Hello everyone, AndroidMir is with you and today, despite the difficult world situation, we are reviewing Realme 5i.
Realme 5i is an interesting novelty from Realme, the international budget brand Oppo and BBK holding. What is so interesting about it? Namely, the balance of the necessary characteristics and a small budget.
In short:
- Powerful Snapdragon 665
- Large screen 6.52″
- Memory kit 4/64
- Large 5000 mAh battery
- ColorOS Proprietary Shell
- I’ll say right away that the smartphone was purchased with my own money at the world premiere on Aliexpress at a promotional price.
And now let’s take a closer look at this device and honestly judge whether it is worth the money or not.
Realmi 5i package and appearance
Despite the fact that the beauty of the design of a box contributes the least to the use of a smartphone, it is still an important psychological factor, especially in creating a first impression. For Realme 5i, they made a very bright box with the inscription of the same name and nothing more. Under the cover, we are greeted by the inscription: “Hey, welcome to Realme family” – also nice.
The equipment is extremely scarce, by current standards, there is neither even simple silicone case, nor glass for the screen. Unless the film is already pasted on the screen, but most likely it is very short-lived.
The kit also includes a large power supply for standard 5V and 2A and a MicroUSB cable. Well, there is also the classic waste paper in the form of instructions and a clip for the SIM card tray, which, by the way, is full-fledged for 2 SIM cards and a memory card, respect for that!
There are 2 color options on sale – blue and green. To be honest, I’m not a fan of green technology, unlike green plants, but these are the trends now. That’s why I chose the blue specimen.
It is immediately clear that the smartphone is not compact, but nevertheless it fits perfectly in the hand, the thickness is not at all big, especially considering the battery capacity. The buttons are perfectly pressed without intercepting the phone in your hand, and this is very important, with such dimensions.
The back cover is made of plastic with a corrugated wave-like coating. Not to say that it is very rough to the touch, but very pleasant. At the same time, no traces, fingerprints, etc. are almost visible on it, except that dirt, such as food crumbs and the like, can stick better.
There is also a fingerprint scanner on the back panel, in a convenient place, slightly recessed deep into the case. And there is also a huge long block with 4 camera eyes and a small flash nearby.
Display
The front panel of the device, unlike the main competitor, Redmi 8 and Redmi Note 8, doesn’t have any inscriptions and it is completely black when the screen is off. Unless, except for the “droplet” of the front camera. The display itself has a size of 6.52” and a resolution of HD+ or 1600 by 720 pixels.
Despite the screen’s low resolution for its size, graininess is not conspicuous, especially if you don’t look closely. This disadvantage is probably not for everyone, but it also brings with it some advantages, which I will mention below.
The maximum brightness is very high, in the sun you can easily see any picture. The minimum brightness is not bad, but I have seen lower. At angles, the screen looks perfect, no distortion.
Sound
The main speaker is located on the bottom edge and may well be covered by the hand while playing games or watching videos. The volume of the speaker must be given credit, it is impressive. But really good sound can be heard only at 40-50% volume or lower, everything above loses detail and some frequency.
Through headphones, the sound is standard for Snapdragon 665, it is not bad, we can call it even good.
Characteristics and stuffing
Speaking of the performance, it directly competes with Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 here, because it has the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 processor with 8 cores divided into 2 clusters, more powerful and more energy efficient for simple tasks.
The same amount of RAM is 4 GB LPDDR4X, but the main drive without a choice is 64 GB, but if you have the opportunity to add a memory card, it’s very good.
However, the graphics chip – Adreno 610, can show a better result, thanks to a lower screen resolution, because at the same time twice less pixels need to be processed. You can evaluate gaming performance by watching our video review below the page. We tested the Realmу 5i in PUBG, Mobile Legends and CoD Mobile.
Camera
The module with cameras here is very long, not yet a trendy square, it is just an elongated block with 4 cameras, a couple of which are almost useless.
So, the main module is a 12 MP Sony IMX386 with an aperture of ƒ/1.8. Such a matrix was put in the flagships 2 years ago, which means that we can expect acceptable image quality.
The standard 8MP wide-angle lens with strong distortion at the edges of the frame, it is better to use it when necessary and in good light, but the feature is very useful, especially in a limited space or when shooting architecture.
Photo + HDR
The rest of the 2 MP modules for blurring the background and for macro are more marketing than useful things. Especially the macro camera, miserable 2 MP… It’s better to take a picture with the main one and zoom in, but this is just an opinion.
Communications and networks
It was also interesting to see how networks and interfaces work. The first thing that surprised and surprised me unpleasantly was the problem with detecting 5 GHz Wi-Fi networks, it turns out that they are simply not supported. It is strange, but not terrible.
Bluetooth as expected, version 5.0. NFC was not delivered. The GPS is present and works fine, but the cold start leaves a lot to be desired. Satellites are picked up with a delay and the accuracy is not the highest.
Autonomy
We got to the sweet, a 5000 mAh battery. Here the smartphone overlaps almost all of its shortcomings and more than compensates them. From a full charge, you can safely use your smartphone for a couple of days, even in active mode.
When watching Youtube videos at 100%, Realme 5i loses 6% brightness per hour. No miracle happened of course, but a good firmware optimization and a 25% increase in capacity shows an excellent result in comparison with competitors.
Firmware
I really liked Realme’s proprietary shell – ColorOS 6. It is convenient, understandable and very beautiful, not only thanks to the icons and the beautiful notification curtain, but the animations themselves look very nice.
Also, all the standard applications, such as file manager, calculator and calendar, have been replaced with branded ones. They are also comfortable and beautiful. No wonder Oppo is so popular in China, they have already managed to hone their OS on millions of their users, and now we can appreciate their efforts.
Summary
It’s time to take stock of the review. Yes, Realme 5i is definitely not an uncompromising smartphone. In exchange for the low cost, the manufacturer sacrificed some functions and characteristics. But it is worth noting that such compromises are expected by users, they need a good battery, they need good firmware and a powerful processor with plenty of memory, and all this is in Realme 5i. And for those who do not like such a compromise, you should add some money and look towards the new Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S or Realme 6 or 6 Pro.
Finally, my personal opinion, if I had small amount of money in my pocket for a smartphone, it is likely that I would choose Realme 5i. According to the first impressions, the smartphone upset a little, the one thing is missing, the second one is a little wrong. But after a day of use, all this was forgotten due to non-use, but the good impression of the main things, such as a good screen, the filling and a pleasant shell, remained. That concludes our review of Realme 5i.