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 becomes, what is new in Realme 9 Pro+? Is it a premium smartphone as compared to the Realme 9 Pro? So without delay, know the answer to these questions in this review.
Realme 9 Pro+ price in India
Realme 9 Pro+ comes in three variants. Its base variant with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage costs Rs 24,999. The second variant comes with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage, which costs Rs 26,999. Whereas 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 1000 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. But, the 9 Pro Plus has a better primary camera and optical image stabilization (OIS), which is not in the Master Edition. Having more options is a good thing, but that doesn’t reduce the confusion among customers regarding the lineup. Your choice will ultimately depend on what you need… a good camera or display?
Realme 9 Pro+ design
Realme 9 Pro Plus also seems to be keeping pace with the trend of color changing smartphones. The company has launched the phone in three finishes, which include Midnight Black, Aurora Green and Sunrise Blue. Of these, only the Sunrise Blue finish is going to change color in sunlight, just like the Vivo V23 Pro. Indoor, its glossy sky blue color finish turns maroon in sunlight. However, I didn’t find it as appealing as the V23 Pro’s change from golden to green. Overall, the look of the phone does not look very premium, as its rear glass panel catches fingerprints very quickly.
Putting the color changing panel aside, the design of the phone looks similar to other realme smartphones. Its frame is of polycarbonate, with flat sides and pressed between two layers of glass. The phone is quite slim and its thickness is only 7.99mm. Being only 184 grams in weight, it remains quite comfortable to use with one hand.
The display of the phone is flat and the selfie camera has been given in the hole punch. It has an in-display fingerprint reader and the company also offers a heart rate monitoring feature in it, but at the same time it has been said that this is only an experimental feature. To use it, it has to be enabled by going to the Reality Lab section in the Settings app. In its design, I did not like the thick chin at the bottom of the display.
Realme 9 Pro+ specifications and software
Realme has given MediaTek Dimensity 920 processor in this phone, which was recently also seen in Xiaomi 11i series. This processor runs at a maximum clock speed of 2.5GHz and is made through 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 normal satellite navigation system. The phone is backed by a 4,500mAh battery, which charges quickly with the 60W quick charger that comes with the box. The 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 Reality, which cannot be removed.
Unlike Vivo’s Funtouch OS, the Realme UI 3.0 isn’t much customized and offers a stock Android-like experience. This makes it seem to blend in with the new Material You design of Android 12. The UI widgets of Realme are very few compared to Vivo or Samsung, so the widgets of Android 12 do not look unusual on the home screen.
The design and fonts of Realme UI 3.0 look the same, unless you go to the 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) require the stock look even if the skin is present on the operating system. I did notice a few minor issues with the theme, such as text grayed out when expanding notifications in the pull-down tray when using dark mode.
The phone has a dynamic theming system, similar to the one found in Android 12 on Pixel devices. This feature picks the colors from the selected wallpaper and applies them to certain elements of the interface like notification tray toggle, settings menu icon etc. Here you can also choose the color from the wallpaper itself. I found that the Android 12 widgets in Google Apps and Google Keyboard do not change color with the rest of the UI, as they do on Pixel devices. In short, a little more work is needed in this area.
Realme 9 Pro+ performance
Realme 9 Pro Plus has a 6.4-inch AMOLED display with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. Colors look too saturated at the default Vivid color setting. So I set it to natural mode. The display is easily readable even in sunlight. I couldn’t get the Netflix app because I had a pre-production unit. But I used video streaming on Amazon Prime, which was a great experience. The phone seemed to miss a bit in showing the right colors in HDR mode and the colors seemed a bit faint. Reality has said that soon this problem will be fixed through an update. Standard definition content was fine, with blacks being quite deep. The stereo speakers made the video viewing experience even better as the sound was 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 the game and it goes back to 90Hz once you come back to the phone interface. Opening the YouTube app, it also locked at 60Hz, while the on-screen video was playing at 30fps. This means that it reaches 90Hz only on the phone’s interface.
