The smartphone is the most technologically advanced model of the most well-liked Realme smartphone series. However, the Realme 9 Pro+ is a brand-new model and does not succeed any of the Realme 8 series smartphones. The Realme 9 series will be the successor to the Realme 8 series. Realme 9 Pro is the model that replaces Realme 8 Pro. Another mid-range 5G smartphone, the Realme 9 Pro+ offers plenty of options but also some pitfalls for the unwary. The Realme 9 Pro+, which retails for £349 in the UK, includes a 50-megapixel primary camera, 90Hz Super AMOLED screen, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of internal storage as some of its standout features. The Realme 9 Pro+ will appeal to those who enjoy a little bit of bling in their phone’s design, but not too much of it. Realme has, luckily, refrained from covering the backplate with its “Dare to Leap” mark, as it did with its Realme 8 line of phones.
Realme 9 Pro Plus review: Design
There’s a misconception that once you’ve seen one inexpensive smartphone, you’ve seen them all. With Realme, however, that’s not the case. The companies’ designs have been hit or miss, with imprinted “Dare to Leap” insignias and gritty textures on some more experimental designs. The Realme 9 Pro+ is thankfully as secure as they come. Simple: glass front, plastic sides, and a glass back. The Realme 9 Pro’s rear is made of polished, rounded, reflective glass and is available in Aurora Green, Midnight Black, and Sunrise Blue. The phone has two textures and flat sides with a matte plastic finish. It is well-weighted at 182g, which is only slightly more than the 174g iPhone 13. Other notable features include an under-display fingerprint scanner, a case and screen protector that come pre-installed, USB-C connectivity, and headphone jack compatibility. All of this adds up to a straightforward, aesthetically pleasing midrange package in the Realme 9 Pro+.
Display
The Realme 9 Pro Plus has a 6.43-inch screen, which is around average size for Android devices. Its 1080 x 2400 resolution and 90 Hz refresh rate are likewise standard for a phone at this price point. It is therefore a fully enough screen, suitable for watching videos or playing games. Although we did discover that the maximum brightness was a little lower than it could be, it is still fairly colorful. The top left punch hole for the camera cut-out separates this display. also you will learn our article on Realme 9 Pro Plus review. One of the unique aspects of this phone is its in-display fingerprint sensor, which also functions as a heart rate monitor. Although it’s obviously not as exact as either of them, it’s a nice addition that might be helpful for folks who don’t have a fitness tracker or specialised technology for the function. We had to look for the feature in the Settings app, which is unfortunate because it should be on the home screen or in another more obvious location.
Realme 9 Pro Plus review: Software
Realme UI 3.0, a skin for Android 12.0, powers the Realme 9 Pro+. Despite not being an entirely Android experience, Google users will be familiar with the UI and the way the apps are organized. Like previous Realme handsets, this one comes with some bloated pre-installed apps, like PUBG and booking.com. If you want a cleaner layout, you can eliminate these. A Kid Space interface that can be customized with kid-friendly apps, a usage time cap, and restrictions on mobile data and online sales are some advantages of the Realme UI. If you struggle to pick up your phone when you should be sleeping, there is also Sleep Capsule, which enables you to limit apps during a downtime.
Hardware and performance
The other phone we’ve seen with the MediaTek Dimensity 920 chipset, the previously mentioned color-changing Vivo V23, is the Realme 9 Pro Plus. This mid-range chip edges out Snapdragon alternatives just marginally. The phone scored 2258 on the multi-core portion of the Geekbench 5 benchmark test. That puts it on par with last year’s flagship phones, the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, Nubia Z20, and iPhone XR, and even outperforms the Vivo V23, which hit 2079. The Realme 9 Pro Plus is quite powerful for its budget considering that modern mid-range CPUs often reach around 1800, while top-end ones reach the low 3000s or occasionally the high 2900s. The phone worked brilliantly during our testing of it during extended gaming sessions; games loaded swiftly and could typically run high graphics settings without any difficulty. Additionally, despite having improved cooling technology, the phone took a long time to heat up when playing games. We tested a phone with 8GB RAM, but RAM expansion is enabled by default, allowing you to spend storage space to temporarily increase the RAM. With the Realme, you can do this to gain up to 5GB more RAM. The storage space in our test unit was 128GB. If you live in a region that offers 5G, you can use the Dimensity 920 to connect to those networks’ top-tier connectivity. The Realme 9 Pro Plus has twin stereo speakers, which is advantageous for gaming or streaming media because it makes it more difficult to unintentionally cover the speaker grilles with your hands.
Realme 9 Pro Plus review: Camera
The mid-range phone’s primary sensor is a Sony IMX776 with optical image stabilization. It has a 50 megapixel resolution. Pixel binning, which results in bigger and more light-sensitive pixels on the sensor, reduces the effective resolution to 12 megapixels. In our test images, the image sharpness is fair, but the brightness and color reproduction are both good. The smartphone takes warm, occasionally quite detailed photographs when there is little light and great contrast. The 8 megapixel wide-angle camera performs on par with other cameras of its type: More in-depth photographs lose a lot of detail, but the images are good for panoramas. Additionally, Realme includes a built-in 2 megapixel macro lens that produces respectable close-ups. There is a 16 megapixel selfie camera on the front as well. The images could be a little brighter and could provide more detail in the shadows. The 50MP main camera is genuinely astounding in terms of overall image quality. Pictures are taken with a tone of detail that doesn’t appear too sharpened artificially, loads of color, a wide dynamic range, and a lot of warmth. Realme leans more toward color and contrast than pure realism, although in most cases this results in visually appealing photographs. Images shot in low light generally appear nice and are certainly appealing enough to be shared or printed out, which is generally the achilles heel of mid-range smartphones.
Battery life
With a 4500 mAh battery, Realme’s newest phone may compete with the OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G and the Poco F3. It lasts a full day of moderate to heavy use, in our experience, without needing to be recharged. we had just under 60% of the tank remaining after a lengthy 16-hour day that included just over 3 hours spent watching television. you can read our article on Realme 9 Pro Plus review. While listening to music for an hour consumed an astounding 1% of the charge, watching an hour of Netflix only used up 5%. That is quite great accomplishment and likely competitive with its mid-range rivals. The inclusion of a 60W wired charger, which Realme claims will charge your device to 100% in 44 minutes, is also impressive. We were able to videotape it going from from empty to 100% in under 50 minutes, so this seems to be generally accurate. Of course, most people won’t charge their phones in this manner. Even while it took longer than the OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G with its 67W charger to charge from 0 to 50%, it still made good progress. It took 18 minutes. The Pro Plus’s battery was depleted by 13% after running the 3DMark Wild Life Stress Test repeatedly for an hour. This is less than the somewhat more costly OnePlus Nord 2 (on 10%), but barely ahead of devices like the Nokia X20 (with 14%).
Price and availability
Conclusion
Despite this, the Realme 9 Pro Plus is still an undisputed success. There was no doubt that the Realme 9 Pro Plus would automatically earn a recommendation as we concluded this review because it outperformed its plethora of sleek competitors in all the important measures. The Realme 9 Pro Plus is an incredibly well-rounded smartphone with unparalleled performance, astounding endurance, fast charging, a brilliant screen, and a class-leading camera system. It will be hard to top it in the months to come.
