Realme 9 Pro Plus: First impression
After weeks of teasing, Realme on Wednesday (February 16) launched the two new Realme 9 series smartphones in India.
The company is offering premium mid-range handsets--Realme 9 Pro and 9 Pro Plus--with prices starting at Rs 17,999.
DH has received the Realme 9 Pro+ review unit and here are initial thoughts on the new phone.
Display and design
The first thing you notice about the Realme 9 Pro+ is the shiny shell on the back. I have to say this particular sunrise blue model with a photochromic layer is the most flamboyant-looking phone in the market right now. As you can see from the cover photos of the phone, the company has done a good job in terms of making it visually appealing.
However, it does attract fingerprint smudges and thankfully Realme offers a transparent silicone cover that will not only save us the time for constantly cleaning the back panel but also protect the device from cracking during an accidental fall.
On the front, it sports a 6.43-inch full HD+ (2400×1080p) AMOLED screen with a 90Hz refresh rate. The screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 shield and on top of that, the company has incorporated an additional layer of display guard. This will definitely improve the longevity of the screen.
Realme 9 Pro Plus comes with a peak brightness of 1,000 nits, which is enough for reading content under bright sunlight. The device also features an in-display fingerprint sensor and so far, it has worked smoothly. It also doubles up as a heart rate tracker. During our initial testing, there was a variation of 6 beats per second compared to the smartwatch. It showed 81 bps and the Apple Watch showed 75 bps. We'll have to test it more to get a mean average and see if it can be trusted or not.
Photography hardware
Realme 9 Pro Plus houses a triple-camera module-- main 50MP (Sony IMX766 sensor, f/1.8, OIS: Optical Image Stabilisation) backed by 8MP (with Sony IMX355, f/2.2) ultra-wide camera and 2MP (f/2.4) 4cm macro camera with Galaxycore GC02M1 sensor and LED flash on the back.
On the front, it features a 16MP (with Sony IMX471 sensor, f/2.4).
I took some sample shots in our office garden and as you can see, Realme's new phone has done a good job capturing details and even the colours don't come off too vibrant and are near-natural. I am very keen to test street photography mode 2.0 and the night mode, which are said to be better compared to the previous version.
Processor configuration
Under-the-hood, Realme 9 Pro+ comes packed with 6nm class MediaTek Dimensity 920 CPU with Mali-G68 MC4 GPU backed by 6GB LPDDR4x RAM with 128GB/256GB (UFS 2.2) storage, and Android 12-based Realme UI 3.0.
Having spent a few hours with the device, it has been responding quick in terms of opening apps and loading camera. But, we have to see how it fares while playing graphics-intense games.
The device supports 13 5G SA/NSA bands: n1/n3/n5/n7/n8/n20/n28/n66/n38/n40/n41/n77/n78)
Realme 9 Pro+ ships with a 4,500mAh battery and supports a 60W charger. With this, the device can easily last a full day under normal usage. But, we need to see how the device will fare when binge-watching videos on the OTT platforms and YouTube, and games are played for extended sessions. Look out for the full review next week.
The company is offering the Realme 9 Pro+ in three colours-- aurora gree, midnight black and sunrise blue. It comes in three configurations- 6GB RAM + 128GB storage, 8GB RAM + 128GB storage and 8GB RAM + 256GB storage for-- Rs 24,999, Rs 26,999 and Rs 28,999, respectively.
For the uninitiated, the regular Realme 9 Pro comes with a 6.6-inch full HD+ (2400×1080p) LCD screen. It supports 120Hz refresh rate, triple slots ( nano SIM-1 + nano SIM-2 + microSD card), side-mounted fingerprint sensor.
Inside, it comes packed with 8nm class Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 octa-core chipset backed by Adreno 619L GPU, Android 12-based Realme UI 3.0, 6GB / 8GB LPDDR4x RAM with 128GB (UFS 2.2) storage (expandable), triple-camera module-- main 64MP (with Omnivision OV64B sensor, f/1.79) + 8MP ultra-wide camera ( with Omnivision OV08D10 sensor, f/2.2) + 2MP macro camera (Galaxycore GC02M1 sensor, f/2.4) with LED flash on the back, a 16MP ( Sony IMX471 sensor, f/2.05) on the front, and a 5,000mAh battery with 33W charger in-box.
Realme 9 Pro comes in three colours-- aurora green, midnight black and sunrise blue. The company is offering the device in two configurations-- 6GB RAM + 128GB storage and 8GB RAM + 128GB storage-- for Rs 17,999 and 20,999, respectively.
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