Talking about the benchmark scores, the phone did not disappoint and performed at par with its rivals. The smartphone scored 5,07,258 points on AnTuTu. At the same time, the phone managed to achieve a score of 818 in the single-core test and 2,316 in the multi-core test on Geekbench. Realme UI 3.0 ran very smooth even after unwanted apps and the user interface experience was fun with 90Hz refresh rate.
The gaming performance of the phone was also very good. Call of Duty: Mobile ran smoothly on the phone with ‘Medium’ graphics and ‘Very High’ frame rate by default. There was no decrease in performance even after increasing the graphics settings. Asphalt 9: Legends was crashing repeatedly for some reason. So I tried Real Racing 3 instead, which ran much smoother.
To check the battery life, I went through a video loop test on the Realme 9 Pro+, and it lasted 23 hours and 36 minutes, which is a good thing. I was able to make it last for a day and a half with light gaming and camera use with normal use. This battery backup is considered good for a mid-range device. Charging was very fast. With the help of 60W charger, the phone got charged from zero to 80 percent in just 30 minutes and full charge in 50 minutes.
Realme 9 Pro+ cameras
Talking about the camera department of the phone, it comes with a 50-megapixel primary camera with which optical image stabilization is also available. There is no common lens in this, but the Sony IMX766 lens has been given which is only available in Oppo Reno 7 Pro and OnePlus 9RT smartphones. Apart from this, the rear module also houses an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle lens and a 2-megapixel macro lens. A 16-megapixel camera sensor has been given in the phone for selfie.
The camera app is similar to the rest of the Realme phones, but there are some minor changes. 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 Android 12, this one also shows a green dot 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 was more visible in HDR. Portrait shots taken from the front and rear cameras came out sharp and with good details. Edge detection was also good.
Photos taken with the ultra wide angle camera were better than expected. They weren’t as sharp as the primary camera, but dynamic range was good and barrel distortion was minimal. Photos taken with the macro camera were also good.
In low light, the phone automatically keeps the shutter open for more than a second, so that maximum light can come in. This was happening without even turning on the AI mode. With the help of optical image stabilization, photos taken in low light, even in auto mode, were quite sharp and dynamic range was also very good. Clicking the photo in Night Mode brought more details. A street mode has been given in the camera app, with the help of which you can also click scenes like strings of lights on a street or street while walking. This feature was also there in previous Realme phones but what impressed me a lot was how well it captured long exposure shots without trying to hold still or without a tripod.
Talking about video recording, videos recorded at 1080p were fine, but the sharpness was not as expected. 4K footage recorded at 30fps had decent details, but stability was lacking. The result was the same even in low light.
Verdict
Looking at Realme 9 Pro + and 9 Pro, you would think that the specifications of both are similar, but it is clear from their hardware that both fall in different categories here.
The price of Realme 9 Pro starts at Rs 17,999 and the refresh rate of the display is 120Hz. It packs a 5,000mAh battery and packs a 64-megapixel primary camera, which on paper looks better than the Realme 9 Pro Plus. Whereas Realme 9 Pro + has an AMOLED display, which shows Deep Black. This phone has 60W fast charging support and has a better primary camera sensor with OIS. In this sense, it can be said that both are made for different audiences. The Realme 9 Pro is designed keeping gamers in mind, while the 9 Pro+ is for photography enthusiasts.
At this price point, the Xiaomi 11i proves to be the best value for money, offering slightly better hardware. Apart from this, there is Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge, with which 120W charging is available. OnePlus Nord CE is another option that is in the same price range and offers a decent camera and clean software experience. OnePlus Nord CE 2 is soon going to be replaced by OnePlus Nord CE.
Even though Realme 9 Pro + does not get very aggressive specifications, but in some areas this phone proves itself better. One of these is OIS as well as a flagship-level primary camera, which performs well in daylight as well as in low-light. The MediaTek Dimensity 920 processor given in the phone is also very powerful. The Realme UI 3.0 found with Android 12 gives a very smooth experience. The battery life of the phone is also good and keeping all these things in mind, the Realme 9 Pro+ proves to be a solid value for money device.
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