Introduction and specs
The Realme 9 series this year has quite a few family members. We have a 4G and 5G version of the vanilla option, we have a 9i as well as two Pro flavors. Each represents a different price category except the Realme 9 4G and 5G iterations. Both seem to be priced quite similarly. And to our surprise, the 5G device undercuts the Realme 9 4G by around €30.
However, there's a pretty good reason why. The 4G variant has a better display, faster charging, and better main camera and the base memory variant offers twice the storage of the 5G. Right off the bat, we can say that the 4G version will probably be more popular than its 5G counterpart, mostly among people not interested in upgrading to the 5G network or in countries where the coverage is still scarce.
Realme 9 specs at a glance:
- Body: 160.2x73.3x8.0mm, 178g; Gorilla Glass 5 front, plastic back and frame.
- Display: 6.40" Super AMOLED, 90Hz, 430 nits (typ), 1000 nits (peak), 1080x2400px resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio, 411ppi.
- Chipset: Qualcomm SM6225 Snapdragon 680 4G (6 nm): Octa-core (4x2.4 GHz Kryo 265 Gold & 4x1.9 GHz Kryo 265 Silver); Adreno 610.
- Memory: 128GB 6GB RAM, 128GB 8GB RAM; UFS 2.2; microSDXC (dedicated slot).
- OS/Software: Android 12, Realme UI 3.0.
- Rear camera: Wide (main): 108 MP, f/1.8, 26mm, 1/1.67", 0.64µm, Dual Pixel PDAF; Ultra wide angle: 8 MP, f/2.2, 120˚, 1/4", 1.12µm; Macro: 2 MP, f/2.4.
- Front camera: 16 MP, f/2.5, 26mm (wide), 1/3.09", 1.0µm.
- Video capture: Rear camera: 1080p@30fps; Front camera: 1080p@30fps.
- Battery: 5000mAh; Fast charging 33W, 50% in 31 min, 100% in 75 min (advertised).
- Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, optical); 3.5mm jack, No NFC.
For around €280, you will get a solid 90Hz OLED panel, 5,000 mAh battery, 33W fast charging, a 108MP main camera and 128GB expandable storage. The Realme 9 also runs on a recent Snapdragon 680 SoC, although that particular chip lacks a built-in 5G modem.
Having all those specs in mind, the €280 price tag seems pretty competitive. The handset shapes up to be a respectable all-rounder, making a better case than the 5G option even. But specs are not everything, so we will be going through our usual testing to see how well the hardware performs in the real world.
Unboxing the Realme 9
The device comes in a standard box containing all the usual user manuals, the appropriate 33W charging brick and a USB-A to USB-C cable used for charging and data transfer.
Realme threw in a transparent protective case as a bonus as well.
Design and handling
The Realme 9 and the 9 Pro+ are the smallest of the bunch featuring 6.4-inch displays, and we have a suspicion they share the same OLED panels as well. But more on that later. The vanilla 9, however, is slightly lighter as it features an all-plastic body, except for the display, which is protected by a Gorilla Glass 5 sheet. The handset feels nice in hand - compact, light and relatively thin at 8mm.
Although nice to touch, the back panel is a bit slippery as it imitates frosted glass. We have the Sunburst Gold in our hand, which isn't a color everyone would like, but it looks nice in person. There's a distinctive gradient showing up under the right lighting angle. Bonus points for not showing fingerprints and smudges. They are there but hard to notice.
The curves on the back meet the side frame almost seamlessly without forming any annoying ridges, while the front panel has slight curves towards the edges, contributing to the overall ergonomics.
As far as the camera module is concerned, it sticks out quite a bit, and it's easy to recognize that it's not glass. The lenses are separated with metal rings and protrude on their own. When placed on its back, the Realme 9 wobbles on a flat surface.
Going around the sides, we find the volume keys on the left alongside the SIM card tray, which can hold two SIM cards and a microSD card at the same time. That's a rare feature to have these days. The power button is on the right, while the bottom is home to the USB-C connector, the loudspeaker grille and the audio jack.
And while the buttons on the sides are well-positioned, the fingerprint reader is too close to the bottom edge of the screen. It sits too close to the bezel requiring some awkward finger gymnastics, depending on how you hold the phone.
