REVIEW: realme 9 Pro+ has all-day battery life

O realme 9 Pro + arrived recently and brought a great combination in its package of resources, with great battery life, good cameras, efficient processor and of course, a very elegant — and flashy — design.

The new smartphone from realme bring the processor MediaTek Dimensity 920 5G that manages to optimize the use of battery and apps like I've never seen on any other smartphone Android, becoming one of the most interesting options in this regard. The rest you can find out in the full review.

Design

The first thing that caught my attention in the realme 9 Pro + it was your back. The version received was Aurora Green (or Verde) and well, it has an effect as if it were in a galaxy and is very beautiful.

There is also a Midnight Black version (Black) and a special version called Sunrise Blue (Blue), which has a special effect mixing the colors of the sunset - you can see more details in our realme 9 Pro+ launch story. Unfortunately this version is not available in Brazil and there is no forecast when it will arrive.

In terms of dimensions, the realme 9 Pro + stands out for being the thinnest smartphone produced by the company, with a thickness of 7,99 millimeters. Still on its backside, luckily that giant, weird “Dare to Leap” logo — seen on previous company releases — is gone and we only have a small, simple logo from the company. realme in the back left corner.

On the front, in addition to the 6,4-inch screen, we have a small hole in the upper left for the camera and a small space for the second speaker. At the bottom, we have a USB-C input, P2 output (3,5mm) for headphones - a miracle -, microphone and speaker output.

The buttons are separated between the sides of the device, with the power/screen lock button on the right side and the volume buttons on the left. This idea pleased me at first, but in practice it was not so positive. The problem is not in the idea of ​​the buttons being each one on one side, but in the height where they are. I caught myself taking a screenshot by accident several times because the power and volume buttons are at the same height.

Finally, the contents of the box realme 9 Pro + it's quite interesting. Although it does not contain a headphone jack, here we have the smartphone with a film already applied, a silicone case and an excellent 65W charger that uses the technology Superdart da realme.

Fabric

The screen realme 9 Pro + is, to say the least, interesting. The company invested in Super AMOLED technology with a refresh rate of 90Hz, an excellent combination that brings fluidity and vivid colors to the smartphone. For me, smartphones don't need more than a Full HD screen and that's what realme 9 Pro + delivery easily. It has a 20:9 aspect ratio and 411 ppi, as well as offering up to 600 nits of maximum brightness.

All these options guarantee a very interesting experience for movies, videos and even photos. Your wallpapers will look cooler thanks to the Super AMOLED screen and your movies will be more interesting thanks to HDR10+.

A curious detail is that it brings a biometric sensor under the screen. So far, nothing new. The big news is that this sensor is able to measure the user's heartbeat. The function ends up being beaten for being in the depths of the device's configuration, but it's something cool and works very simply.

Battery

When we talk about smartphone battery, we have a certain inconsistency, after all we have good results on entry-level smartphones and some bad results on more expensive smartphones.

The good news is that the realme 9 Pro + manages to deliver impressive results when it comes to battery performance. I got used to charging all my smartphones from the last few years at least 1 time a day and with the realme smartphone, the big challenge was to get it over 20%.

Without exaggeration, there were test days where I managed to reach almost 8 hours of screen on and practically 2 days without needing an outlet. With this result, you may be thinking “ok, it holds well, so it takes time to load”. The other good news is that the 4500mAh battery charges in about 44 minutes with the amazing charger. Superdart 60W that comes in the box.

The fact that it already comes with an excellent charger in the box is wonderful, but I found it a little strange that the smartphone was not able to “talk” to my 65W GaN charger. Maybe it's some very specific realme protocol to work with their chargers, but here's a warning. Check out some tests:

Performance

O realme 9 Pro + came equipped with chipset MediaTek Dimensity 920 5G (6nm) octa-core, which features the Mali-G68 MC4 GPU. To support this set, we have 128GB of UFS 2.2 storage and 8GB of RAM.

This set of specifications made me very happy and is perhaps the ideal for a smartphone for my type of use. O MediaTek Dimensity 920 5G is the ideal processor for you looking for a smartphone that will work very well for all tasks without crashing and will even run some games.

Thanks to its 90Hz screen, I was able to have a very pleasant experience when browsing social networks and the system itself. When it comes to games, it all depends on what kind of player you are. If you're like me and play just to pass the time on the bus or when you don't have internet, he'll handle it without any problems.

Now, if you want to play things that demand a lot from the graphics, the realme 9 Pro + can leave something to be desired. I tested some games like the classics Subway Surfers e minions rush and these ran perfectly. At the free fire I also got a very good result, even with everything maxed out, including the FPS.

Things got really tough for the realme 9 Pro + when I left for Genshin Impact. In this game, the low graphics setting was already too much for the device. If you don't mind playing a game with no texture and not very good performance, you might still have fun with Genshin Impact on realme smartphone.

With all this put here, this was easily one of the devices I liked the most, mainly because of its system that is very beautiful and intuitive, and luckily it didn't make me miss any features. To put the graphics to the test, I used 3DMark and the device scored 2291 points, making it more on par with smartphones from a few years ago, such as Galaxy S9 e S10e, from Samsung.

System and Interface

Testing a realme smartphone was something I had been thinking about for a long time and luckily the balance is very positive. The interface mixes the most “pure” in the Android conventional with more original features that we see only on devices with root, which totally alters the device system and requires a more in-depth knowledge of the subject.

O realme 9 Pro + comes with the Android 12 hey interface really UI 3.0. As I mentioned, it mixes Google's Android stuff with original stuff and that's great, as it allows greater control of functionality and customization on your device.

