However, the price of this phone has surprised us a bit. The starting price of Realme 6 in India is Rs 12,999. The price of the phone is definitely a bit high, but will the phone be successful in impressing us with its features to justify this price? To find out, we have reviewed Realme 6. Is this the best budget smartphone that you should buy without waiting? Let us know.
realme 6 design
Instead of the Sunrise design offered on its low-cost models, Realme has given a new Comet design in this phone. Realme 6 has a gradient finish at the back, in which lines are visible when the light falls on it. All these lines start from the top and gather like a tip at the charging port at the bottom. Overall it gives a premium look to the phone.
The Realme 6 has a 6.5-inch display, which is the same as the Realme 5. Although the new phone does not have a notch. Instead, this time the company has given the fashionable hole-punch design. This hole-punch cutout is on the left corner of the display. The display has thin bezels on the sides, but the chin below is quite thick.
The edges of Realme 6 are rounded, so that it does not prick your palm. The back of the phone is slightly curved which makes it comfortable to hold. This time Realme has opted for a side-mounted fingerprint scanner in the budget phone, which is located on the right side of the device. We liked the placement, as the thumb comfortably reaches the power button/fingerprint sensor when holding the smartphone in the right hand. If you are used to using your phone with your left hand, you may have to register the finger and thumb of your left hand to unlock the smartphone.
Realme has set the volume buttons on the left side and placed them slightly below which makes them easier to press. The SIM tray is just above the volume buttons. We noticed that the phone comes with a thickness of 9.6mm, which feels really thick. The phone has a 4,300 mAh battery. The weight of this phone is 191 grams. USB Type-C port is provided at the bottom of the Realme phone. Along with the Type-C port, there is also a 3.5mm headphone jack and a loudspeaker grill.
Like most of the popular smartphones recently launched in the market, Realme 6 also has a quad camera setup in the back. The module is a bit wide and convex, but there is a metal outline around it, which we hope will protect the module from scratches. The rear panel of the phone is not made of glass, so minor scratches may occur on it. Realme has given a transparent case in the box. You can use this case to protect it from minor scratches.
Realme 6 specifications and software
Realme 6 has a 6.5-inch full-HD+ display, which was not there in the previous model. The main highlight of the display is the 90Hz refresh rate it includes. High-refresh rate enhances your experience. The company has set this refresh rate to Auto, which automatically sets the phone between 60Hz and 90Hz, but if you want to set its refresh rate as per your choice, then you have that option available as well. The display density is 405 ppi and due to the hole-punch, the screen-to-body ratio of Realme 6 is 90.5 percent. Gorilla Glass 3 is provided on the front for display protection, which is admittedly a bit old technology.
Realme 6 has been launched with MediaTek Helio G90T processor. This is a powerful chipset, which we have seen in Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro. This processor has two Cortex-A76 cores with a clock speed of 2.05 GHz and six cores with a clock speed of 2.0 GHz. Realme phone comes in three variants. Its 4 GB RAM + 64 GB storage is priced at Rs 12,999. The price of 6 GB RAM + 128 GB storage variant and 8 GB RAM + 128 GB storage variant is Rs 14,999 and Rs 15,999 respectively. The smartphone comes with UFS 2.1 storage. We have reviewed the 8 GB RAM variant of this phone.
In terms of connectivity, this phone offers Bluetooth 5, dual-band Wi-Fi AC and three navigation systems. It is a dual-SIM device, which includes support for VoLTE along with 4G. It includes all the common sensors.
Talking about software, Realme has given its Realme UI instead of ColorOS custom skin with some changes. The new Realme UI is based on Android 10. Our device was running the February security patch.
The user interface has a somewhat stock Android feel and we found it easy to use. The Settings app is well designed and we didn’t have to struggle to find options. Realme UI also comes with features like Digital Wellbeing, Focus Mode, Dark Mode and Riding Mode. Realme comes with dual-mode audio, which allows you to connect a Bluetooth and wired headset simultaneously for music on the smartphone, but this feature is currently listed under Realme Lab.
We also found some pre-installed apps on the device, like Facebook, Dailyhunt, Gaana, Helo, Opera News, UC Browser, WPS Office and some Google apps. It also comes with some Realme apps already, like Realme Store, Community, Game Center, Game Space and its own apps store, which is called App Market. Stock applications like the browser keep giving constant notifications, which we found annoying and had to disable.
