realme 9 Pro Plus 5G Review

This year, realme has been keeping up its paces and releasing it’s refresh and improvement over with the realme 9 series of lineup, which all of the models on this level were all cater mostly towards putting in mid range processors but with flagship like camera quality, and of course, improving the overall user experience.

We will be looking at the realme 9 Pro Plus today in this review, a much upgraded and the bigger brother of the realme 9i, which we had review as well not too long ago.

Unboxing

Upon unboxing, you will get the following as below

• realme 9 pro+ 5G Phone
• USB A to C cable
• 60W Fast Charger
• Soft Casing
• SIM Pin ejector
• User Manual/Quick Start Guide

Design

The realme 9 Pro+ 5G design is curved edged based which realme uses a method of design known as Light Shift Design that is exclusive to the Blue color, however we did find out that the Green color review unit that we got also be able to shift its color to blueish with glitters, but not too significant but still amazes us on the overall finishing that is unique yet giving the elegance feel that you are not holding an affordable level pricing device. Be aware of the glossing finish that you will need to take some care of cleaning it. Realme does provide a translucent casing in the box to protect the beauty of the phone.

The camera portion is an island of bump consisting of 3 camera sensors and a flash. When putting it flat on a table, it definitely doesn’t sit flat, but since it comes with a soft case, fitting it on the realme 9 Pro+ 5G will be just nice and supports it just fine.

On the right hand side, there is a power button, while the top houses a noise cancelling microphone. On the left side there is a pair of volume button and the DUAL SIM card slot while below there is a speaker, microphone, USB C Port for data/charging and a 3.5mm headphone jack. All of the phone sides are made of polycarbonate chassis with 7.9mm thickness. Over to the camera design, the same color applies to the side of the phone and the bottom/top part as well with glossy, starry finishing touch to it.

The realme 9 Pro Plus 5G comes in two colors, Sunrise Blue, Aurora Green and Midnight Black which carries the weight of 182 Grams.

Display & Audio

Over the display portion, the realme 9 Pro Plus 5G is fitted by a compact 6.4 Inch FHD+ 90Hz Super AMOLED screen with Gorilla Glass 5 that supports peak brightness of 600nits. Display is fairly good with visible color accuracy and contrast level even using outdoors. It has adaptive refresh rate display which means when the screen is sitting idle, it will run at 60FPS, once you start your browsing and work or play, it will automatically adjust up to 90FPS. Depending on your daily usage and just a handful of games does support 90FPS gameplay. Other features include a 360Hz touch sampling rate which is an advantage when it comes to the accuracy and sensitivity over the touchscreen when scrolling and gaming with the phone. On top of that with the density of 411PPI, you will enjoy it with its compact form factor with good experience. Audio side, it has dual speakers located one on top and bottom creating stereo listening experience that is fairly good only during various audio environment tests with Dolby Audio enhancements.

Camera

Over to the camera portion, the realme 9 Pro Plus 5G rear camera consists of one 50MP Sony IMX766 wide camera with PDAF and OIS, one 8MP ultra-wide camera and a 2MP macro lens, followed by a LED flash. Pictures taken are well accurate with clarity and details captured properly and with portrait mode the shots can be easily taken without much of adjustments done to it with a fair amount of light. Night shots outcome however is just reasonably OK with amount of shadows can be differentiated with some noises on the pictures. The selfie images are bright during day time as well which is powered by a 16MP wide angle lens which also portrait mode capable.

A few shots were taken over different modes as above and the result works as intended. A sample of 10x zoom, normal, 50MP, Bokeh and automatic shots taken as well as part of the review.

On video recording you get support up to 4K at 30FPS, stutters are visible while recording but it’s very minor with acceptable details during recording. FHD video is awesome with good stabilization support on 60FPS. Dual video mode is also supported which you can capture both front and rear recording at the same time which is much suitable for VLogging and social media uploads.

Performance

Performance wise, the realme 9 Pro Plus 5G is powered by the Mid range MediaTek Dimensity 920 5G Octa-Core Processor, 256GB of internal storage and 8GB RAM.

Operating system side is run by Android 12 with its new ColorOS 12 that bring several improvement toward UI fluidity, with RAM extension up to 7GB as long you have enough internal space remaining. Call quality test shows no issue with a choice of calling via VOLTE or WOWIFI depending on your Telco Carrier. The phone does come with 5G connectivity support, WiFi 6/AX, Bluetooth 5 and NFC. Testing over WiFi connection gets up to an average of 1200MBPS transfer speeds, ensuring blazing fast speed for multimedia and streaming. If you have a WiFi 6 router, you will be able to take all the advantages without issues.

Over to the gaming side, this phone can take it on par like most of the mid range hero phones recently released with good framerate with still some occasional stutter, however this can be resolved with lowering some of the graphic settings to keep games like Call Of Duty to maintain between 60FPS and above. Flagship games such as Genshin Impact will just work fine with app switching constantly and load times were pretty fast as well.

Above is the Benchmark performance, which delivers an expected scores on its category between its graphics, and processor performance. The realme 9 Pro Plus is suitable for those seeking for a Medium premium range performing phones.

Battery performance wise, you will get around 8 hours of it, a mix of calls, surfing, email, streaming, and a few Call Of Duty matches. Turning on the battery saving mode under 20% will get you around extra 2 to 3 hours of conservative usage. Heat is not too noticeable as the phone does come with a Vapor Chamber cooling system. The realme 9 Pro Plus comes with a 60W SUPERDART fast charger, which will charge up the phone to 100% from 10% in around 45 minutes average. 

Specifications

Verdict & Conclusion 

The realme 9 Pro Plus 5G is a phone that is generally for those who are seeking for mobile content creation with good set of camera setup with some leisure photography on the go, eSports and casual gaming with a good screen to body ratio meant for social media purpose while just paying for just a fraction of the price only. While on the productivity side, it works well on emails, calls, some document views and multitasking between it. This phone will also benefit in the future with the support for 5G with your preferred operator in your area when most towers are online real soon.

Pros

• A 90Hz Refresh Rate Display
• Good AMOLED display

Cons

• No MicroSD card slot expansion

Pricing and availability

As of this time of writing, the phone will be available at all authorised stores and online from RM1599 onwards starting 12th March 2022.