Speaking of the screen, it has razor-thin bezels on the left and right, a decently thin top bezel and a thick chin. We weren't expecting an almost bezel-less screen in the first place, although we are pleasantly surprised by the tiny cutout for the front-facing camera. Perhaps the OLED panel allowed Realme to shrink it compared to the Realme 9 Pro, for example, which has an LCD screen.
Having realistic expectations of the build and ergonomics is key here. The budget nature of the Realme 9 doesn't allow premium materials to be used. However, we like that Gorilla Glass 5 protects the display on the front, there are no unpleasant ridges around the chassis, the screen bezels are adequately thin, and the whole handset feels compact, lightweight and somewhat comfortable in hand.
Good OLED at a good price
The Realme 9 features a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display with 1080 x 2400px resolution and supports up to 90Hz refresh rate. That may not sound much, but for a phone that costs less than €300, that's more than acceptable. And the screen quality itself is pretty good, too, even though there are no HDR certifications.
We got 455 nits in manual mode and up to 647 nits in Auto mode. Both of those numbers are in line with Realme's advertising and corroborate our expectation that the Realme 9 4G and the 9 Pro+ share the same 6.4-inch OLED panel. The results from both devices are nearly identical. More importantly, you can expect a pleasant outdoor experience even on a bright sunny day. The legibility is excellent.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, |
White, |
||
| 0 | 613 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 433 | ∞ | |
| 0.288 | 461 | 1601:1 | |
| 0.385 | 567 | 1473:1 | |
| 0 | 455 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 647 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 470 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 746 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 746 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 470 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 479 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 760 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 728 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 407 | ∞ | |
Color accuracy is just as impressive with the Natural color preset, where the average dE2000 is 2.7. However, the standard mode is quite off, way too off even. The average dE2000 is 15.5 while the maximum dE2000 value is 24.3. Hard to believe, but the blue-ish whites and grays are not the main issue. Pretty much every other color is over-saturated. So for more accurate color reproduction, use the Natural mode.
HRR control
There's nothing new to the HRR management. Just like the rest of the Realme's, the vanilla 9 tones down the refresh rate to 60Hz to preserve power when you are not interacting with the display. In video apps, including the default Gallery app, the system would go for 60Hz as you don't need the high refresh rate for videos, which are mostly 24 or 30fps.
Battery life
Like the rest of the Realmes in the 9 series, the vanilla 9 delivers outstanding battery life, record-breaking even. This is the first phone to reach such a high overall score of 156 hours with a 5,000 mAh battery. The handset scored excellently in all tests.
Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating denotes how long the battery charge will last you if you use the device for an hour of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. More details can be found here.
Video test carried out in 60Hz refresh rate mode. Web browsing test done at the display's highest refresh rate whenever possible. Refer to the respective reviews for specifics. To adjust the endurance rating formula to match your own usage patterns check out our all-time battery test results chart where you can also find all phones we've tested.
To be fair, the screen-on runtimes are similar to those of other Snapdragon 680-powered phones, but the Realme 9 excels in the standby department.
Charging speed
We are used to seeing Realmes excel in charging, but the vanilla 9 seems to be an exception to the rule. In the 30-minute charging test, the phone got only 50% of its juice back, while a full charge took about 1 hour and 16 minutes. Surely, it's not the slowest charging we've seen, but it's not competitive enough, nor does it meet our expectations.
30min charging test (from 0%)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G
100% - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro
78% - Realme 9 Pro+
77% - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
74% - Realme 9 Pro
52% - Realme 9
50% - Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
50%
Time to full charge (from 0%)
Lower is better
- Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G
0:16h - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
0:45h - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro
0:48h - Realme 9 Pro+
0:49h - Realme 9 Pro
1:14h - Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
1:15h - Realme 9
1:16h
Speaker
The handset comes with a standard, single, bottom-facing speaker, which isn't very loud, to begin with. We got just -30.4 out of the speaker, which is good enough for a "Below Average" score.
You can't expect much from the speaker in terms of quality, either. The sound is dull, quiet, and there's barely any bass coming out of it. In short, it's par for the course.
Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.
Realme UI 3.0 and Android 12
Like the rest of the Realme 9s, the vanilla option also runs on the latest Android 12 with the company's Realme UI 3.0 on top. This means that all of the Android 12-intrinsic features are on board along with Realme's custom ones.
Visually, the OS hasn't changed much. Realme UI has a colorful UI with customizable UI elements and its own iconography for the notification shade and the general Settings menu. The app drawer hasn't been tweaked, too, but we did notice a bit of inconsistency with the swipe up and swipe down gestures on the Home screen when opening/closing the drawer. A small annoyance that wouldn't bother most users.
