realme 9i Review

realme has been growing the realme 9 lineup for a while now and if you think that the realme 9 Pro series isn’t the right one for you then you might want to take a look at the realme 9i, the more affordable smartphone in the series but still got some features including the 33W charging and also a Dynamic RAM

realme 9i Review: Design and hardware

The design of the smartphone is different from the realme 9 Pro series as the realme 9i features vertical streaks at the back that looks like the smartphone does have a texture or emboss but once you hold it, you know that there’s none. But despite that different design, it still attracts some fingerprints on the back and it’s still a glossy plastic one.

The ergonomics is pretty much similar to other realme smartphones and the curves make the smartphone perfect for holding in one hand and again, this one’s plastic so this one is on the lighter side. 

The smartphone still comes with a side-fingerprint scanner which is a breeze to use along with the volume rockers of the smartphone on the other side. 

As for the ports, we got here a USB-C port below that supports up to 33W of charging and then there’s the headphone jack beside it along with the speaker grill and on the side, the smartphone features the power button while on the other side is the volume rocker of the smartphone.  As for the speakers, it was just fine and useable but definitely not impressive.

realme 9i Review: Battery life

As for the battery, the smartphone features a 5000mAh battery and again, there’s 33W of fast charging. It might not be the fastest in the family but it’s definitely faster than the previous generation of the smartphone. As for the benchmark, we got 19 hours and 29 minutes in PC Mark Work 2.0 Battery test of the smartphone which is excellent.

realme 9i Review: Display

For the display of the smartphone, it features a 6.6-inch IPS display with a Full HD+ resolution and also a 90Hz refresh rate. For 2022 standards, that doesn’t sound impressive but it works nonetheless. The colors are fine and it’s very useable when I was outside.

realme 9i Review: Software and performance

The smartphone runs on realme UI 2.0 based on Android 11. Again, not an impressive feat but will definitely do its job well and of course, it comes with some bloatwares that you won’t probably need.

As for the performance, the smartphone is swift in our weeks of use and we didn’t had any problems with it. The smartphone uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 processor inside along with 6GB of RAM but you can even expand the RAM by up to 5GB more using the phone’s storage. Not the most powerful but it can get you through the day. 

In our benchmarks, we got these scores from the smartphone:

In our gaming test, we were able to play heavy games on the smartphone including Genshin Impact but you definitely have to tone down the graphics to the lowest settings to make the game playable and enjoyable. 

realme 9i Review: Camera

For the camera of the smartphone, it comes with a 50MP main camera along with a 2MP macro camera and also a 2MP depth sensor. While for selfies, there’s the 16MP selfie camera inside. The camera of the smartphone isn’t the best for its price range but the results that we got from the smartphone are definitely better than I expected. The details are fine and the colors that I got from the smartphone are pretty good.

The selfie camera of the smartphone needs some work though as its lacks color accuracy and also it lacks dynamic range.

realme 9i Review: Verdict

The realme 9i is a decent smartphone for those people who are looking for an Android smartphone that can get you through the day. Decent battery, software, camera and design  but the smartphone uses a Snapdragon 680 processor inside so don’t expect too much in the performance department. And no, there’s no 5G inside on this one.

The realme 9i is now available for Php11,990.