Emerging player Realme on Thursday (August 18) launched an affordable 9i 5G series phone in India.
The company is offering the device in two variants-- 4GB RAM + 64GB storage and 6GB RAM + 128GB storage-- for Rs 14,999, and Rs 16,999, respectively.
DH has received the Realme 9i 5G review unit and here are our initial thoughts about the latest handset.
Design and display
The first thing you notice about the Realme 9i 5G is its flashy shell on the back, particularly the metallica gold, which is the best I have seen in 2022 under Rs 15,000 price range, so far. The company calls it the vintage 'CD Design' and the shell reflects bright sparkling light when viewed from all angles, and offers a visually exquisite look.
And, there is no camera module on the back as such. Realme has directly placed three sensors along with an LED flash in the top left corner. And, there is Realme branding at the base.
The phone has a minimalistic design with flat rails, and curved corners, but looks very premium and many will surely mistake it for an expensive phone.
On the front, it features a 6.6-inch full HD+(2400 ×1080p) LCD screen and supports up to 400 nits brightness, 90Hz refresh rate, and 180Hz touch sampling rate. It also has a side-mounted fingerprint sensor and it has worked fine so far.
It also comes with 3.5mm audio jack and triple slots-- two for nano SIMs and a microSD card.
Processor configuration
Realme 9i 5G is powered by 6nm class MediaTek Dimensity 810 octa-core with Mali-G57 MC2 GPU, Android 12-based realme UI 3.0, 4GB/6GB LPDDR4x RAM with 64GB/128GB (UFS 2.2) storage (expandable up to 2TB).
I spent a few hours with the device (6GB RAM + 128GB storage); it did not show any lag-ness as such but, am very keen to see how the phone responds when playing graphics-rich games such as Asphalt 9: Legends. It also has RAM Expansion feature, that lets users expand the physical memory by to 5GB RAM extra, providing the phone with enough storage. The latter will help the phone respond faster in terms of loading or switching multiple apps, operating camera and performing smoothly.
The device comes packed with a 5,000mAh battery, which is more than enough to last more than a day under normal usage. It also comes with an 18W charger in the retail box.
Photography hardware
It boasts a triple-camera module-- main 50MP (f/1.8, 80-degree FOV: Field-of-View, ) backed by 2MP B&W (Black&White) monochromatic (f/2.4) sensor and 2MP 4cm macro sensor (f/2.4) with LED flash on the back. On the front, it features an 8MP (f/2.0).
Realme 9i 5G takes pretty good pictures outdoors. Despite, the cloudy overcast, photos came off surprisingly good. The colours of the flowers were closer to natural shade and not too vibrant, as some budget and even high-end phones do. Also, they capture minute details too.
It is capable of recording 720p (HD) and 1080p (full HD) videos too.
So far, so good. I will be checking out how the device will fare in taking photos at night. Be sure to come back for the full review next week.
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