Realme also kept the so-called Icon pull-down gesture. Swiping alongside the left or right edge of the screen crams icons at the bottom half of the screen so they can be easily reached with your thumb. The gesture is pretty reliable as well. By default, the swipe down gesture on the Home screen opens up the so-called global search, but you can always set the notification shade instead.
Home screen, app drawer, notification shade, Settings menu
When it comes to Android 12-specific features, most of them are under-the-hood changes. However, the privacy-focused efforts from Google are translated into Realme UI 3.0. The so-called Privacy dashboard is one example. It's a unified view of all your permissions and user data settings. It gives you information on which apps and how often they access your information or ask for certain permissions. It looks and feels like the Digital wellbeing dashboard introduced with Android 10.
In addition to those privacy features, Android 12 lets you choose the accuracy of your location shared with certain apps. Let's say you want to share an approximate location with some apps instead of your exact location. And when a certain app is accessing your mic or camera, a green dot will appear in the screen's upper-right corner so you'd know what's going on.
Privacy dashboard
As before, Realme UI offers deep customization of the interface by letting you choose accent colors (or a combination of accent colors), wallpapers, icons, the shape of the quick toggles, and the font and size. All of these settings are found in the Personalization sub-menu.
Personalization settings
Always-on isn't a new feature, but it's definitely a rare find in this price bracket. We are happy to see that Realme didn't omit it due to the phone being in the budget class.
Always-on display settings
Under the Special features sub-menu, Realme put the Smart sidebar and Flexible windows features, both of which boost multitasking. When turned on, the sidebar offers quick access to some of your favorite apps. The system allows you to adjust the position of the sidebar, which is crucial because it might interfere with the back gesture if you are using the standard Android gestures. Anyway, tap and hold on an app icon enters split-screen mode while a single tap opens up the app in a floating window or as Realme likes to call it, "Flexible window". The supported apps can be opened in small, draggable and size-adjustable windows.
Smart Sidebar and Flexible windows
The good old screen-off gestures that allow you to launch certain apps or the flashlight by drawing letters on a locked screen are here to stay.
Screen-off gestures and motion gestures
In the Realme labs, where the company likes to introduce experimental features, there's one that caught our eye. You can stream music to a Bluetooth headset and wired headphones simultaneously. Pretty neat if you are traveling with a friend and want to listen to the same tunes.
Realme Labs
Lastly, let's talk about the fingerprint reader. It's fast, it's accurate and reliable. This one seems to be in the right spot. Two new features are now available with the fingerprint reader, though. One of them is the built-in heart rate monitor, which seems to be rather okay in terms of accuracy in the user's resting state, but it's largely inconsistent also. A Quick launch option is now available and seems to be taken straight from OnePlus' OxygenOS. You just tap on the fingerprint scanner and hold until icons for your pre-defined apps appear. Dragging your finger on one of them launches the app in question.
While the system is feature-packed and our previous experience with the OS is predominantly positive, we can't say we had the smoothest user experience with the Realme 9. Animations often lagged, and some apps take time loading. It's not something to obsess about, but it's noticeable.
Synthetic benchmark performance
On the surface, the Snapdragon 680 (SM6225) is a modern chip. It was released in Q4 2021 and is made on a current and efficient TSMC 6nm node. Once you start reading into some of its other specs in detail, though, some major compromises start to show through. For one, its four "big" Kryo 265 Gold cores are based on the ARM Cortex-A73 from all the way back in 2016, while the Cortex-A53 base for the "LITTLE" Kryo 265 Silver ones was unveiled in 2012. Both are several generations old and can't really keep up with more potent and recent CPU cores. The Snapdragon 680 has these set up in a 4x2.4 GHz Kryo 265 Gold & 4x1.9 GHz Kryo 265 Silver configuration.
Then there is the Adreno 610 GPU. We are almost wondering how it is managing 90Hz or rather, anywhere close to 90fps at all. The Spectra 346 camera ISP and Hexagon 686 DSP of the Snapdragon 680 are nothing to write home about either and are the reason why the Realme 9 is only limited to 1080p video capture. By the way, the Snapdragon 695 is even more of a disappointment than the Snapdragon 680 in this regard since it shares this limitation, while the older and "lower number" Snapdragon 690 doesn't. But, we are getting off-topic.
