realme 9 Pro Review

realme has finally launched their follow up to the realme number series and this time, we now have two smartphones in the realme 9 Pro series and we’re gonna review one of them – the realme 9 Pro. The smartphone brings a lot of new improvements compared to the previous generation and yes, we now have a brand new processor for the smartphone.

realme 9 Pro Review: Design and hardware

First, the design of the smartphone is new but the design language seems familiar. First, there’s the light shift design on the smartphone, a feature we’ve seen before on other realme smartphones and yes, it does attract some fingerprints since this one is glossy. This design actually reminds me of the realme 6 and the realme 7 series. 

The light shift design on the smartphone is cleaner and better but it’s only present on the Sunrise Blue version of the smartphone. The one that we got comes in Aurora Green and I love the glittery look along with the aurora feel at the back of the smartphone. It isn’t the most premium feel on the smartphone but it’s definitely clear that this one feels good to the hand and it’s very ergonomic to the hand. Nonetheless, you would probably use the included jelly case with the smartphone.

As for the ports, the smartphone only comes with a USB-C port which is what we expect already and no, there’s headphone jack on the smartphone so you can still use your handy dandy headphones with you. 

For the fingerprint scanner, the realme 9 Pro comes with a side-fingerprint scanner and it’s pretty fast whenever I use it.

realme 9 Pro Review: Display

The smartphone is sporting a 6.6-inch IPS display and this display will come with a 120Hz refresh rate so it gives us a smoother experience however, games won’t be able to maximize its refresh rate.  

The display of the realme 9 Pro offers bright and vivid colors on the smartphone and even when using the smartphone outside won’t be a problem at all. There are slight bezels on the sides but there’s a noticeable one on the chin of the smartphone. But it’s still below the realme 9 Pro+ in terms of quality.

realme 9 Pro Review: Battery life

When it comes to the battery life, the realme 9 Pro didn’t disappoint just like its brothers and sisters. There’s a 5000mAh battery inside and boy, the smartphone can last really long as my usage can last up to a day and a half on the smartphone and in our PC Mark Work 2.0 Battery Test, we managed to get a score of 19 hours and 15 minutes which is pretty good.

As for the charging, the smartphone supports 33W charging so charging the smartphone is really fast even if you forgot to charge the smartphone overnight, that won’t be a problem anymore. It would be better if the smartphone had a 60W fast charging just like its brother

realme 9 Pro Review: Software and performance

For the software of the smartphone, it still runs on realme UI 3.0 based on Android 12, and honestly, I don’t have any problems with it as the software of the smartphone is smooth and the UI of the smartphone is really user-friendly and easy to the eye. But of course, it still comes with some bloatwares but it’s not really that annoying as you can uninstall some of them. Combined with that is the 120Hz refresh rate on the IPS display which gives a smoother experience on the smartphone.

As for the performance, the smartphone is running on Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 processor which is just new but it performs really well. There’s 5G inside and sometimes, I was getting up to 300MBps speeds at hotspot locations.

The performance is very different from the Pro+ brother and I find this one a little bit lacking. For the benchmarks, we’re getting pretty good performance here. Check out the benchmarks that I got on the smartphone

When it comes to gaming, any game that I run on the smartphone, runs pretty well but of course, don’t expect the best performance on the smartphone. Games like Mobile Legends won’t be a problem on the smartphone however with PUBG Mobile, 

Overall, the performance of the realme 9 Pro is what we can expect from its hardware. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 performed just fine for basic and light games but it’s not as powerful as the MediaTek Dimensity 920 processor on the realme 9 Pro+

realme 9 Pro Review: Camera

 For the camera of the realme 9 Pro, it comes with a 64MP Main camera along with 8MP ultra wide-angle lens and also a 2MP macro lens. In our test, the camera of this smartphone is also a farcry from its bigger brother. One of the possible reasons is the different processor which gives us a different post-processing in our photos. 

While we find some of the shots produce just the right colors, some of them are softer for its price range and it does lack a little contrast in some of our shots. The dynamic range of the smartphone needs some improvement as well however in night shots, it was better and they’re brighter and more vivid. Check out some of the shots that we took using the smartphone:

realme 9 Pro Review: Verdict

The realme 9 Pro is definitely an attractive smartphone in terms of aesthetics thanks to its light shift design. The looks might be the same with the realme 9 Pro+ but the performance of this one is way different along with its camera. The performance of this one might be slower but it’s still decent enough for modern games and light tasks so no problems on that one. Despite the misses with its camera, the realme 9 Pro did perform well on our night shots.