After three years with the Snapdragon 720G chipset in Realme 6 Pro, 7 Pro and 8 Pro handsets, the company finally changed it up and released its 9 Pro smartphone with a Snapdragon 695 chipset.
In earlier years, Realme released three phones for each of its numbered series. There was the regular version, a less beefed-up version and a pro version. But this time around, they released four phones like Apple. An additional Pro Plus model was added with the existing three, which we reviewed last week.
In today’s review, we will look at the Realme 9 Pro and figure out how it stands as a mid-range device.
Realme 9 Pro comes with 128GB of storage and 8GB RAM and costs Tk31,990.
Aesthetics
Available in two colours — Sunrise Blue and Aurora Green — the latest Realme 9 Pro is a good-looking device. The plastic back of the phone has a light shift paint job, which changes colour and tone when catching the light from different angles.
The phone also offers a narrower bezel on the front with a massive 6.6 inches display. Volume buttons are located on the left side of the phone.
Unlike the previous models, the phone does not have an in-display fingerprint sensor anymore. Instead, the fingerprint sensor has been moved to the right side within the power button.
The phone has a 3.5mm headphone jack and a USB-C charging port on the bottom. The dimension of the phone is 6.47 x 2.98 x 0.33 in, which is weirdly bigger than the slightly beefed-up Realme 9 Pro Plus.
The 9 Pro also weighs 195 grams, 13 grams more than the 9 Pro Plus model. However, due to good weight distribution, the phone feels more lightweight than it is.
Performance
Realme 9 Pro is powered by a Snapdragon 695 5G chipset, which is a newer chipset compared to Snapdragon 720G. Besides, 720G only supports 4G and 695 supports 5G as well.
While 695 is a perfectly good chip, we sort of felt like it could have been better. Then again, the better would have increased the price of the phone as well. On the other hand, the phone is already a bit overpriced due to the unstable dollar market.
Both of the smartphones released last year and the year before — Realme 8 Pro and 9 Pro — cost Tk27,990. But this time around, the price of 9 Pro witnessed a Tk4,000 hike.
On paper, the Snapdragon 695 scores 18% more than the Snapdragon 720G in the AnTuTu benchmark. There is also the addition of 5G. A Tk4,000 price gap doesn’t look like that much if we look at it from this perspective.
Snapdragon 695 can play all of the graphics-intensive games in medium graphics settings. Games like Call of Duty Mobile, PUBG Mobile, Asphalt 9 and Mobile Legends performed really well. However, you will start to notice a few lags if you try to increase the graphics setting to medium-high.
Display
Realme 9 Pro has an IPS LCD panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. Even though the panel is LCD, the colours and tone were really nice. It definitely doesn’t look or feel as good as a Super AMOLED panel, but it is a good LCD panel.
However, this whole thing becomes a bit confusing if we look at Realme 9 (priced at Tk26,990) and Realme 9 Pro Plus (priced at Tk39,990).
Here’s why. Even though the Realme 9 Pro costs 32k, the phone comes with an IPS LCD panel. Meanwhile, Realme 9, which costs 5k less, comes with a Super AMOLED panel with a 90Hz refresh rate.
Realme 9 Pro Plus, which costs a staggering 14k more than the regular Realme 9 also has a Super AMOLED panel with a 90Hz refresh rate. But the highest display brightness of the regular Realme 9 can go up to 1000 nits, while Realme 9 Pro Plus can only go up to 600 nits, according to gsmarena.
There’s obviously the matter of display refresh rate. While many would prefer a 120Hz IPS LCD over 90Hz Super AMOLED, I would definitely go for the 90Hz Super AMOLED due to the technological differences and the fact that AMOLED saves battery life.
One more thing that needs to be added here. The Realme 9 Pro Plus didn’t have the option for a storage expansion. However, Realme 9 Pro has that option. The storage can be expanded up to 1TB using a microSD card.
The internal storage is UFS2.2, which is fast.
Camera
The Realme 9 Pro has a triple camera setup on the back. It has a 64MP primary camera along with an 8MP ultrawide lens and an unnecessary and good-for-nothing 2MP macro lens.
The camera performance is definitely not up to the mark. The primary camera can definitely take rich, colourful, crisp and sharp ready-to-share images in good lighting conditions. However, when it gets dark, there are clear lackings.
The main camera has the same Sony IMX766 sensor as the beefed-up Realme 9 Pro Plus.
The ultrawide camera also performed well in good lighting conditions. Low light and night performance wasn’t up to the mark. And the 2MP macro lens, well, there’s nothing much to say about it anymore. You can capture images using that. But you will not feel like showing them to anyone. I would recommend using the primary camera to capture images and crop them instead.
One thing that didn’t disappoint me was the Starry Night feature. For those who don’t know, Realme has this amazing camera mode where you can leave your camera still, facing the sky for four minutes and it captures all the stars visible to the lens, some of which are not even visible to the naked eyes. I have been regularly using it for the last two years and it does not disappoint me anytime.
The front-facing selfie shooter of Realme 9 Pro is a 16MP camera, which is perfectly capable of taking decent selfies, especially in portrait mode. There were no disappointments here.
In the video segment, the phone tops out at 1080p at 60fps. 4K video recording is not available in Realme 9 Pro, mainly due to the limitation of the Snapdragon 695 chipset.
It is a downgrade because both Realme 7 Pro and 8 Pro supported 4K video recording.
Battery
Realme 9 Pro is powered by a 5000 mAh battery. The more expensive 9 Pro Plus had a 4500 battery and the regular 9 had a 5000 mAh battery.
The phone’s IPS LCD panel will definitely draw more battery compared to a Super AMOLED panel. Then again, the 6nm Snapdragon 695 chipset will save battery. All in all, you are expected to get a balanced battery life with a day and a half in between charging your phone.
In terms of charging, the phone supports 33 Watts of fast charging which should take about one and a half hours to fully charge the phone.
Just to give a perspective, the Realme 8 Pro released last year supports 50 Watts charging and the Realme 7 Pro released two years ago supports 65 Watts charging.
Verdict
Realme 9 Pro is not a bad phone. It has both pros and cons like many other smartphones. The user interface of RealmeUI, the design and the solid build make up for some of the downs.
The battery life was impressive. The camera, not so much. Maybe Realme will address some of the issues in the future via software updates.
At the end of the day, it all depends on the needs and requirements of each user. But I would recommend checking out the previous generation Realme 8 Pro and 7 Pro before making the final purchase decision.