Realme 9 5G price in India
Realme 9 5G Its price in India is Rs 14,999 in which 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage variant of this smartphone comes. At the same time, the price of its 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage variant is Rs 17,499. The smartphone is available in two colors, in which the option of Stargaze White and Meteor Black is available. I had the Stargaze White variant.
Realme 9 5G design
The Realme 9 5G has a familiar design and looks reminiscent of all the company’s smartphones I have used before. A camera hole is provided in the left corner of the large display of the phone. The borders on the top and sides are quite thin but the chin is quite thick. It does not burn much and is compatible with smartphones in this price range. Realme has used plastic for the frame and back panel, due to which the company has managed to limit its weight to 188 grams, which seems quite light.
There is a power button on the right side of the phone on which a fingerprint scanner is provided. The volume buttons are given on the other side. All buttons are easy to reach when used with one hand. The phone is quite thin and its thickness is only 8.55mm.
A 3.5mm headphone jack, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and loudspeaker are provided at the bottom of the phone. Whereas the top side is completely empty. The back side of the phone is completely flat and the edges are curved, which makes the phone very comfortable to hold. At the rear, three cameras are provided in a rectangular module which feels slightly protruding. Because of this the phone does not remain stable on a flat surface, which I did not like.
Patterns have been given on the back panel with stargaze white finish, which appears to change color when seen in light. Fingerprints appear on the panel but are not easily visible. A clear case for the phone is also available inside the box.
Realme 9 5G specifications and software
Realme 9 5G has a 6.5-inch LCD display with Full HD+ resolution. It has a 90Hz refresh rate. The weight of the phone’s performance rests on the MediaTek Dimensity 810 5G octa-core processor. The device has a 5000mAh battery, which supports 18W fast charging. The charger comes with it in the box. The SIM tray has space for two nano SIMs and a microSD card. This phone has Bluetooth 5.1, dual band Wi-Fi and 6 satellite navigation system.
Talking about the operating system, it runs on Realme UI 2.0 based on Android 11. The March 2022 Android security patch was installed on my unit. The user interface is quite simple, especially if you are using a Realme phone for the first time. You can toggle between the three-button layout or swipe gestures for navigation. It also has a Smart Sidebar feature, which gives quick access to your favorite apps and actions.
In Realme UI 2.0, you get many types of personalization options, in which you can change the icon style, color scheme, font and icon layout. The Realme Lab section inside the Settings app also gives you experimental features to try out. One such feature is that of Sleep Capsule which does not let you use apps after a certain time, so that you can sleep without any disturbance.
I found a large amount of pre-installed bloatware on the device. During the review, I kept getting spam notifications from some apps like FinShell Pay and Theme Store, but you can also remove third party apps.
Realme 9 5G performance and battery life
The performance of Realme 9 5G was quite good in general use. The refresh rate switches between 60 and 90 Hz, depending on what you’re doing on the phone. You can also lock it at 90Hz to make scrolling smoother.
The experience of watching videos on the phone was good but the sound of the single speaker was not very loud. In this case, Redmi Note 11 gives it a tough competition, which has dual speakers with AMOLED display. Its side mounted fingerprint scanner is quite fast and it did not take more than one attempt to unlock the phone. The face recognition feature of the phone is also quite fast.
My review unit had 6GB of RAM, plus 5GB of the storage can be converted to virtual RAM. Multitasking is smooth in the phone. I was able to quickly switch from one app to another without having to reload any app in the background. The app loading time of the phone is also less.
Talking about benchmark scores, the phone achieved a score of 372,099 points on AnTuTu. Its score was 609 in the single core test of Geekbench 5 and 1,830 in the multicore test. The phone achieved a score of 3,475 in the 3DMark Sling Shot test.
Common games were running smoothly on the phone. Even the Call Of Duty: Mobile game ran at medium graphics and medium frame rate settings by default. When I played the game on the phone for 15 minutes, the battery went down by 4 percent. There was almost no heat in the phone.
Realme 9 5G offers good battery life and you can comfortably use it for about one and a half days on a full charge. The phone lasted 16 hours 38 minutes in our HD video loop test, which is a good time. The 18W charger supplied with the phone charges it 27 percent in 30 minutes and 52 percent in an hour. It takes a little more than 2 hours to fully charge the phone.
Realme 9 5G cameras
Realme 9 5G has a 48MP primary camera, whose aperture is f/1.8. It captures 12 megapixel photos by default. Ultrawide camera is not provided in the phone. Its other two sensors are black and white portrait and macro. The phone has a 16 megapixel selfie camera. Many features and shooting modes are available in the camera app. Quick toggle button is also provided for HDR and AI mode. A Street Mode is also provided in the phone which gives high-contrast and high saturation effect while taking photos.
The day-light camera performance of the phone is good. It was able to absorb light well and automatically turn on HDR mode when the brightness was too high. The AI mode seemed too aggressive with greens and made trees and other green objects look too artificial. The primary camera of the phone clicks good shots but when viewed in zoom, the details get reduced a bit. The phone should have had an ultra-wide angle camera with which a lot could have been done.
Close-up shots of the phone were good and background blur was also well maintained. Portrait shots were sharp and edge detection was good with no background blur. Macro shots came out average and the resolution was only 2 megapixels.
The phone’s low-light camera performance in regular photo mode was quite average. Photos looked soft and distant objects had a water color-like effect. Not much difference was visible even when using night mode. Even though it brought out details in darker areas, there was a yellow tint to it, as if a filter had been used. The shots were also stabilized so there was a lot of blur visible.
Selfies looked good even in daylight or low light. Using screen brightness in low-light gave good results. Portrait selfies were good, but the phone was using the beautification filter by default.
The phone can record video up to 1080p with the primary camera and selfie camera. By default it does not stabilize the footage. It has an Ultra Steady mode, which crops the frame slightly to stabilize the footage, which makes the video better. Light grains were visible in low-light footage.
Overall, the camera performance of the Realme 9 5G was quite good during the daytime, but the phone seemed to struggle in low-light.
Verdict
Realme has launched so many smartphones in the range below Rs 20,000 that it becomes difficult to differentiate its models and series from each other and not understand which phone to choose. Realme 9 5G has simple design and specifications which I think will not attract much. Hardware features of the phone Realme 8S 5G Meet a lot. It seems that the company has downgraded some specifications of the older models to keep the price of the phone low.
The 6 GB RAM variant of Realme 9 5G comes for Rs 17,499, which comes with similar specifications to the Rs 500 more expensive Realme 8s 5G. Realme 8s 5G has a 64-megapixel camera and 33W fast charging, which makes it more value for money.
The base variant of Realme 9 5G comes for Rs 14,999. I found it to be more value for money than the other units I tested. If you are an ordinary user then you can check out this phone. But I would suggest you Redmi Note 11 Go for it, because it also has AMOLED display, stereo speakers and 33W fast charging support. It does not have 5G connectivity but currently no network provider in India is providing this service. Therefore there is no harm in taking Redmi phone.