Realme 9 Pro+ Review: Best value for money!
Realme 9 Pro Plus has been launched to compete with mid-range smartphones like Xiaomi’s Xiaomi 11 series and OnePlus Nord series. Now, the questions become Realme 9 Pro+ What’s new in? is this Realme 9 Pro Is it a premium smartphone? So without any delay, let us know the answers to these questions in this review.
Realme 9 Pro+ price in India
Realme 9 Pro+ comes in three variants. Its base variant has 6GB RAM and 128GB storage, which is priced at Rs 24,999. The second variant comes with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage, which is priced at Rs 26,999. While the top variant comes with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, and is priced at Rs 28,999. I have reviewed its top variant.
Talking about its price, the new smartphone is based on Realme’s Realme GT Master Edition It competes with the 9 Pro+ as the price of GT Master Edition starts at Rs 25,999, which is only Rs 1000 more than the base variant of the 9 Pro+. The GT Master Edition has some specifications that are better than the 9 Pro+, such as its 120Hz refresh rate. But, the 9 Pro Plus has a better primary camera and optical image stabilization (OIS), which is not available in the Master Edition. Having more options is a good thing, but it does not reduce the confusion among customers regarding the lineup. Your choice will ultimately depend on what you need… a good camera or a display?
Realme 9 Pro+ design
Realme 9 Pro Plus also seems to be in step with the trend of color changing smartphones. The company has launched the phone in three finishes, which include Midnight Black, Aurora Green and Sunrise Blue. Of these, only the Sunrise Blue finish changes color in sunlight, as Vivo V23 Pro Is seen in. Its bright sky blue finish indoors turns maroon in sunlight. However, I don’t find it as attractive as the V23 Pro’s change from golden to green color. Overall, the look of the phone does not look very premium, because its rear glass panel catches fingerprints very quickly.
Keeping the color changing panel aside, the design of the phone looks similar to other Realme smartphones. Its frame is made of polycarbonate, which has flat sides and is pressed between two layers of glass. The phone is quite slim and its thickness is only 7.99mm. Being only 184 grams in weight, it is quite comfortable to use with one hand.
The display of the phone is flat and a selfie camera is provided in the hole punch. It has an in-display fingerprint reader and the company also offers a heart rate monitoring feature, but it has also been said that this is only an experimental feature. To use it, you have to enable it by going to the Realme Lab section in the Settings app. I did not like the thick chin below the display in its design.
Realme 9 Pro+ specifications and software
Realme has given MediaTek Dimensity 920 processor in this phone, which was also recently seen in Xiaomi 11i series. This processor runs at a maximum clock speed of 2.5GHz and is made through a 6 nanometer fabrication process. The phone supports multiple 5G bands and comes with dual 5G standby. It has Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 and normal satellite navigation system. The phone has a 4,500mAh battery, which gets charged quickly with the 60W quick charger that comes with the box. Realme 9 Pro and 9 Pro+ are among the first smartphones to run Realme UI 3.0 based on Android 12. Many unwanted apps come pre-installed with the phone, which can be removed, but there are some native apps of Realme, which cannot be removed.
Unlike Vivo’s Funtouch OS, Realme UI 3.0 is not heavily customized and gives a stock Android-like experience. This makes it seem to blend in with Android 12’s new Material You design. Realme has fewer UI widgets than Vivo or Samsung, so Android 12’s widgets don’t look out of place on the home screen.
The design and fonts of Realme UI 3.0 look the same, until you go to the Privacy Dashboard in Settings. Here you get the stock Material You UI, which looks completely different. According to Realme, some sections of Android 12 (Privacy Dashboard, Permissions Manager, Digital Wellbeing) are required to have a stock look, even if a skin is present on the operating system. I did notice some minor theme-related issues, such as graying-out of text when expanding notifications in the pull-down tray when using dark mode.
The phone has a dynamic theming system, similar to Android 12 on a Pixel device. This feature picks up colors from the selected wallpaper and applies them to certain elements of the interface like notification tray toggles, settings menu icons, etc. Here you can also choose the color from the wallpaper yourself. I found that Android 12 widgets for Google Apps and Google Keyboard don’t change color with the rest of the UI, as they do on Pixel devices. In short, a little more work is still needed in this area.
Realme 9 Pro+ performance
Realme 9 Pro Plus has a 6.4-inch AMOLED display, with the protection of Corning Gorilla Glass 5. Colors look too saturated in the default Vivid color setting. So I set it to Natural mode. The display can be easily read even in sunlight. I didn’t get the Netflix app because I had a pre-production unit. But I tried video streaming on Amazon Prime, which was a great experience. The phone seemed to miss a bit in showing true colors in HDR mode and the colors appeared a bit faded. Realme has said that this problem will soon be fixed through an update. Standard definition content was fine, with blacks being quite deep. With the help of stereo speakers, the experience of watching videos became better, as the sound was quite loud and clear.
