Realme 9 5G price in India
Realme 9 5G The price of this smartphone in India is Rs 14,999, in which the 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage variant of this smartphone comes. At the same time, its 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage variant is priced at Rs 17,499. The smartphone is available in two colors, in which the option of Stargaze White and Meteor Black is available. I had its Stargaze White variant.
Realme 9 5G design
Realme 9 5G has a familiar design and looks reminiscent of all the company’s smartphones that I have used before. A camera hole is given in the left corner of the phone’s large display. The borders on the top and sides are quite thin but the chin is quite thick. It does not bother much and is suitable for smartphones of 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 feels quite light.
The phone has a power button on the right side on which a fingerprint scanner is provided. The volume buttons are given on the other side. It becomes easy to reach all the buttons when used with one hand. The phone is quite thin and its thickness is only 8.55mm.
The bottom of the phone has a 3.5mm headphone jack, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and loudspeaker. While 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. There are three cameras in a rectangular module at the rear, which feels slightly protruding. Because of this, the phone is not able to remain stable on a flat surface, which I did not like.
The back panel has a stargaze white finish with patterns that change color when viewed in light. Fingerprints do 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 a resolution of Full HD +. It has a 90Hz refresh rate. The performance of the phone is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 810 5G octa-core processor. The device has a 5000mAh battery, which supports 18W fast charging. The charger comes 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. My unit was given the Android security patch of March 2022. The user interface is quite easy, especially when you are using a Realme phone for the first time. For navigation, you can toggle between a three-button layout or swipe gestures. It also has a Smart Sidebar feature, which gives quick access to your favorite apps and actions.
Realme UI 2.0 gives you a variety of personalization options, in which you can change the icon style, color scheme, font and icon layout. You also get experimental features to try out in the Realme Lab section inside the Settings app. One such feature is Sleep Capsule which allows you to not use apps after a certain time, so that you can sleep without any disturbance.
I did find a fair amount of pre-installed bloatware on the device. I did get spam notifications from a few apps like FinShell Pay and Theme Store during the review, but these third-party apps are free to uninstall.
Realme 9 5G performance and battery life
The performance of Realme 9 5G was quite good in general use. The refresh rate keeps switching between 60 and 90 Hz, depending on what you are doing on the phone. You can also lock it at 90 Hz 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, and 5GB of the storage can be converted into virtual RAM. Multitasking is smooth on the phone. I was able to switch between apps quickly without reloading any app in the background. The app loading time of the phone is also less.
Talking about benchmark scores, the phone scored 372,099 points on AnTuTu. Its score in Geekbench 5 single core test was 609 and in multicore test it was 1,830. In 3DMark Sling Shot test, the phone scored 3,475.
Common games were running smoothly on the phone. Even the Call Of Duty: Mobile game ran by default in medium graphics and medium frame rate settings. When I played the game on the phone for 15 minutes, the battery decreased by 4 percent. There was almost no heat in the phone.
The Realme 9 5G offers good battery life and you can easily use it for about a day and a half on a full charge. In our HD video loop test, the phone lasted 16 hours and 38 minutes, which is a good time. The 18W charger that comes with the phone charges it to 27 percent in 30 minutes and 52 percent in an hour. The phone takes a little over 2 hours to fully charge.
Realme 9 5G cameras
Realme 9 5G has a 48MP primary camera, which has an aperture of f/1.8. It captures 12-megapixel photos by default. The phone does not have an ultrawide camera. 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. A quick toggle button is also provided for HDR and AI mode. The phone also has a Street Mode which gives high-contrast and high saturation effect while taking photos.
The daylight camera performance of the phone is good. It was able to absorb light well and the HDR mode automatically turned on when the brightness was high. The AI mode seemed more aggressive in terms of green and made trees and other green objects look too artificial. The primary camera of the phone clicks good shots but the details get reduced a bit when zoomed in. The phone should have had an ultra-wide angle camera which could have done a lot more.
The phone’s close-up shots were good and background blur was also maintained well. Portrait shots were sharp and edge detection was good along with background blur. Macro shots were average and the resolution was only 2 megapixels.
The phone’s low-light camera performance was quite average in the regular photo mode. Photos looked soft and distant objects had a watercolor-like effect. Using the night mode also didn’t make much difference. Even though it brought out details in the dark, it had a yellow tint, as if a filter had been used. The shots were also stabilized, so there was a lot of blur.
Selfies looked good in daylight or low light. Using screen brightness in low light yielded good results. Portrait selfies were good, but the phone was using beautification filters by default.
The phone can record videos up to 1080p with the primary camera and the selfie camera. By default, it does not stabilize the footage. There is an Ultra Steady mode, which crops the frame a bit to stabilize the footage, making the video better. Mild grains were visible in the low-light footage.
Overall, the camera performance of the Realme 9 5G was quite good during the day, 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 it is difficult to understand which phone to choose. Realme 9 5G has a simple design and specifications which I think will not attract much. Hardware features of the phone Realme 8S 5G The specifications are quite similar to the previous model. It seems that the company has downgraded some of the specifications of the older models to keep the price of the phone low.
The 6GB RAM variant of the Realme 9 5G comes for Rs 17,499, while the Realme 8s 5G comes Rs 500 more expensive with the same specifications. The 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. From the unit test I did, I found it to be more value for money. If you are a normal user then you can look at this phone. But I would suggest you that you Redmi Note 11 Go for Redmi 6, as it also has AMOLED display, stereo speakers and 33W fast charging support. It does not have 5G connectivity but no network provider in India is providing this service right now. So there is no harm in buying a Redmi phone.