Expert Rating
4/5
Realme has gone a long way since its humble beginnings as an OPPO sub-brand. Growing at an exponential rate, it currently offers smartphones ranging from entry-level to near-flagship, threatening the supremacy of Xiaomi and Samsung. According to a Counterpoint analysis, Realme is the fastest-growing 5G brand in the country year on year among the country's five main smartphone OEMs. Much of its popularity may be credited to its characteristic number series, which began as a budget challenger but has now expanded into higher price groups. The Realme 9 Pro series is the company's newest attempt to take the top slot, and it is a gadget that does not adhere to the affordability credo that has been the core of Realme's success.
The Realme 9 Pro+ is the company's most expensive smartphone to date in the number series, with a starting price of Rs 24,999, putting it solidly in the mid-range sector. The gadget also features some impressive specifications, including a premium 50MP Sony IMX766 sensor as the primary camera and MediaTek's Dimensity 920 5G processor. Is the Realme 9 Pro+ powerful enough to compete in the crowded mid-range market? Let us investigate.
If you want a high-quality photography experience on a mid-range smartphone, the Realme 9 Pro+ should be your first pick. When combined with a fantastic display and long-lasting battery life, the smartphone is undoubtedly worth a second look. However, the unappealing exterior and chronic bloatware issue stifle the whole experience.
DISPLAY & DESIGN
The Realme 9 Pro+'s design isn't very eye-catching. It's hefty in the hand, and the edges are curved, making for a less-than-ideal grip. The 9 Pro+ appears plain from the outside, yet it boasts a simple aesthetic with matte-finished rails and a reflective back. The Aurora Green variation I received resembles Indigo Blue and has something resembling glitter strewn throughout it that shimmers in strong light. I believe the Sunrise Blue variant, which employs Realme's Light Shift Design to change colours when exposed to sunlight, has the potential to be a show-stopper. Aside from that, with a thickness of little under 8mm, Realme has made the gadget its thinnest smartphone in the number series.
The 9 Pro+ sports a triple-camera setup, similar to the Realme 9i (review), with the housing lifted significantly from the chassis. For the time being, Realme has kept the headphone jack, which is located on the bottom beside the USB C port and a speaker grille. Thankfully, the earpiece acts as a second speaker, while the power button is on the right and the volume sliders are on the left. It is reasonable to assume that the Realme 9 Pro+ will not earn many style points, but that may not be such a negative thing for individuals who do not want very showy phones.
On the display front, the phone has a 6.4-inch FHD+ AMOLED panel with a refresh rate of 90Hz. It's unfortunate that Realme wasn't able to improve the refresh rate to 120Hz, but the difference between the two is negligible to the untrained eye. The display on the Realme 9 Pro+ offers a good viewing experience, with the panel being beautifully colour calibrated and bright, and with various customization options to meet the demands of different users. Aside from the standard toggles for eye comfort and dark mode, the O1 Ultra Vision Engine expertly transforms SDR video to HDR.
The colour options Vivid, Natural, and Pro Mode are available to increase vibrancy and dynamic range to the visual quality. The brightness levels are excellent, with no issues in bright outside circumstances. To improve OTT content, HDR10+ and WideVine L1 certifications are there, while the bezels surrounding the panel are small, as is the punch-hole on the top-right.
CAMERAS
Realme's crowning achievement is its camera and image-taking abilities. In terms of optics, the firm has promised a flagship experience, even going so far as to compare the images shot by the Realme 9 Pro+ to those taken by Samsung's Galaxy S21 Ultra (review), a handset that costs nearly five times as much. I was sceptical at first, having witnessed the OPPO Reno7 Pro's (review) stupidity during dark images despite employing the identical 50MP IMX766 sensor. However, my testing has showed that the 9 Pro+ is a photo taking powerhouse regardless of lighting circumstances.
The big 1/1.56-inch sensor collects a lot of light, yet the 2m pixel size allows for a lot of detail breathing room. The focus speeds are quite rapid, and there is minimal shutter lag, resulting in excellent photos with no wobble. On the primary sensor, OIS has also been integrated, which counteracts and corrects the majority of unstable hand movement when shooting.
Even with the company's AI Scene Enhancer switched off, I noticed that colours were somewhat more saturated than I prefer. The images, on the other hand, looked amazing and Instagram-worthy, with brilliant colour schemes. HDR kicks in immediately and efficiently metres the dynamic range while reducing shadows in the background. There are numerous photo modes available, including Street mode, which lets you to manually control the focal length and change exposure values, and Dual-View video, which allows you to shoot with both the front and back cameras at the same time. Realme-branded filters are included into the camera app to improve dull-looking photos. The 50MP setting provides additional detail at the price of dynamic range.
