Realme 5i: Great Battery, Good Budget Smartphone

Packed with a 5,000mAh battery, the smartphone houses Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 AIE octa-core chipset. After trying the Forest Green variant, let's see how it fared. The first obvious thing to notice is the design. The overall look and feel is good

Photo: Getty Images (Representational Image)

New Delhi: Chinese handset maker Realme, which is growing exponentially in the Indian smartphone market, recently launched the '5i' smartphone with quad-camera rear setup that gives some tough competition to rival brands in the sub-Rs 10,000 price segment. The Realme 5i comes in a single 4GB RAM/64GB configuration variant for Rs 8,999 in Aqua Blue and Forest Green colours. Packed with a 5,000mAh battery, the smartphone houses Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 AIE octa-core chipset. After trying the Forest Green variant, let's see how it fared. The first obvious thing to notice is the design. The overall look and feel is good. The device packs an AI quad-camera setup with 119-degree, ultra-wide-angle lens (8MP), main camera (12MP), portrait sensor (2MP) and ultra-macro lens (2MP), as well as an AI-driven selfie camera (8MP). The quad-camera at the rear alongside the LED flash adds an extra charm to the device. The images came out well -- both indoor and outdoor -- but lacked sharpness, which is the only disappointing part. The smartphone comes with 4K video and 240 fps slow-motion shooting with electronic image stabilisation (EIS) that supports wide-angle and ultra-wide angle shots. We took some videos and the smartphone fared well. On the lower-left corner at the back, the Realme logo is placed vertically in style. The fingerprint sensor also worked decently. While the right edge of the smartphone has the power button, the left one has volume rocker keys and hosts a dual-SIM slot. You can expand the storage by up to 256 GB by using the dedicated microSD card slot. On the front, the device has an 8MP camera, with a 6.52-inch drop-notch display with HD+ resolution. The front panel is protected by Corning Gorilla glass shield. On full brightness, the display worked well. However, in direct sunlight, it wasn't up to the mark. One interesting feature is that the smartphone offers reverse charging, which essentially means that it can be used to charge other devices. The lower edge of the phone has dual speakers, micro-USB port and 3.5-mm standard audio jack. Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 processor, the smartphone runs Android 9.0 with ColorOS 6.1 operating system (OS). The 5,000mAh battery helps the smartphone last for over a day. While using multiple applications, we didn't find any problem. Basic daily tasks like switching between apps and using multiple social media applications were smooth. Playing games like PUBG Lite (lighter version) was also smooth. Conclusion: With 5000mAh battery, quad-camera rear setup, reverse charging and new design, the new Realmi 5i looks promising and the overall experience was good in the affordable segment.