The refresh rate of the display can only be switched between 60Hz and 90Hz. Even after setting it to 90Hz, it still goes to 60Hz while playing games and goes back to 90Hz once you come back to the phone interface. Even when opening the YouTube app, it was locked at 60Hz, while the video displayed on the screen was playing at 30fps. This means that it reaches 90Hz only on the phone interface.
Talking about benchmark scores, the phone did not disappoint and performed at par with its rivals. The smartphone’s score on AnTuTu was 5,07,258 points. At the same time, the phone managed to score 818 in single-core test and 2,316 in multi-core test on Geekbench. Realme UI 3.0 ran very smooth even after unwanted apps and with a refresh rate of 90Hz, the experience on the user interface was enjoyable.
The gaming performance of the phone was also quite good. Call of Duty: Mobile ran smoothly on the phone with ‘Medium’ graphics and ‘Very High’ frame rate by default. There was no reduction in performance even after increasing the graphics settings. Asphalt 9: Legends was crashing repeatedly for some reason. So I tried Real Racing 3 instead, which ran much smoother.
To check the battery life, I put the Realme 9 Pro+ through a video loop test, and it lasted 23 hours 36 minutes, which is quite good. I was able to use it for a day and a half with normal usage including light gaming and camera usage. This battery backup is considered good for a mid-range device. Charging was quite fast. With the help of 60W charger, the phone was charged from zero to 80 percent in just 30 minutes and was fully charged in 50 minutes.
Realme 9 Pro+ cameras
Talking about the camera department of the phone, it comes with a 50-megapixel primary camera with which optical image stabilization is also available. It is not a common lens, but has a Sony IMX766 lens which only Oppo Reno 7 Pro And OnePlus 9RT Available in smartphones. Additionally, the rear module also houses an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle lens and a 2-megapixel macro lens. The phone has a 16-megapixel camera sensor for selfie.
The camera app is similar to other Realme phones but some minor changes can be seen. This time the timer for photos and frame rate selector for videos have been placed in the three dot menu. Like all smartphones running Android 12, a green dot appears near the status icon, which indicates whether the camera is on in the background or foreground. This is a privacy protection feature.
The phone clicked photos in daylight with sharpness and good dynamic range. Saturation appeared higher in HDR. Portrait shots taken from the front and rear cameras were quite sharp and with good details. Edge detection was also good.
Photos taken with the ultra wide angle camera were better than expected. They weren’t as sharp as the primary camera, but dynamic range was good and barrel distortion was very low. Photos taken with macro camera were also good.
In low light, the phone automatically keeps the shutter open for a second more, so that maximum light can come in. This was happening even without turning on AI mode. Thanks to its optical image stabilization, photos taken in low light, even in auto mode, were quite sharp and the dynamic range was also quite good. More details came out when the photo was clicked in night mode. A street mode is provided in the camera app, with the help of which you can click scenes like strings of lights on a street or road while walking. This feature was also available in previous Realme phones but what really impressed me was how well it captured long exposure shots without trying to hold it steady or without a tripod.
Talking about video recording, videos recorded at 1080p were fine, but the sharpness was not as expected. 4K footage recorded at 30fps had good details, but lacked stability. The result was the same in low light also.
Verdict
Looking at Realme 9 Pro+ and 9 Pro, you might think that the specifications of both are similar, but from their hardware it is clear that both fall in different categories.
The price of Realme 9 Pro starts at Rs 17,999 and the refresh rate of the display is 120Hz. It has a 5,000mAh battery and a 64-megapixel primary camera, which on paper looks better than the Realme 9 Pro Plus. Whereas Realme 9 Pro+ has an AMOLED display, which shows deep black. This phone has 60W fast charging support and a better primary camera sensor with OIS. In this respect, it can be said that both have been made for different audiences. Realme 9 Pro is designed keeping gamers in mind, while 9 Pro+ is for users who are fond of photography.
At this price point Xiaomi 11i Proves to be the best value for money, with slightly better hardware. Other than this Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge With which 120W charging is available. OnePlus Nord CE There is another option which is in the same price range and offers a good camera and clean software experience. OnePlus Nord CE is soon going to be replaced by OnePlus Nord CE 2.
Even though Realme 9 Pro+ does not have very aggressive specifications, this phone proves itself better in some areas. One of these is OIS as well as a flagship level primary camera, which performs amazingly in daylight as well as low-light. The MediaTek Dimensity 920 processor given in the phone is also quite powerful. Realme UI 3.0 available with Android 12 gives a very smooth experience. The battery life of the phone is also good and keeping all these things in mind, Realme 9 Pro+ proves to be a solid value for money device.