Some examples I can put here involve the status bar. Unlike other Android smartphones, the realme system allowed me a much more advanced level of customization in the status bar. I was able to set different battery icon formats, time format, as well as choosing whether icons like Wifi, bluetooth and others will be visible or not at the top.

In terms of usability, the really UI 3.0 it has no secret and allows you to navigate by gestures or buttons. In both ways, everything worked efficiently and fluidly. Thanks to Android 12, we can use a part of the storage as RAM memory, so we managed to get a total of 11 GB, with 3 GB borrowed from the storage.

A point that bothered me, and apparently occurs in the other smartphones of the brand, is the feature Always On, which takes advantage of the Super AMOLED display. The resource is available on realme 9 Pro +, and does not work even when configured correctly. What makes the user experience worse is that, because it doesn't work, it also doesn't allow the fingerprint reading to work with the screen off, it's necessary to first activate the screen with the side button, and then unlock the device with biometrics.

From what I've researched, this is an issue with realme UI 3.0 and should be fixed in future updates, but so far, at least on the model I've tested, nothing has changed yet.

Another system related issue is that some apps, like Netflix, are not available on the Play Store. I also had no success when trying to use the Google Pay, which states that it is not possible to add my credit card because the device is “with root or some other change“, even if you are only using Android with the official interface of realme. Hopefully some future update will fix this, but there is no guarantee.

Camera

From now on, I've become a big fan of smartphone cameras. realme. The company invested in a sensor IMX 766 da Sony on its rear camera — the same used in high-end smartphones like the Realme GT2 and Xiaomi 12 — causing 45% more light to enter than the sensor on the iPhone 13. The rear camera set features the following lenses:

• 24MP 50mm Wide Camera with f/1,8 aperture (1/1.56″, 1.0µm, PDAF, OIS)
• 16 MP 8mm Ultrawide Camera with f/2,2 aperture (1/4.0″, 1.12µm, 119º)
• 2MP Macro Camera with f/2,4 aperture

This set manages to deliver excellent photos in good light conditions, and with the night mode, we get miraculous results in low light, I would say. Although it brings an exclusive camera for the macro function, it is the one that stands out the least and the results are only average.

What really surprised me, however, was discovering that the camera's “2x” mode is digital and not optical, and I still got excellent results. The level of detail is very good and in the right conditions, it can deliver the best photos. Check out some tests:

The selfie camera is a 16MP Wide camera with an aperture of f/2,4. Although it is not the best selfie on the market, it is sufficient for what it proposes, and in good light conditions it delivers a great level of detail. Here are some photos taken with her:

Finally, we have the videos. O realme 9 Pro + can record up to 4K on the rear camera, but not at 60FPS. This can only be done in 1080P. On the selfie camera, you will be able to record up to 1080P, but limited to 30FPS. If your goal is to use your smartphone to create content, it may not be the most suitable.

Audio

O realme 9 Pro + delivers a good audio experience. It comes equipped with two technology-enhanced stereo speakers. Dolby Atmos. The sound is loud and good, but it distorts a bit with louder sounds like guitar solos, for example.

This does not spoil the experience in any way, but as the Dolby Atmos can only be customized on the headphones around here, we are a bit hostage to the smartphone's default mode.

The placement of the speakers is something I really like and has become an industry standard. Fortunately around here, both seem to have a balance in sound, avoiding a bad experience when playing, for example.

Finally, the realme 9 Pro + it still has the conventional input of headphones (P2), and it is up to you to use a bluetooth headphone or not. The audio in this case will depend more on your phone than the device itself, which has bluetooth 5.2 and supports the aptX HD CODEC.

Completion and availability

O realme 9 Pro + is one of the best intermediaries currently on the market. It delivers an excellent set of cameras, amazing battery life, and an operating system that, in particular, has become one of my favorite versions of Android.

Although it is excellent in almost everything, it suffers from some software problems, such as not having support for Netflix or Google Pay - which understand that the device was rooted — and the way Always On Display that doesn't work. These are things that can be fixed with an update, which are not expected to happen.

The new smartphone from realme can be found at Americanas for R$3.499,00 in up to 10 installments on your credit card. It's a good launch price, but one that could go down and get very interesting in the coming months.

Technical specifications

Córdoba	realme 9 Pro +
Brand	realme
Internal memory	128 GB
RAM memory	8 GB
Display Type	Super AMOLED
Screen size	6,4"
Weight	182 grams
Loudspeakers	Stereo with Dolby Atmos
headphone jack	3,5 mm
Screen Resolution	Full HD (1080 x 2400 pixels)
Connectivity	Bluetooth 5.0, WiFi 2,4GHz and 5GHz, WiFi 6G
Processor	MediaTek Dimensity 920 5G (2x 2.5GHz Cortex-A78 + 6x 2.0GHz Cortex-A55); 6nm
Memory	8 GB of RAM 128 GB Internal Storage
Operational system	Realme UI 3.0 (based on Android 12)
Number of Chips	Dual SIM/Nano SIM
Rear cameras	Home: 50 MP, f/1.8, 24mm (wide), 1/1.56″, 1.0µm, PDAF, OIS; Secondary: 8 MP, f/2.2, 119˚, 16mm (ultrawide), 1/4.0″, 1.12µm; depth sensor: 2 MP, f/2.4, (macro).
Sensors	Fingerprint on canvas Heart monitoring sensor under the screen Accelerometer Proximity Gyroscope Compass Noise Reduction
battery capacity	4500mAh with 65W charger included in the box
Price and availability	BRL 3.499 at Lojas Americanas in up to 10 installments