Announced a few hours ago, the new realme 9 and 9 5G smartphones are the latest entry-level representatives of the brand, 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 try out this new realme smartphone in very real conditions, and to deliver our complete test to you now.
The new realme 9 5G in test!
Let’s start with what is visible: realme leaves the choice of two colors here, one black, the other white. We received the first. First of all, the coating of the back and the photo block are not exactly the same. While the block is covered with a black mirror material, perhaps glass, the back is completely matt on several layers, which gives small plays of light and color. It’s very basic, it retains a few fingerprints but on the other hand, and this is a very good point, it doesn’t slip at all.
The shape is pretty good. The phone sits well in the hand and having a medium-sized thumb, it’s neither too tall nor too wide that I mightn’t reach 80% of the screen real estate without rocking my hand. Rather pleasantly, the fingerprint sensor is located in the power button, which makes it easy to forget the latter.
For the front camera, realme opted for a punch in the top left corner. It’s a little 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+ (2412 x 1080 px) panel, with a density of 400 dpi and 120 Hz. We immediately wondered if 120 Hz was really relevant on a model of this range, if the performances would manage to follow. Well we were rather surprised because it is the case, the processor holds up rather well but we will see that later.
In terms of colors, I found them a little too cold and indeed, by comparing on photo editing, I had to constantly increase by regarding 200 Kelvin to have the same rendering. Nothing too disturbing either, you can also adjust it as you see fit in the screen settings. Apart from these few complaints, the rendering is quite good, enough to watch photos or videos without worry.
Performances
The smartphone is equipped with an 8-core Snapdragon 695 5G, 2 clocked 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, overall on system navigation or Instagram scrolling we did not encounter any problems… except on certain applications like Twitter which require a little more resources because they are more loaded with content where the scrolling was a little jerky .
The 4 GB of RAM hold up pretty well, but don’t expect wonders from the device in demanding video games. As usual we made it spit blood on Genshin Impact, at low/very low the Adreno A619 didn’t seem to suffer too much but the processor saturated quite often. We suspect the RAM or storage of restricting the loading of assets and therefore creating small freezes.
But on smaller games like Clash Royale we do not encounter any problems… Except once once more when loading the menus. This is what makes us say that the problem at stake comes mainly from RAM or storage. On the other hand, it does not heat up very much, 35° on average on Genshin.
Autonomy
When it comes to battery life, the realme 9 5G is good, very good. In basic use (understand social networks, work, music, video) I was able to reach almost 3 days without recharging it. Indeed, it embeds a 5000 mah battery, which is quite high compared to the energy consumption of its other components.
On the charging side we are on 18W, nothing breathtaking but since it does not need to be regularly recharged, it is 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 an FOV of 77°
- An f/2.4 macro lens with an FOV of 88.8°
- A “B&W portrait” f/2.4 lens with an FOV of 88.8°
To begin with, the camera focuses very well on its own, but when it’s us who want to indicate the point, it just doesn’t.
Then the colors are very dull. They are quite approximate indoors and it is better outdoors even if they are still not exact. Ignoring the colors, the main module does the job quite well in x1, the image is really sharp, we don’t see any catastrophic sharpness problems… In short, the details are very well preserved. Besides, the macro lens must have something to do with it because it’s really a strong point on this realme 9 5G.
2x digital zoom is featured 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 quite far from it all the same.
The video mode is often less efficient, I think it is useless to dwell on it… But in short, we find the same problems with much more grain on the shadow areas.
On the front there is a 16 MP sensor with a lens opening at f/2.05 with an FOV of 79.3°. If it is not exceptional either, it must be said that it does the job rather well, especially on the treatment of lights, sometimes better than on certain photos taken with the rear module.
Software
The smartphone runs Android 12/Realme UI 3.0, I would quickly say that it’s a good overlay overall, although a bit messy on certain points, especially in the settings…
Despite being a little cluttered, 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€, realme might have done really better by focusing on the main thing, rather than adding things from right to left which ultimately are not necessarily useful. I am thinking in particular of the rather disappointing photo block because the perfected main module might have been really very good for this price, moreover it is a little good, but for that it would have been necessary to remove the two other lenses which support the price of the phone for not much. But apart from that, we benefit here from a truly versatile entry-level phone that will suit most users, and this, for ” only » 250€.
realme 9
WE love
- The grip and the side fingerprint sensor
- Overall smooth to use
- The BIG autonomy (and the price)
- Preservation of details on the main module
- A selfie camera that does the job
- The possibilities offered by Realme UI 3.0
We love less
- The screen is not very well calibrated
- Some freezes on loading (ex: in game or Twitter)
- The lack of color accuracy in photos
- Incompetent semi-auto autofocus
- The “clutter” side of Realme UI