Continuing the list of less-than-impressive Snapdragon 680 features, we have the X11 LTE modem, rated at Cat. 13 speeds, capped at 390 Mbps down and 150 Mbps up. Quick Charge 3+ support is also a bit old.
Without further ado, let's see how the Snapdragon 680 holds up in our synthetic benchmark test selection.
AnTuTu 9
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G
437872 - Realme 9 Pro+
416031 - Realme 9 Pro
401894 - Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
394918 - Poco X4 Pro 5G
384646 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
382902 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro
319093 - Realme 9
290097
GeekBench 5 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Realme 9 Pro+
814 - Realme 9 5G Speed Edition
795 - Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
742 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G
736 - Realme 9 Pro
694 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
688 - Poco X4 Pro 5G
687 - Realme 9 5G
610 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro
511 - Realme 9i
384 - Realme 9
380
GeekBench 5 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Realme 9 5G Speed Edition
2753 - Realme 9 Pro+
2335 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G
2225 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
2063 - Poco X4 Pro 5G
2063 - Realme 9 Pro
2020 - Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
1900 - Realme 9 5G
1823 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro
1729 - Realme 9
1601 - Realme 9i
1581
GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)
Higher is better
- Realme 9 5G Speed Edition
33 - Realme 9 Pro+
27 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G
25 - Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
23 - Poco X4 Pro 5G
20 - Realme 9 Pro
19 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
19 - Realme 9 5G
16 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro
14 - Realme 9i
8.2 - Realme 9
8.2
GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Realme 9 5G Speed Edition
28 - Realme 9 Pro+
23 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G
22 - Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
20 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
17 - Poco X4 Pro 5G
17 - Realme 9 Pro
16 - Realme 9 5G
14 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro
12 - Realme 9i
7.3 - Realme 9
7.3
GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Realme 9 5G Speed Edition
50 - Realme 9 Pro+
41 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G
38 - Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
35 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
30 - Poco X4 Pro 5G
30 - Realme 9 Pro
29 - Realme 9 5G
25 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro
22 - Realme 9i
14 - Realme 9
13
GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)
Higher is better
- Realme 9 5G Speed Edition
57 - Realme 9 Pro+
45 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G
43 - Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
38 - Realme 9 Pro
35 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
34 - Poco X4 Pro 5G
34 - Realme 9 5G
27 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro
24 - Realme 9i
23 - Realme 9
15
GFX Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Realme 9 Pro+
16 - Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
15 - Realme 9 Pro
12 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
12 - Poco X4 Pro 5G
12 - Realme 9
4.9
GFX Aztek Vulkan High (offscreen 1440p)
Higher is better
- Realme 9 Pro+
10 - Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
10 - Realme 9 Pro
8.2 - Poco X4 Pro 5G
8.1 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
8 - Realme 9
3.2
As you can see, the Snapdragon 680-powered Realme 9 falls short of the competition in pretty much all of the tests. To our surprise, even the Galaxy A33 5G's Exynos 1280 SoC is performing much better. It's quite evident that more powerful solutions can be found for the same or even lower price.
Sustained performance
To be fair, the Snapdragon 680 isn't particularly powerful and thus demanding, so we expect minimal, if any, thermal throttling in our hour-long stress test.
And that seems to be true in the first 30 minutes. There are only a few sudden drops we see on the chart before stabilizing at around 90% of the theoretical CPU performance. We then see a bigger drop as we get close to an hour and that drop represents 68% of the SoC's performance. This was just a temporary state, though, albeit non-ideal.
CPU throttling test: 30 min • 60 min
The phone didn't feel hot at any point, partially because of the plastic body, which is a bad thermal conductor.
Triple-camera setup with 108MP sensor
The Realme 9 features a fairly standard triple-camera setup but the main sensor stands out. It's a 108MP, 1/1.67", 0.64µm unit paired with f/1.8 aperture. The sensor itself isn't the biggest one around, yet it's a rare find in the current price bracket. Most of the handsets feature 64MP cameras.
The ultrawide shooter, on the other hand, is the commonly used 8MP, f/2.2, 1/4.0", 1.12µm camera while the 2MP f/2.4 snapper is used for macro photography. As usual, it's fixed focus.
On the front, we have a 16MP f/2.5, 1/3.09", 1.0µm selfie shooter.
