Recently, Realme launched its Realme 5-Series smartphone, and here we are going to address the Realme 5 smartphone. A Complete Review of a Smartphone With a Quad Camera Sensor Under ₹10,000. Is this the new benchmark for the budget segment, or do we need more things? We are going to find out in this article.

The design of the device is not new, but it has an improved laser holographic finish. The rear panel is manufactured using a polycarbonate material, looking like a mirror. Which is not a deal-breaker for me, but there is that. The device is quite heavy in terms of size and weight, but the harrowing part is that if you push some pressure on the rear side.

Realme 5 Phone 2 Full Review: Problems Before Buying in Real Life?

Then you can also hear some creaks near the sides of your fingerprint sensor and the camera. Build quality on the device is not to be considered good. You have to buy a good case for your real estate.

Additionally, Realme also includes humidity protection, which means closing or opening near the SIM tray, battery, spike grills, or other gaps and is said to be tightly sealed with O-rings and rubber gaskets. Moreover, Realme 5 can handle splashes but does not have an IP rating, I guess.

It comes with a 6.5-inch LCD with a waterdrop notch on the top of the display. Realme said this has a mini drop notch, a smaller version of the waterdrop notch. But the Waterdrop Notch is a Mini Version of the Notch and a Mini Drop Notch. The Mini Drop Notch and the Regular Notch, which is already a Mini Version of Notch, honestly…

The device is said to have an 89% screen-to-body ratio, but the chin and nose do not look as narrow. To protect your display, use Corning Gorilla Glass 3+ on the top. However, the display features HD resolution. Where the display does not look as crispy and sharp, you will not find any pixelation either. Similarly, the colours on the display look good on the screen, and you would not find any sort of oversaturation.

In outdoor conditions, you will find some problems. The brightness of the display is not as good, and probably the dimness and unlikely legibility are not good. Not to mention, this is the first smartphone to have a quad camera setup on the rear panel. Here, the rear camera is equipped with a 12 MP primary sensor, followed by an 8 MP ultra-wide + 2 MP depth, and a 2 MP macro lens.

We are expecting a lot from the device’s camera, but while testing, we found that the device’s 12MP shooter does a good job in daylight conditions. The images manage to capture good colour and saturation but look slightly overexposed. The dynamic range was not impressive either. Nothing to worry about, but we don’t find the images particularly sharp.

During low-light conditions, the device suffers frequently, like any other smartphone in this price segment. Meanwhile, if you use nightscape mode, you can capture images that look sharper and significantly better than in normal mode.

While using a wide-angle camera, you will not notice any colour shifting issues, but the images will look overexposed sometimes. Not to complain about because having an ultra-wide-angle Leon at this price is a bonus. Moving to a 2 MP depth sensor, this work is quite impressive at capturing portrait images that look blurry and look natural. And edge detection was impressive as well. The thing is that images using portraits look softer than normal images.

Now, talk about the fourth lens, which is the macro lens used to capture short-distance images. The macro lens allows you to capture tiny objects. To capture best, make a distance of 4 cm. Don’t expect a lot because it has a 2 MP sensor, so despite its capability to capture macro shots, the shot doesn’t look impressive as it lacks detail.

So I found the macro lens to be rather gimmicky most of the time. I prefer to use the primary sensor and use a 2x zoom for better shots. Talking about zoom capability, you can zoom here up to 5X. Zooming on the device is completely digital, which means you will lose detail with every single zoom.

On the front, you get a 13MP selfie sensor packed inside the mini-drop. I am completely satisfied with the selfies, with enough details and good colours. Here, you will not find any sort of overexposure. Even the portrait selfies are good, but with software optimisation, the edge decision does not look perfect. Still, it is usable most of the time.

You can use this device to record video in 720p, 1080p, and 4K resolutions at 30 fps. Although there is no stabilisation, you will find stabilised 720p and 1080p videos. Considering the colour and the phone’s price, the video quality and sharpness also look good.

The latest benchmark for budget phones?

In terms of performance, the device is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 SoC coupled with triple-memory variants of 3+32GB, 4+64GB, and 4+128GB. Unlike Realme 5 Pro, you did not get any UFS storage, which means you have EMC storage, so there is no ultra-fast read and write speed. You can expand storage using a dedicated microSD card slot up to 256GB.

You can play Pubg Mobile at low settings; when playing games at high settings, you may find some stutters. Which is understandable considering the price point. On the software front, the device runs on Android 9.0 Pie-based Custom Skin ColorOS 6 out of the box. The ColorOS is not the best UI made for Realme, nor is most of the bloatware. Further, most of these apps can be uninstalled; this is not a big issue.

The phone has Widevine L3 L3 protection, which means you can use streaming services in HD. If Realme provided the L1 certification through an update, that would be great. To power the device, it packs a massive 5000mAh battery, and using a low-resolution HD display would run the battery longer. The ColorOS battery optimisation is impressive. I guess the battery would be usable for two days of normal use. The Realme 5 barely uses any battery when it is on standby, which we find genuinely impressive.

To refill the juice, you get a 10-watt charging adapter bundled inside the box. To charge the device completely, it takes around 3.5 hours. For security, you get a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, which is quite fast, biometrically accurate, and reliable. Face unlocking using a selfie camera is pretty fast but not as secure. The bottom speaker is not as impressive at all.

The Realme 5 starting price in India is ₹9,999 for 3/32GB, ₹10,999 for 4/64GB, and Lastly ₹11,999 for 4/128GB with Crystal Blue and Purple. Thanks for being with us. Write your opinion and feedback in the comment section below. Stay tuned for more updates in the future.