Realme 9 Pro+ marks the company’s foray into the sub-Rs 30k budget category for the first time, pitting it against the likes of the Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge (review), OnePlus Nord 2 (review), Poco F3 GT (review), Vivo V23 and more. The Realme 9 Pro+ boasts solid features and showcases its prowess, especially in the performance and camera departments. It truly gives us a glimpse of how Realme has finally come of age with a phone in the Realme number series being placed in the upper echelons of the mid-range segment. Some of the highlighting features of the Realme 9 Pro+ include the Dimensity 920 chipset, support for 60W fast wired charging and a 50MP main camera that uses a flagship-grade Sony IMX766 sensor, previously seen on phones like Nord 2, OnePlus 9RT (review), Vivo X70 Pro and Reno 7 Pro (review), to name a few. As you will notice, most of these phones are priced above 35K whereas the Realme 9 Pro+ starts at Rs 25,000 and is a solid contender for getting a value for money tag. But what makes the Realme 9 Pro+ stand out from the crowd and why should you even care about the Realme 9 Pro+? I will try and answer all that as we take the Realme 9 Pro+ for a spin through our standard test process. Here’s how the Realme 9 Pro+ stands against the competition.
The Realme 9 Pro+ is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 920 chipset which we have earlier seen on phones such as the Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge and Vivo V23. It is being offered with upto 8GB RAM paired with upto 256GB storage options to choose from. It runs on Realme UI 3.0 which is based on Android 12. Realme has also put a vapour chamber inside the 9 Pro+ to ensure that it runs cool in demanding scenarios like gaming.
The general day-to-day performance of the Realme 9 Pro+ really impressed me. This phone showed no signs of lags or jitters in animations and I was easily able to multitask, switch between the apps and use them effortlessly. Having said that, the Realme 9 Pro+ does come with its fair share of bloatware with pre-installed apps like Amazon, Booking, Daily Hunt, FinShell, Josh, LinkedIn, Moj, ShareChat, Snapseed and SoLoop. Most of these apps can be uninstalled but in my opinion, why even put your end-user through this hassle when you can earn bonus points for keeping the apps minimal.
The Realme 9 Pro+ also comes with an in-display fingerprint reader which doubles up as a heart rate monitor. There’s an option in the Settings to measure your heart rate via the fingerprint reader and it takes 5-10 seconds to display the current heart rate which is a neat feature to have if you want to keep a track of your heart rate.
In our standard testing procedure, the Realme 9 Pro+ demonstrated its performance prowess taking a marginal lead over the incumbents Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge and Vivo V23.
In AnTuTu and Geekbench tests, the Realme 9 Pro+ got better scores than the Hypercharge and V23 even though all three phones carry the same SoC. This means that the system optimizations by Realme for the 9 Pro+ work well in offering a stable performance that you can depend on.
In the PCMark test which runs an intensive workload test including video editing, web browsing and more, the Realme 9 Pro+ got a great score which means it is able to handle those tasks without breaking a sweat.
Next, we ran a CPU throttling test to check whether the CPU cuts back on performance under intensive tasks. Here, the Realme 9 Pro+ throttled to 94% of its maximum performance which means that there is some kind of optimizations in place to keep the phone running cool by throttling the performance.
The Realme 9 Pro+ demonstrated a solid gaming experience for a mid-range phone and received great scores in GPU tests like 3DMark and GFXBench. While it manages to outperform phones like 11i Hypercharge and V23, the Snapdragon 778G and Dimensity 1200 phones in this budget range get better scores in these benchmark tests.
We used Gamebench to record gameplay metrics and check the gaming performance of the Realme 9 Pro+. In COD Mobile, Gamebench recorded 59FPS at 99% stability with the game running at High graphic quality and Very High frame rates. There is an option to run the game at Max frame rate but doing so lowers the overall graphic quality.
In BGMI (Battlegrounds Mobile India), Gamebench recorded 40FPS at 100% stability with the game running on HDR graphics and Ultra frame rates. Meanwhile, Asphalt 9 runs at 30FPS at 100% stability.
Now all of these numbers translate into a well-rounded gaming experience wherein I did not face any lags when landing or during intensive gunfights in either COD Mobile or BGMI. My gaming experience was great on the 9 Pro+ and I feel it has the potential to outperform the competition in some gaming titles.
The Realme 9 Pro+ comes equipped with a 4,500mAh battery that supports 60W fast charging. In my time with this phone, the battery lasted for around a day and then some on a single charge and under basic workload like taking calls, sending a text on WhatsApp, watching videos on YouTube, listening to some music on Spotify and more. The phone provides an excellent battery performance though it will take a hit on playing games or watching movies. In our video loop test, the Realme 9 Pro+ went on for over 21 hours and while playing a round of COD Mobile the battery dropped by 6%.
