realme 9 launched in India : Pricing, specifications and lot more

 realme 9 launched in India

Highlighting features at a glance :

RAW THOUGHTS 

Well continuing the number series, realme has finally launched it's new smartphone in the lineup, realme 9 4G. realme has already covered the market with realme 9 5G series in February 2022.

About the specifications, we felt that the SoC (processor) could have been more better according to the price point realme has brought this in the market. We all know about the limitations with SD 680, no 4K/1080p 60fps videos also only 25-30fps low settings in BGMI. Though day to day task should be a breeze for SD 680 and we have seen this in the earlier devices.

Overall for the performance part we strongly feel it's an absolute downgrade from it's predecessor realme 8, which brought MTK Gaming SoC G95.

Only advantage which SD 680 brings is of power efficiency, with its 6nm architecture battery life should be very impressive when compared to 12nm G95 (realme 8).

Another important point is with the optics of realme 9, official website of Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 mentions no support for 108MP cameras but that's the question how did realme managed 108MP with SD 680.

Display protection has been upgraded to GG 5, which is good.

Colour options available

We liked the new Sunbrust Gold colour which actually looks very attractive.

Detailed Display information

90Hz and GG5 with a 360Hz touch sampling makes this display worth the price and watching Netflix, Amazon Prime etc would be a good experience.

Security & Biometrics 

realme 9 brings an in-display fingerprint scanner which feels modern and to the date to use. realme 9 is the only latest smartphone to provide in-display scanner to the consumers in this budget.

Cameras

realme 9 comes with a triple camera setup in the rear side, 108 (Samsung sensor)+ 8 (Omnivision)+ 2 MP. 8MP is the ultrawide sensor here, we'll skip the macro lens here. On the front we have a Sony IMX 471, 16MP shooter which is a good sensor for the price.

Battery & Charging

realme 9 has a 5000mAh battery which should last easily for the day even if you are a power user. Coming to the 33W power brick, this should recharge the device within an hour, as we have seen this with realme 9i and other realme devices which shipped with 33W chargers.

3.5mm Jack & OS

realme 9 comes with the Dirac sound chip &Hi-Res AUDIO certification through the 3.5mm jack, we have seen realme devices performing very good in terms of the audio output through the 3.5mm jack.

At least realme 9 came with Android 12 and realme UI 3.0 out-of-the box, the trend of pushing out dated Android 11 with realme UI 2.0 was seen by realme and oppo in the recent times.

realme UI 3.0 needs for optimisation for a 90Hz display, as we have seen realme 9i jittering here and there with SD 680.

Our Verdict 

With the card discount of 2000 INR (HDFC cards), at the price of 15,999 for the base model (6+128 GB) we feel price could have been better as it's 2022 and 5G should be expected on phone when you are paying above 15,000 INR.

Overall realme 9 4G brings a good package of performance (not for gamers) & cameras, specially if you watch a lot of content in your smartphone realme 9 could be a good choice if 5G does not matter to you.

There are lot of 5G alternatives in the market at the same pricing such as POCO M series, Samsung F23 5G, realme 9 5G etc. You'll have to decide whether a good overall package matters to you or presence of 5G is the key point for your purchase.

- ByteStop Media, 2022