (around $470), while the 12 GB and 256 GB version could reach INR 44,999 (around $500).

If these figures hold, the 16 Pro+ will sit at the upper end of the mid-range bracket, nudging into affordable flagship territory. In that context, the phone’s value depends on what you care about most. For users who prioritise a premium design, camera versatility, a truly huge 7000 mAh battery, a bright 144 Hz AMOLED display, and sustainability, the package looks competitive.

Verdict

realme 16 Pro+ is not a revolution for the Number Series, but it is a carefully tuned evolution that leans into design, cameras, and battery life instead of chasing raw specs in every direction. The Naoto Fukasawa Urban Wild Design, bio-based silicone back, and Metal Mirror Camera Deco give it a distinctive look and feel, while the solid ergonomics and IP68 plus IP69 ratings make it more robust than many mid-range rivals. Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 is familiar rather than exciting, yet in practice, it keeps realme UI 7.0 and the 144 Hz AMOLED display running smoothly, and the 7000 mAh battery with 80 W charging turns it into a genuine all-day workhorse.

As for the camera, the realme 16 Pro+ consistently turns out pleasing portraits across its various focal lengths, with good subject separation and flattering rendering. The front-facing camera also performs well. Where things get complicated is value, because the rumoured pricing nudges the 16 Pro+ into premium mid-range territory rather than classic budget-friendly mid-range. If you prioritise a phone that looks and feels special, lasts comfortably through heavy days, and gives you reliable portrait and selfie performance, realme 16 Pro+ makes a strong case for itself even as a modest generational upgrade.

The post Realme 16 Pro+ Review: Naoto FUkusawa Helped Make a Battery Beast Beautiful first appeared on Yanko Design.