Realme 5s Review

Realme 5s Review in Hindi: To stay ahead in the growing competition in the budget segment, handset manufacturers are launching new models. Realme introduced its Realme 5 series in August and Realme 5 was the company’s budget smartphone. After Realme 5, Vivo has now launched Vivo U10 and Xiaomi has launched Redmi Note 8 smartphone in the price segment below Rs 10,000. Realme has now launched its Realme 5s smartphone in the market. As its name indicates, it is a slightly upgraded version of Realme 5.

The biggest change that you will see with Realme 5S is the 48 megapixel primary camera sensor and the new Crystal Red color variant. Apart from these two things, the Realme 5s smartphone is similar to Realme 5. The price of Realme 5 in the market is now Rs 8,999 and the price of Realme 5S is Rs 9,999. We have tested this new smartphone of the Realme brand, so let’s know about it…

Design of Realme 5s

The design and features of Realme 5S are similar to Realme 5. The thickness of this new Realme phone is 9.3 mm, the same diamond-cut pattern is given on the back panel of the phone. The placement of the buttons is good, let us tell you that on the left side of the phone you will find a triple-slot tray, two nano-SIMs and a separate microSD card slot.

The back panel is still made of polycarbonate, the back of the phone gets stained easily. Realme 5s has a 6.5-inch display, please note that a screen protector is already applied on the display. The edges around the phone are thin but the border below the screen is thick.

One thing that might disappoint is that the resolution is HD+ (1600×720) which is fine for everyday viewing but not as sharp as a full-HD+ display. The screen also comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 3+ protection.

The bottom of the Realme 5S has a micro-USB port instead of Type-C, headphone jack and single speaker. The placement of the camera module is the same as that of the Realme 5. A capacitive fingerprint sensor has been provided on the back panel for security, it works well while unlocking the phone.

Face unlock feature is given in Realme 5S, for your information, let us tell you that it works properly even in low light. Like Realme 5, you will get the same accessories with Realme 5S, it includes a 10 watt charger and silicone case.

Realme 5s specifications and software

The specifications of Realme 5S are quite similar to Realme 5. This smartphone of Realme brand uses Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 processor and there are two variants of Realme 5S, its 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage variant is priced at Rs 9,999.

The Realme 5s is priced at Rs 10,999 for the 4GB RAM and 128GB storage variant. We have the 128GB variant of the Realme 5s for review. The Realme phone has dual-4G VoLTE support, dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 5 and the same sensors as the older model.

The Realme 5S is powered by a 5,000mAh battery but it does not come with fast charging support. The Realme 5S smartphone runs on ColorOS 6.0.1 based on Android Pie. Our review unit ran on the October security patch.

The Realme X2 Pro (Review) runs version 6.1 of this UI, which also features a system-wide dark mode and Google’s Digital Wellbeing feature. While many apps are pre-installed, third-party apps can also be uninstalled. As per the company’s roadmap, the Realme 5s will get the ColorOS 7 update in May next year. Oppo recently launched ColorOS 7 in India.

Realme 5s performance and battery life

The Realme 5S is a big phone, both in the pocket and when used with one hand. The display is bright enough for outdoor use, and not only that, the earpiece delivers clear sound even in noisy environments. Android ran smoothly and multitasking was manageable in our experience.

The phone did slow down a bit when switching between heavy apps but for the most part our experience was good. The Realme 5s doesn’t heat up too much but it does get a little warm while gaming. The Snapdragon 665 isn’t the best processor for heavy games but PUBG Mobile ran smoothly on low or medium settings, PUBG Mobile Lite is more suited for this phone. Games like Alto’s Odyssey ran smoothly. Please note that there are no audio enhancements for the speakers.

Like the Realme 5, the Realme 5s also comes with a 5,000mAh battery but we noticed an increase in our battery loop test runtime. The Realme 5s smartphone lasted a total of 27 hours and 16 minutes, which is quite impressive. To recall, the Realme 5 smartphone lasted for 22 hours. With normal use, the phone can last up to two days.

This smartphone of Realme brand does not support fast charging and neither is the charger provided with the phone very powerful. The battery of Realme 5S was charged up to 23 percent in half an hour and in one hour the phone’s battery was charged 43 percent which is not very good.

Realme 5s cameras

Realme 5 was the first smartphone in India to come with four cameras under Rs 10,000. Realme 5S has a 48-megapixel camera sensor instead of 12 megapixels. The camera comes with PDAF support and 10x digital zoom. The other three rear cameras are the same as Realme 5.

There is an 8-megapixel wide-angle camera, a 2-megapixel depth camera and a 2-megapixel macro camera sensor. There is a 13-megapixel front camera for selfies and video calling, its aperture is F/2.0. You will be familiar with the camera app, above the viewfinder you will find buttons for wide-angle lens, HDR, flash etc., while the shooting mode shortcut and shutter button are placed below.

The wide-angle camera can be used for shooting videos and the Nightscape mode also works with it. There is still no option to adjust background blur in the portrait mode. Nightscape cannot be used to take selfies.

In daylight, the primary camera sensor captures better dynamic range and details than the Realme 5. Portrait mode is handled well with better exposure and skin tones. Close-up shots have good details and good contrast.

The camera app saves 12-megapixel photos by default, but you can save a full 48-megapixel photo if you want. Photos taken with the wide-angle camera lacked detail and colors also did not look right compared to the primary camera sensor.

The macro camera comes with a low resolution but if the light is sufficient then you can capture sharp shots as well. Realme 5 struggles a lot in low light but Realme 5s takes photos with slightly better white balance and colours.

Nightscape helps a bit in correcting exposure and capturing better detail but the Realme 5s isn’t always the clear winner. In some cases, we preferred shots taken with the Realme 5. Selfies taken during the day came out with natural skin tones and decent detail.

Portrait mode still needs some work as the background blur effect is too aggressive. The selfie camera struggles with detail in low light, and noise is also visible in the images. You can also shoot with the wide-angle camera but the quality drops. Video quality was below average even at 1080p resolution in low light.

Our verdict

The Realme 5s is a very minor upgrade to the Realme 5. The new primary camera sensor offers slightly better results in daylight but still struggles in low light for stills and videos. We feel the Realme 5s could have done more to stay competitive. The Realme 5 was a good phone when it launched a few months ago but there are newer options in the market now like the Redmi Note 8 and Vivo U20, both of which come with high-resolution displays.