realme 9 4G review, has everything users really need
realme 9 4G review
Realme's "Number" series smartphone family has expanded with the arrival of a new mid-range product. The realme 9 4G is a device designed to satisfy a specific slice of users, who have no interest in being the first to adopt new technologies but prefer to rely on well-established, solid and reliable products, without emptying their wallet.Definitely different from its brother realme 9 5G, how has the realme 9 4G fared in these weeks of testing in anticipation of our review?
A familiar design but no less pleasant for this
What changes is the production process that the company has used to create these beautiful wavy highlights under the rear shell. The brand claims that to obtain what it calls Ripple Holographic Design it was inspired by the "desert light" and it is nice to confirm, also on this occasion, how realme always feels free to experiment by bringing unique and original smartphones to the market.
| ); } A "plasma atom-coating" process was used, which involves the use of plasma electrons to transfer trillions of atoms onto a surface to create a gradient color film as the basis of the holographic design with ripples, and a subsequent "UV nano-imprinting" system, which involves the spreading of this sheet of UV gel material over a corrugated mold and subsequent UV pressing for the permanent application of the customized 3D design on the rear body of the smartphone.
Interesting technical chatter aside, realme 9 4G to the test of facts is therefore a light smartphone with that pinch of originality capable of attracting attention from the window of a shop or in a crowd.
The arrangement of the photographic module (made of glass) and of everything it contains is reminiscent of several other products of the brand, making it recognizable as part of the company's portfolio to anyone who knows the previous successful devices such as realme GT Neo2, realme GT 2 or realme GT 2 Pro.
A precise display that cares about your eyes
The 6.4 ″ AMOLED panel stands at the front protected by a completely flat plate of Corning Gorilla Glass 5. It is a display capable of reaching 1000 nits of peak brightness and 90Hz of maximum refresh rate, useful for making animations and scrolling of long feeds or lists more fluid than on classic 60Hz displays.The FullHD + resolution of 2400 × 1080 pixels is excellent on this diagonal, the pixel density of 409 ppi allows the images to be defined and the text to be clear.
There are 10240 levels of brightness and this allows realme 9 4G to adapt perfectly to the environment in which it is located. There is no shortage of display color calibration options, a dark mode and a blue light filter to protect your eyes even at low brightness.
The fingerprint reader is optical. Positioned in the lower area of the display, it is also able to record the heartbeat, even if unfortunately (like many other products capable of making this reading) the data are quite approximate and cannot be used in third-party applications.
The power that is enough, the efficiency you need
In a world where all smartphones of all price ranges are adapting to the evolution of mobile networks by supporting with antennas and modems dedicated to 5G, realme instead preferred to skip the implementation of the expensive solution on foot.According to the company, there is still room on the market for products based on the now solid and performing 4G network / LTE, even considering the still not full 5G network coverage in most geographic areas. This has allowed realme not to have to unnecessarily increase the cost of this smartphone for itself and for end users, but also to reduce the weight.
Under the body we find the reliable Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 4G chip, made with a modern 6nm production process and consequently very efficient. Suitable for carrying out all the daily tasks without batting an eye, it is even able to sustain some game sessions without suffering too much from the lack of power in demanding titles, as long as you reduce the graphic details on the screen a little.
Even under stress realme 9 4G does not heat up, shows constant and reliable performance as well as being a pleasure to use. It happens from time to time, if left idle for hours without being used (for example if you are working and you have to store it in a locker), that it takes an extra fraction of a second to regain its reactivity after unlocking. This is probably due to the energy management of the Qualcomm chip, which is put into a state of deep rest to save as much battery power as possible without ever giving up push notifications, which are always delivered on time.
Smartphone Geekbench 5 Geekbench ML 3DMark PCMark Work 3.0 Speedometer 2.0 Jetstream 2 Single-core Multi-core CPU GPU NNAPI Wild Life Wild Life
Stress Test Performance - - realme 9 4G 381 1590 192 248 182 447
( 2.70 fps) 450 - 449
(99.8%) 8009 38.83 (± 0.33) 45234 realme Pad Mini 300 1191 168 217 113 471
(2.80 fps) 471 - 468
(99.4%) 8376 34.79 (± 0.23) 45844 realme 9 Pro + 814 2301 178 657 N / A
(app crash
during the test) 2302
(13.8 fps) 2302 - 2296
(99.7%) 10720 19.2 (± 0.22) 21749 Honor X8 379 1531 185 252 216 446
(2.70 fps) 450 - 447
(99.3%) 7803 39.11 (± 0.23) 42751 Oppo Reno7 383 1654 191 248 185 450
(2.70 fps) 451 - 449
(99.7%) 6730 3 8.54 (± 0.26) 45055 In Italy realme 9 4G is available in two variants which, however, share the internal memory of 128GB (expandable), while they differ in the amount of RAM. We sincerely believe that the basic version with 6GB is more than enough for the type of performance that the SoC allows, the 8GB version does not make much sense even given the possibility of virtually expanding the RAM up to an extra 5GB via software (possible thanks to a kind of memory called "swap" in technical jargon that borrows unused storage space).