Realme 6 performance and battery life
The specifications of Realme 6 are certainly interesting to read. The 90Hz refresh rate in the phone makes the interface very smooth. We found the display to be a bit reflective in sunlight, but the panel was bright enough that we didn’t have trouble viewing content on the display. We also found its viewing angles to be fine.
There is a side-mounted fingerprint scanner on the Realme 6, which means that the fingerprint sensor is also set on its power button. It is capable of unlocking the phone accurately and quickly and we really liked its performance. We also set up Face Recognition, which unlocks the phone by recognizing the face. This feature also unlocks the phone very quickly. Unlocking the smartphone requires very little effort after enabling the raise-to-wake feature included in the phone.
We were happy with the performance of the Realme 6, as we never had to wait for long for apps to load. Having 8 GB RAM on the device does not allow apps to be killed in the background and you can multitask easily. It also takes very less time to load the app.
MediaTek has introduced the Helio G90 series as gaming processors and we were curious to see how the Realme 6 would perform in terms of gaming. We played PUBG Mobile on the smartphone and it ran at high-settings and high frame rates with graphics set to HD by default. We didn’t notice any lag or frame drops while playing the game at these settings. After about 20 minutes we noticed that the smartphone became a little hot to the touch.
The battery life of Realme 6 is quite good. It managed to last 19 hours, 26 minutes in our HD video loop test. With our usage, the Realme 6 lasted for a day and a half on a single charge. A 30W fast charger comes in the box. Using it, the phone gets charged up to 65 percent in 30 minutes and takes more than an hour to charge completely.
Realme 6 cameras
Realme 6 has a 64-megapixel primary camera in the back. Along with this, this back camera setup has an 8-megapixel wide-angle camera with 119-degree field of view, a 2-megapixel monochrome camera, and a 2-megapixel macro lens. There is a 16-megapixel selfie shooter on the front. The camera software is pretty much like other mid-range smartphones. We had no problems switching between different shooting modes in the camera app. Quick toggles are provided for HDR, filter and chroma boost. AI detects the scene.
The Realme 6 is quick to focus and measures lighting accurately in most scenes. In broad daylight, the phone’s camera took some decent shots and the images showed no lack of detail even when zoomed. In bright scenes, the Realme 6’s HDR mode gets enabled automatically. Photos come at 16 megapixels by default, but if you want, you can turn on the 64-megapixel mode and take pictures.
There is also a wide-angle camera on Realme 6. However, compared to the primary camera, this camera is not as good in dynamic range. Photos can capture a much larger area, but the photos taken with it lack detail and quality. Apart from this, the edges of the picture also appear slightly distorted.
For close-ups, the Realme 6 also has a depth sensor, which blurs the background well. The camera sets focus quickly, due to which the pictures come out good. Portrait mode also gives you the option to set the level of blur before taking the shot. The camera detects the edge of the subject accurately.
The macro camera lacks autofocus but you can easily take pictures even by getting very close to the subject. It managed to capture good shots while shooting indoors.
Camera quality reduces slightly in low light. You will get some good looking photos even in low light, but when zoomed in the photos lack detail. Night mode works much better in low light and stitches together multiple frames to give a great output. Details are also visible in abundance in pictures taken with night mode.
Selfies shot with the Realme 6 also had good detail. However, beautification comes enabled by default. You may need to reduce or turn off beautification for natural-looking output. These pictures were good enough to be shared on social media.
Recording can be done at 4K resolution from the primary camera and recording at 1080 pixels from the selfie camera. Apart from this, with the primary camera, users can do 1080p recording with 60 frames per second. Videos come out stable at 1080p resolution, but not at 4K. We also noticed a slight flickering effect in videos shot in low light.
Verdict
Realme has once again delivered a great smartphone at a reasonable price. The Realme 6 comes with a powerful processor, delivers good battery life, and also comes with a 30W fast charger in the box. The company has also improved Realme UI, but we want the company to reduce bloatware (unwanted apps) in the future. If you are looking for a value for money device priced at or around Rs 15,000 then you can go for Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 9 series You can wait for some time for its launch. However, we believe that you will also be satisfied with Realme 6.