Camera menus
Realme's overhauled software didn't reach the default camera app as it looks exactly the same as before. Swiping left or right switches between the usual camera modes while the "More" section accommodates the secondary modes, including the Expert. The latter gives you granular control over ISO, exposure, focus, white balance and shutter speed.
Camera UI
In the standard Photo mode, you will find an AI toggle for boost in colors, HDR control, three toggles for the ultrawide, main and 3x zoom.
Camera settings
Daylight samples
Main camera
The daylight samples taken with the main camera are of good quality, in general. They seem to be decently sharp, there's plenty of detail across the whole frame and the dynamic range is somewhat wide enough. Some shadows may appear darker than usual, though, especially indoors and when there's overcast. We've also noticed the strong tendency for cold color temperature. Notice how most of the samples below have an apparent blue-ish tinge. Color reproduction is rather conservative and may even be called dull in sub-optimal lighting conditions.
12MP daylight samples
The 108MP mode isn't recommended as there's some obvious upscaling going on here. Going by Qualcomm's official specs, the ISP of the Snapdragon 680 doesn't support sensors with resolutions higher than 32MP. The jagged edges of the buildings and the high amount of noise make it quite obvious that the images are upscaled to 108MP.
108MP daylight samples
3x zoom
Perhaps due to the large 108MP resolution, Realme is bold enough to offer a 3x zoom toggle as a default, even though that's a simple crop from the main sensor. And as long as there's enough ambient light, the results are not bad. The samples below seem to be on par with competing 2x zoom solutions when it comes to sharpness and the amount of resolved detail. Some highlights turn out to be a bit fuzzy at times and noise starts to creep from the shadows. Still, the 3x zoom seems to capture usable photos for your usual social media posting.
3x zoom daylight samples
Ultrawide camera
The ultrawide samples turned out to be more colorful than the ones taken with the main camera. However, the ultrawide photos are also considerably softer, have a narrower dynamic range and as a result, shadows are often crushed. Then again, the ultrawide seems to perform just as one would expect from a mid-range handset with an unimpressive ISP and the well-known 8MP sensor.
Ultrawide daylight samples
Low-light samples
Main camera camera
In low-light scenario, the main camera seems to be doing a pretty good job for the most part. The samples below are decently sharp with a good amount of detail, nice contrast, punchy colors, while noise is visible only in some darker parts of the image. There's one considerable downside, however, and that's dynamic range. Even though there's some sort of HDR algorithm working in the background, most of the shadows are crushed with little to no detail inside them while most of the light sources are clipped.
Low-light main camera samples
The Night mode allows a bit more noise at times but adds quite a bit of detail, especially in the shadows, and boosts sharpness. Light sources look better too. We definitely like the trade-off and we recommend you opt for the Night mode after dusk. Be patient, though, as the system takes all the needed shots pretty fast but stacking and processing takes a couple of seconds. The ISP is working overtime.
Night mode main camera samples
3x zoom
It's no surprise that the 3x zoom shots at night don't look flattering. They are extremely soft and have limited dynamic range, although noise is non-existent. It could be the noise suppression algorithm ironing out fine detail. The Night mode, however, bears a significant improvement in overall quality. It's limited to 2x zoom by default, but we are impressed with the results considering the price range and the fact that it's a crop zoom.
Low-light: 3x zoom • 2x zoom Night mode
Detail is restored along with sharpness, noise can only be spotted in certain situations, contrast is great, colors are accurate and dynamic range is decent enough.
Ultrawide camera
The ultrawide is more of the same. The standard Photo mode isn't up to the snuff and the Night mode can't make up for the extremely soft nature of the standard samples. Dynamic range is largely improved and colors look nice, but it's arguable how presentable these images are, even for social media purposes.
Low-light ultrawide camera: Normal • Night mode
Once you are done with the real-life examples, take a look at our Photo compare tool for some pixel-peeping and see how the Realme 9 fares against the competition.
Realme 9 vs. Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G and the Samsung Galaxy A33 5G in our Photo compare tool
Portraits
Portraits look pretty solid with little to complain about. Dynamic range is wide, the level of detail is good an overall sharpness is more than satisfactory. Color reproduction seems to be on point, although some colors look more lively than they actually are. Even in more challenging lighting conditions, overall quality remains stable.
Portrait samples
As far as edge detection goes, we've seen better and we've seen a lot worse too. It may sometimes look a bit rough around the edges when a more complex background is introduced.