The only speaker positioned on the underside of the smartphone has a fairly high volume, even if at maximum volume the sound quality drops slightly. Up to about 75% of the power the speakers perform well and there are no obvious flaws to point out. The 3.5mm jack is still there.
Impressive autonomy
The battery of realme 9 4G has the same capacity as that of most modern flagships, 5000mAh. Combined with the low consumption processor it is able to guarantee a really good battery life! In our standard test performed with PCMark Work 3.0 Battery, display at 50% brightness and connected to a Wi-Fi network, realme 9 4G broke all records among the smartphones we tested, with a score of 19:16 hours.The 33W Dart Charge quick charge allows you to bring the battery back from 0% to 50% in just 31 minutes, while it takes about 75 minutes to reach 100%. It is not the fastest charging in the world but it is fast enough to be useful in case of need and at the same time the Li-ion cell is large enough not to require a full charge to get several hours of extra life.
There is no wireless charging of any kind, however in this price range this is to be expected and not a real problem.
Camera nine times more accurate
The photographic sector chosen by realme is quite in line with the other products on the market. However, the company managed to find the budget to mount the brand new 108MP Samsung ISOCELL HM6 sensor behind the main lens (f / 1.8). Compared to the Samsung ISOCELL HM2 it is able to use all the pixels for focusing (PDAF) resulting in a precision, according to realme, 9 times greater. This revamped mid-range "super-sensor" also captures 1.6 times more light in the dark.In standard shooting mode, realme 9 4G uses the pixel binning technique that is now we know well, grouping 9 pixels in 1, to capture a greater amount of light and obtain 12MP shots with more accurate colors and less noise. This sensor also allows a digital zoom up to 3x practically lossless (a crop is made on the main sensor), which is why a telephoto lens has not been installed.
A slight vignetting effect and a loss of sharpness are visible. angles of images captured in dark environments, but other competitors in this market segment do not do better due to the type of plastic lenses used. The noise reduction could be better, but the ISP of the Snapdragon 680 4G chip is unfortunately not at the level of those of a top of the range. The natural blur (bokeh) given by the large sensor when capturing close subjects is pleasant, you will probably hardly ever have to use the appropriate portrait mode.
The camera secondary is an 8MP ultra-wide angle lens with f / 2.2 lens with a wide 119 ° field of view. The quality coming from this sensor is ok, it is not surprising but it does not disappoint the expectations of the price range. There is a 2MP f / 2.4 macro camera that they believe has extremely limited utility due to the low resolution. In case you want to use it, however, it is better to have it than to miss it.
Selfies are provided by a 16MP sensor with an f / 2.5 lens. This camera has an excellent dynamic range, to allow you to shoot even against the light, and in daylight it produces pleasant photos, even if with somewhat flat colors. In the dark, the quality drops quickly, however.
Here, too, we find the new Street Photography 2.0 shooting modes and the 90s pop filters announced with the arrival of realme 9 Pro +. The manual mode is very well taken care of and it is even possible to take advantage of the focus peak function, absent even on much more expensive products and which will allow you to always choose the correct focus.
Video recording is limited to resolution 1080p at just 30 fps with both the front and rear cameras. It is ok for video calls, social stories and quick memory videos, however it is not suitable for those who do a lot of vlogs or record videos to watch on the big screen in the living room or on a PC.
Few surprises on the software side, both for bad and for good
By now we are used to realme's software, we have really tried many products of the brand. The customized version of Android 12 that we find on board realme 9 4G is called realme UI 3.0 and is very close to the stock version of the Google operating system, even if the kinship relationship with Oppo's ColorOS is undeniable.The number of pre-installed applications is minimal and even those present are easily uninstalled in a few taps. The software is always responsive and the animations fluid, although from time to time if put under stress the smartphone can make some microscopic hiccups limited by the power of its processor.
The company updates its smartphones quite often, it is therefore possible that several OTAs will be sent during the life of this device to solve bugs and implement new features.
Conclusions
Although realme 9 4G may appearing to the eyes of the most geeky users as a modest smartphone, it is a product with excellent quality for the price at which it is proposed, above all thanks to the launch offer on Amazon which lowers the requested amount from 279.99 euros to only 249 , 99 euros (from 17 to 21 May).The version with 8GB of RAM in my opinion does not justify the cost of 299.99 euros, which would have been a great price for a variant with 256GB of memory internal, which unfortunately does not exist.
The technical specifications are solid and well balanced, the autonomy is great, the display is pleasant and, a plus for many, the smartphone is light and relatively compact. It could have done a little better in the audio sector with an amplified ear capsule that acts as a second speaker and slightly better image processing.
However, I am convinced that realme 9 4G will become one of the best-selling smartphones in the its price range and users who decide to buy it will all be more than satisfied!