When it comes to charging, the Realme 9 Pro took around 45 minutes to fully charge from 1-100% which is great but the 11i Hypercharge does it the best.
The Realme 9 Pro+ gets a triple camera stack on the back headlined by a 50MP camera that uses the Sony IMX766 sensor followed by an 8MP ultra-wide camera and a 2MP macro camera. Now we have previously seen this sensor on phones like the OnePlus 9RT, Nord 2 and Oppo Reno 7 Pro, to name a few and I was left really impressed by the pictures taken from the 9 Pro+.
Being a flagship sensor, Realme has been able to optimise and fine-tune the camera stack as well as the camera app making it super easy to take a good picture. Add to it features like support for OIS for super steady videos or the updated street photography mode which brings in a long-exposure mode and 90’s pop filter, making it a versatile phone for trying different photography styles.
During the day, the Realme 9 Pro+ is capable of taking some sharp, bright and eye-pleasing pictures that you might just as well upload on Instagram without any major touchups. The main camera has a good dynamic range and can identify texture or other minute details effortlessly. However, the colours tend to be ever so slightly saturated which is a result of AI-based optimizations. You will be able to notice this difference in pictures taken from the main camera in binned mode and the high-resolution 50MP mode. It’s not very noticeable and most users will be fine seeing a slightly vibrant picture.
The main camera also creates some nice portrait pictures with an artificial bokeh effect. While the main camera does a decent job with natural depth of field, the portrait mode lends an artificial bokeh that identifies the edges and can perfectly differentiate between the foreground and background.
At night, the main camera does a great job of capturing light, sharpness and colours by default. Enabling the night mode boosts the brightness, clarity and adds textures that might just look overprocessed at times.
The ultra-wide camera creates decent wide-angle pictures. There’s noticeable barrel distortion in some pictures and there’s little sharpness as you move away from the centre. As it is a low-resolution sensor, it isn’t able to bring in more light thus often underexposing the subject.
The macro camera is there just to make up the numbers and is a hit-or-miss affair. That being said, if you time it right you might just end up with some good close up shots.
Realme sent us the Sunrise Blue colour variant of the 9 Pro+ which has a Photochromic layer on the rear panel. The 9 Pro+ is Realme’s first phone that has a colour-changing back panel that shifts from a shimmering blue colour to red when held under sunlight or UV light. We saw a similar implementation of a photochromic layer on the Vivo V23 Pro (review) which changes colour from red/golden to shades of cyan.
On the Realme 9 Pro+ however, the implementation seems a bit off since the back of the phone is reflective which doesn’t let the colour change properly as advertised. I also tried using a UV light to change the colour but it isn’t as effective as how the V23 Pro changes colour. At this point, it remains a visual gimmick and nothing more.
Coming to the build of the Realme 9 Pro+, it remains pretty solid with a slim profile that I liked. It measures 7.99mm and weighs 182 grams which Realme claims is the slimmest phone in their number series yet. This phone does not feel hefty in the hand and has great ergonomics that ensure you put minimal effort while holding the phone in your hand. The flat-edge design gets rounded off at the corners to give you a comfortable grip but the back panel remains slippery, attracting fingerprints and smudges. Most people will likely prefer using it with a case and thankfully Realme provides one in-the-box.
The Realme 9 Pro+ features a 6.4-inch Full HD+ AMOLED display that offers support for upto 90Hz. Even though the 9 Pro+ is arguably a step above the 9 Pro, the 120Hz adaptive refresh rate is reserved for the latter which is a bummer. Otherwise, the 9 Pro+ offers a great HDR10 certified display for you to enjoy videos, play games and the experience gets even more immersive with the stereo speakers on board.
While the display supports HDR10 and even HDR10+, some of the review units seeded by Realme are not compatible with Netflix. However, Realme has assured us that the retail units will be Netflix certified. Apart from that, the display can run 1080p HDR videos with much ease and reproduces the tiniest of the details so you can rest be assured of a great viewing experience on the Realme 9 Pro+.
The Realme 9 Pro+ is a great camera phone for its asking price of Rs 24,999. While you may get an alternative in the form of more powerful phones like the Poco F3 GT or the Nord 2, Realme has made significant advancements in mobile photography. If a camera phone is what you desire, the 9 Pro+ will undoubtedly serve you well.
It gets a lead in the performance department over the 11i Hypercharge and Vivo V23 and is capable of offering a sustained performance. The battery life is at par with the competition and you can get it quickly charged. Though, not as fast as the 11i Hypercharge.
Realme has provided a great mix of features that complement each other, be it the 90Hz AMOLED display and the Dolby-tuned stereo speakers or the 50MP main camera with OIS support. All of this and more, make the Realme 9 Pro+ a value for money offering.