Selfies
The selfies look quite solid. There's some apparent fain grain but overall images look sharp, have the right colors, wide dynamic range and look quite decent in sub-optimal lighting conditions as well.
Selfies: Normal • Portrait
Video recording
The handset supports 1080p@30fps video recording due to the limited capabilities of the ISP. So even with the main camera, you can only do 1080p videos. Not many competitors can record 4K videos in this price range, though, as the most recent Snapdragon 6xx chipsets have incapable ISPs.
Unfortunately, even for a 1080p video, the quality is unimpressive. There's general softness in the frame, we can see the same tendency for cold color temperature and colors are washed-out.
As it's usually the case with ultrawide cameras, the video is extremely soft and has even more limited dynamic range - there's barely any detail in the shadows as a result. The good news is that colors are more lively and contrast is good.
Electronic stabilization is available in 1080p mode, which works okay but it's not much different from the advanced Ultra Steady mode, which is supposed to mimic an action camera.
Once you are done with the real-life scenarios, take a look at our video compare tool to see how the Realme 9 stacks against the other phones we've reviewed.
1080p: Realme 9 vs.Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G and the Samsung Galaxy A33 5G (2160p) in our Video compare tool
Competition
The Realme 9 is a good all-rounder, which even stands out from the crowd with some features. One of them is the excellent (given the price bracket) OLED panel, and the other two are the 108MP main camera and extra-long battery life. The rest of the hardware is pretty much par for the course - a 5,000 mAh battery, three cameras on the back and a Snapdragon 680 SoC, which in practice isn't very different from the rest of the SoCs in the same lineup.
Its biggest omissions are the NFC feature and 5G connectivity. And while the latter might not be a big deal, the lack of NFC chip might pose a problem in most countries where contactless payments are a thing. Interestingly enough, for €280, the Realme 9 faces some in-house competition as well.
The Realme 9 Pro, for example, sells for even less - €260 and so does the €250 Realme 9 5G. They both have the advantage of running more powerful chipsets and support 5G connectivity, but they definitely lack the Realme 9 4G's viewing experience. And the Realme 9 5G has less base storage and slower charging, too. Overall, user experience isn't much different, though, so it depends on how important NFC and 5G are to you.
Realme 9 Pro • Realme 9 5G • Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G • Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
And in case you don't like LCD panels but are in the market for 5G and NFC, luckily, there's something for everyone. The Samsung Galaxy A33 5G and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G are pretty similar solutions. They come with their own drawbacks, as usual.
The Galaxy A33 5G's Exynos 1280 might be sub-optimal but has more horsepower under the hood. Sadly, the base RAM is just 4GB, charging is just about the same, while battery life falls short of the Realme 9's. On the other hand, the A33 5G will grant you a set of stereo speakers, IP67 dust and water protection, a slightly brighter OLED screen and Samsung's One UI software, in case you prefer that particular skin overlay. It also undercuts the Realme 9 by €20.
As for the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G, it runs a slightly more powerful Snapdragon 695 (just like the Realme 9 Pro and the Realme 9) but also has a faster and brighter 120Hz OLED display. Its 108MP main sensor is bigger too. In addition, Xiaomi's offering boasts a set of stereo speakers, basic water and dust protection, a glass build, and faster charging. Its only disadvantage is the base 64GB storage. And all of that will set you back just €250.
Verdict
Arguably, the Realme 9 is one of the sensible options in the family as it runs overall balanced hardware while being one of the cheapest of the bunch. It's only about €20 more expensive than the Realme 9 5G and 9 Pro. Its bright OLED panel, long battery life and somewhat decent camera performance, thanks to the 108MP main sensor, make a pretty strong case.
However, the lack of NFC, 5G connectivity and the underpowered Snapdragon 680 will most likely steer away some potential buyers, and the competition can accommodate those needs while matching the Realme 9 4G's feature set and adding a set of stereo speakers as well as some sort of ingress protection.
Pros
- Bright enough 90Hz OLED.
- Lightweight and rather comfortable design.
- Record-breaking battery life.
- Dependalbe main camera performance, at day and night, nice 3x zoom.
- Feature-rich Realme UI 3.0 on top of Android 12
Cons
- No NFC and 5G connectivity.
- Main camera daylight photos have a strong blue tinge
- Video recording isn't up to snuff either.
- There are options with more powerful chipsets.
- Occasional UI lag.
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