Realme 9 5G test: our opinion on this new entry-level smartphone

Announced a few hours ago, the new realme 9 and 9 5G smartphones are the brand’s latest entry-level representatives and are offered respectively at €279 and €259. And it’s been a few weeks since we had the first one in hand, the opportunity for us to test this new realme smartphone in very real conditions, and deliver our full test to you now.

The new realme 9 5G in test!

Let’s start with what is visible: realme leaves here the option of two colors, one black, the other white. We get the first. First of all, the back liner and the photo block are not exactly the same. While the block is covered in a black mirror material, perhaps glass, the back is completely matte in several layers, giving it little plays of light and color. It is very basic, it retains some traces but on the other hand, and this is a very good point, nothing slips.

The shape is pretty good. The phone fits well in the hand and has a medium sized thumb, not too tall and not too wide that you can’t reach 80% of the screen without moving your hand. Nicely enough, the fingerprint sensor is located on the power button, making it easy to forget about the latter.

For the front camera, realme opted for a punch in the top left corner. It’s a bit big, but nothing too shocking, it’s also quite classic and you quickly forget it.

Screen

This realme 9 5G is equipped with a 6.6-inch FHD+ panel (2412 x 1080 px), with a density of 400 dpi and 120 Hz. We immediately wondered if 120 Hz was really relevant in a model of this range, if the benefits would be manages to follow. Well, we were quite surprised because it is so, the processor holds up quite well, but we will see that later.

As for the colors, I found them a bit too cold, and in fact, when comparing photo editing, I had to constantly increase about 200 Kelvin to have the same representation. Nothing too annoying either, you can also adjust it as you see fit in the display settings. Apart from these few complaints, the rendering is quite good, enough to view photos or videos without worry.

Performance

The smartphone is equipped with an 8-core Snapdragon 695 5G, 2 at 2.2 Ghz and the others at 1.8 Ghz. We are clearly on an entry-level model from Qualcomm, nothing surprising for the price. It will be accompanied by 4 GB of RAM in its two versions (64 GB and 128 GB). To answer our previous question, in general in the system navigation or scrolling of Instagram we did not find any problem… except in certain applications like Twitter that require a little more resources because they are more loaded with content where scrolling was a little choppy.

The 4GB of RAM holds up quite well, but don’t expect wonders from the device in demanding video games. As usual we made it spit blood in Genshin Impact, at low/very low the Adreno A619 didn’t seem to suffer too much, but the processor was overloading quite often. We suspect that RAM or storage restricts the loading of assets and thus creates small locks.

But in smaller games like Clash Royale we didn’t find any problem… Except once again when loading the menus. This is what makes us say that the problem at stake comes mainly from the RAM or the storage. On the other hand, it doesn’t get very hot, 35° on average in Genshin.

Autonomy

When it comes to battery life, the realme 9 5G is good, very good. In basic use (understood social networks, work, music, video) I was able to reach almost 3 days without recharging it. In fact, it incorporates a 5000 mAh battery, which is quite high compared to the power consumption of its other components.

On the charging side, we’re at 18W, nothing impressive, but given that it doesn’t need to be recharged regularly, it’s more than enough.

Photo/video:

The new realme 9 5G is equipped with 3 modules:

• The main module with a 50 MP sensor and an f/1.8 lens with a FOV of 77°
• An f/2.4 macro lens with a FOV of 88.8°
• An f/2.4 “black and white portrait” lens with an 88.8° FOV

To begin with, the camera focuses very well on its own, but when we are the ones who want to indicate the point, it simply does not do it.

So the colors are very muted. They are quite approximate indoors and it is better outdoors although they are not yet exact. Color aside, the main module does its job pretty well at x1, the picture is really sharp, we don’t see any catastrophic sharpness issues… All in all, details are very well preserved. Also, the macro lens must have something to do with it because it really is a strong point in this realme 9 5G.

2x digital zoom is included in the app, so I tried it and… It’s not horrible, but it’s not great either. I have in mind the results of the digital x2 of the Realme GT2 and we are still quite far.

The video mode is usually less efficient, I think it is useless to insist on it… But in short, we find ourselves with the same problems with much more grain in the shadow areas.

On the front is a 16 MP sensor with a lens aperture of f/2.05 with a FOV of 79.3°. If it is not exceptional either, it must be said that it fulfills its function quite well, especially in the treatment of lights, sometimes better than in certain photos taken with the rear module.

software

The smartphone runs Android 12/Realme UI 3.0, I’d quickly say it’s a good overlay overall, if a bit messy at certain points, especially in settings…

Despite being a bit messy, and not necessarily always very intuitive, the interface of this realme 9 5G offers interesting features such as the smart sidebar. I refer you to the recent realme GT2 test if you ever want to know more.

Our opinion on the realme 9

Despite the many criticisms that we have been able to give it, we must not forget that this new realme 9 is a smartphone at €250. But for €250, I really could have done much better by focusing on the main thing, instead of adding things from right to left that in the end are not necessarily useful. I’m thinking in particular of the rather disappointing photo block because the perfected main module could have been really very good for this price, moreover it’s a bit good but for that it would have been necessary to remove the other two lenses that support the price of the phone for not much. But other than that, here we benefit from a truly versatile basic phone that will suit most users, and this, by ” only » €250.