The 8MP ultra-wide shooter, on the other hand, is nothing out of the norm. Photos taken from it exhibit a little of oversharpening when correcting for exposure in terms of details and focus. The macro shooter is only marginally functional because to the 2MP sensor, although it does produce crisp colours when the lighting conditions are favourable. The portrait mode can easily place the subject in the foreground, yet the edge detection around things like my hair on my head should be enhanced.
The device's nighttime photography amazed me, albeit there were a couple drawbacks that I didn't enjoy. Colors are oversaturated, giving the photos an unnatural appearance at times. The subject's highlights and shadows are less apparent, making the images more contrasty. However, the exposure calibration and how efficiently the exposure metre integrates light into the picture astonished me. The details are razor-sharp in aided illumination, and the specialised night mode aids in regions where the latter is lacking.
When in night mode, Realme additionally provides a Pro and AI toggle on the bottom left of the viewfinder. The pro mode provides a set of manual parameters for ISO, shutter speed, aperture, and white balance, whereas AI sets these settings automatically. I was also pleasantly pleased by how well the ultra-wide camera performed in low light, which I've seldom seen on even flagship phones.
With a maximum resolution of 4K @30fps, videos recorded on the Realme 9 Pro+ were not bad. The frames were more stable thanks to OIS, and the focus shift was faster than I had anticipated. AI Highlight may also be used in films, however the quality is limited to 1080p and the colours are a little too vibrant for my liking. The front-facing camera is a 16MP Sony IMX471 selfie camera that performs well in excellent daylight with a touch of overprocessing and fairer skin tones. Overall, I'm satisfied with the optics on the Realme 9 Pro+, and I believe this is the start of a productive journey to better smartphone cameras in the mid-range market.
Performance & Software
Moving on to the phone's performance, MediaTek has provided the Dimensity 920 5G SoC for processing demands, and I, for one, believe there may be some improvements in this area. However, my statements should not be misunderstood to imply that the 9 Pro+ is insufficient for meeting the day-to-day demands of the ordinary smartphone user. The gadget has a very good Antutu score of 505,838 and a multi-core score of 2,326 on Geekbench 5, indicating adequate performance. Nonetheless, given Realme's track record of providing value-for-money hardware, I expected at least a Dimensity 1200 to adorn the 9 Pro+ at this price range.
The obvious advantage is clear when playing intense games and attempting to edit and export movies for social media material. On BGMI, extreme frame rate (60fps) is supported, although it can only be combined with the lowest graphical settings and is hampered by persistent frame dips after lengthy use. However, there was no overheating to report, and the CPU retained a significant portion of its maximal processing capability even when subjected to prolonged stress.
The Realme 9 Pro+'s two speakers support Dolby Atmos for a clean, powerful, and rich sound. The bottom headphone jack supports Hi-Res audio for users with suitable wired earphones/headphones. Realme has used an optical fingerprint scanner for authentication, which works well for the most part, but face recognition might use some fine-tuning. One of the more helpful features that pleasantly surprised me was an integrated heart rate sensor with the optical scanner, the findings of which were fairly precise when compared to my smartwatch.
The phone also supports 5G, but with no telecom infrastructure to support it, the capability is currently ineffective. However, the usual 4G LTE speeds for connectivity and calls, as well as the earpiece and microphone quality, are adequate. The device's haptics are excellent, and the strength can be adjusted in the settings menu.
In terms of software, the gadget runs RealmeUI 3.0 on Android 12. Realme has used a more spaced-out design style for its UI, with colourful icons. There are new Always-on-Display customizations and floating window accessibility. There is also a Simple Mode for those who are less technologically savvy, which brings all useful apps to the forefront and disables access to extraneous programmes. Realme Lab has been updated to incorporate the previously stated Heart Rate sensor settings, as well as Dual-Mode audio, which allows you to listen to the same music using both wired and wireless headphones at the same time. I enjoy the RealmeUI's smart features, however I wish the business would remove all signs of bloatware.
BATTERY
Even with the standard-issue 4,500mAh cell packed within, the Realme 9 Pro+ has an exceptional battery life. In fact, the phone is so long-lasting that I've only had to charge it four times in the week I've owned it. The gadget received a score of 16 hours and 33 minutes on PCMark's Battery 3.0 test, which is good, especially for a 4,500mAh battery. Topping it all off, both literally and metaphorically, is the 60W charging, which takes less than 30 minutes to fully charge the battery.
FINAL VERDICT
There is no doubt that the Realme 9 Pro+ is a fantastic phone to use. Everything, from the display to the fantastic cameras to the excellent battery life, has been fine-tuned to the user's specifications. However, nothing is perfect, and the 9 Pro+ may benefit from a more appealing design and possibly a quicker CPU to genuinely be classified as the greatest mid-ranger on the market. But I'll stick by my word: the Realme 9 Pro+ boasts the greatest cameras in the sector, and if that's something you're looking for, the phone should be a good buy.
Pros
- Outstanding display
- Outstanding cameras
- Long battery life
Cons
- Design flaws
- Bloatware
