Realme 9 Pro+ Review: Best value for money!

The Realme 9 Pro+ is the latest addition to the company’s large and complex smartphone lineup. So far, Realme has been pushing the lineup forward with its core models. But this time, the Realme 9 series was launched first with the Realme 9i. The Realme 9 was expected to be launched after that, but instead, the company has launched the Realme 9 Pro and Realme 9 Pro+.

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 question arises what is new in Realme 9 Pro +? Is it a premium smartphone compared to Realme 9 Pro? So without delay, let’s 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.

In terms of pricing, the new smartphone competes with Realme’s own Realme GT Master Edition, as the GT Master Edition starts at Rs 25,999, which is only Rs 1,000 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. However, the 9 Pro Plus has a better primary camera and optical image stabilisation (OIS), which the Master Edition does not have. Having more options is a good thing, but it does not reduce the confusion among customers about the lineup. Your choice will ultimately depend on what you want… a good camera or display?

Realme 9 Pro+ design

The Realme 9 Pro Plus also seems to be in step with the trend of colour-changing smartphones. The company has launched the phone in three finishes, including Midnight Black, Aurora Green and Sunrise Blue. Of these, only the Sunrise Blue finish changes colour in sunlight, just like the Vivo V23 Pro. Its bright sky blue colour finish changes to maroon in sunlight indoors. However, I did not find it as attractive as the V23 Pro’s golden to green colour change. Overall, the look of the phone does not look very premium, as its rear glass panel catches fingerprints very quickly.

Keeping the colour changing panel aside, the design of the phone looks similar to other Realme smartphones. Its frame is made of polycarbonate with flat sides and pressed between two layers of glass. The phone is quite slim and its thickness is only 7.99mm. Weighing only 184 grams, it is quite comfortable to use with one hand.

The display of the phone is flat and the selfie camera is given in the hole punch. It has an in-display fingerprint reader and the company also offers heart rate monitoring feature in it, but it has also been said that this is only an experimental feature. To use it, it has to be enabled by going to the Realme Lab section in the Settings app. In its design, I did not like the thick chin below the display.

Realme 9 Pro+ specifications and software

Realme has given the MediaTek Dimensity 920 processor in this phone, which was also recently seen in the 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 the usual 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 on 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.
Like Vivo’s Funtouch OS, Realme UI 3.0 is not overly customized and feels like stock Android. This makes it blend in well with the new Material You design of Android 12. Realme has very few UI widgets compared to Vivo or Samsung, so the Android 12 widgets don’t look out of place on the home screen.

The design and fonts of Realme UI 3.0 look similar, until you go to 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 look stock, even if there is a skin on the operating system. I noticed some minor theme-related issues, such as text being grayed out when expanding notifications in the pull-down tray while using dark mode.

The phone has a dynamic theming system, similar to what is found in Android 12 on a Pixel device. This feature picks up colours from the selected wallpaper and applies them to certain elements of the interface such as the notification tray toggle, Settings menu icons, etc. You can also choose a colour from the wallpaper yourself. I found that the Android 12 widgets of Google apps and Google Keyboard do not change colour with the rest of the UI, as they do on Pixel devices. In short, there is a bit more work to be done in this area.

Realme 9 Pro+ performance

Realme 9 Pro Plus has a 6.4-inch AMOLED display, with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. The colors look too saturated in the default Vivid color setting. So I set it to Natural mode. The display is easily readable even in sunlight. I did not get the Netflix app as I had a pre-production unit. But I used video streaming on Amazon Prime, which was a very good experience. The phone seemed to miss a bit in showing the right colors in HDR mode and the colors looked a bit faded. Realme has said that this problem will be resolved soon through an update. Standard definition content was fine, with blacks (color) being quite deep. The video viewing experience became even better with the help of stereo speakers, 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 goes to 60Hz while playing games and becomes 90Hz as soon as we return to the phone interface. It also got locked at 60Hz when we opened the YouTube app, while the video displayed on the screen was running 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 competitors. The smartphone scored 5,07,258 points on AnTuTu. On the other hand, on Geekbench, the phone managed to score 818 in single-core test and 2,316 in multi-core test. Despite unwanted apps, Realme UI 3.0 ran very smoothly and the experience on the user interface was fun with a refresh rate of 90 Hz.

Gaming performance was also quite good. Call of Duty: Mobile ran smoothly on the phone at the default ‘Medium’ graphics and ‘Very High’ frame rate. There was no drop in performance even when the graphics settings were increased. Asphalt 9: Legends kept crashing for some reason. So I tried Real Racing 3 instead, which ran quite smoothly.

To check the battery life, I put the Realme 9 Pro+ through a video loop test, and it lasted 23 hours and 36 minutes, which is quite good. With normal use, light gaming and camera use, I was able to use it for one and a half days. This battery backup is considered good for a mid-range device. Charging was quite fast. With the help of a 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 optical image stabilization. It does not have any common lens, but a Sony IMX766 lens which is only found in Oppo Reno 7 Pro and OnePlus 9RT smartphones. Apart from this, the rear module also has an 8-megapixel ultra wide angle lens and a 2-megapixel macro lens. For selfies, the phone has a 16-megapixel camera sensor.

The camera app is similar to other Realme phones but some minor changes can be seen. This time the timer for photos and the frame rate selector for videos have been placed in the three dot menu. Like all smartphones running on 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 high in HDR. Portrait shots taken from the front and rear cameras were quite sharp and had good details. Edge detection was also excellent.

Photos taken with the ultra wide angle camera were better than expected. They weren’t as sharp as those taken with the primary camera, but the dynamic range was good and there was very little barrel distortion. Photos taken with the macro camera were also good.

In low light, the phone automatically keeps the shutter open for up to a second longer to let in as much light as possible. This was happening without the AI ​​mode being enabled. With the help of its optical image stabilization, photos taken in low light were quite sharp even in auto mode and the dynamic range was also quite good. Clicking photos in night mode brought out more details. There is a street mode in the camera app with the help of which you can click scenes like strings of lights on an alley or road while walking. This feature was also present in previous Realme phones but I was very impressed by how well it captured long exposure shots without trying to keep it steady or without a tripod.

Talking about video recording, videos recorded at 1080p were fine, but the sharpness was not as expected. The details were good in the 4K footage recorded at 30fps, but there was a lack of stability. The result was the same in low light as well.

Verdict

Looking at Realme 9 Pro+ and 9 Pro, you might think that the specifications of both are similar, but it is clear from their hardware that both come 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 looks better than the Realme 9 Pro Plus on paper. While the Realme 9 Pro + has an AMOLED display, which shows deep blacks. This phone has 60W fast charging support and a better primary camera sensor with OIS. In this sense, it can be said that both are 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, the Xiaomi 11i proves to be the best value for money, with slightly better hardware. Apart from this, there is Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge, which comes with 120W charging. OnePlus Nord CE is another option 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.

Although the 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 very 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.