Realme 9i After 14 Days of Usage: Honest Review

Realme introduced their midrange device Realme 9i in the Nepalese smartphone market recently. Realme 9i is the successor of Realme 8i placed in the Realme 9 series. In the Realme 9 series, it is a more affordable option than Realme 9 itself. This smartphone marks the significant features of snapdragon 680 processor,50 MP camera, 90hz display and 5000mAH massive battery. Compared to the Realme 8i, it has upgraded its processor but has degraded its display frequency rate from 120 Hz to 90Hz. According to its price, it seems to be a more reliable option to purchase. Now the question is, can it outshine the competition and stand out? What do you think, would you consider buying this? 

Today we are going to review this smartphone from our on-hand experience for a week. And here is my honest opinion about this device. Let’s get started.

Realme 9i Price in Nepal and Availability

Variants	Price	Colour
4GB+64GB	NPR. 24,499	Prism Blue, Prism Black
6GB+128GB	NPR. 27,999	Prism Blue, Prism Black

The Realme 9i has a starting price of NPR. 24,499 for the base model with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. It also comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage that is priced at NPR. 27,999. The phone is available in Realme stores and retail stores.

Specifications:

Dimensions & Weight	164.4 x 75.7 x 8.4mm, 190g
Display	6.6” IPS,90Hz maximum refresh rate, FHD+, 180Hz touch sampling rate
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 680
Rear Camera	50 MP, f/1.8, PDAF 2 MP, f/2.4, (macro) 2 MP, f/2.4, (B&W)
Front Camera	16 MP, f/2.1, In-display
RAM	4GB/6GB
Storage	64 GB / 128 GB expandable up to 1TB through external memory
OS	Realme UI 2.0 ( Based on android 11)
Sensors	Ultra-fast side fingerprint sensor Light sensor Magnetic induction sensor Proximity sensor Acceleration sensor
Other features	USB Type-C Dual Microphones 3-Card Slot Dual Speakers

Unboxing of Realme 9i

The Realme often packs its devices in the eye-catchy yellow box and so it is. you can get a 33-watt big power adapter and type c cable for charging. Also, there is a soft transparent case and documentation inside the box.

Design

To be very honest with you, I am always get fascinated by the design of Realme devices. Realme is always appreciated for its design of smartphones and its continuation to their trend. When I get a device in my hand first, I surely did wow for its sleeky design and its camera bump with a cool colour. Talking about its colour variant, it comes with two colour codes: Prism Blue and Prism Black

Currently, for review purposes, I have been using prism blue colour and it is very satisfying to see. The body of Realme 9i is made of plastic and rear panel you will see it’s columned like when lights fall on it. Being its real panel mostly glossy, you will get your fingerprint printed on it but it’s not like a giant magnet to your fingerprints, but I would like to prefer cleaning occasionally. The camera module is in the upper left corner with a bump. It has two big cameras and a small camera along with a flashlight in its bump collectively. It’s a different feel to see its camera compared to other Realme devices.

The Realme 9i features a bigger display with a punch-hole camera in the top left corner. The borders are thin and smooth. Also, if you look sideways, you will get a fingerprint scanner mounted on the power button on the right-hand side and the volume rockers are on the left. The power button is placed up to the middle portion, so your finger matches easily there, and volume buttons are also placed very nicely. Quite a bit upper you will get a SIM tray with a pinhole. The bottom portion of the phone is covered by the charging port at the centre, 3.5mm audio jack, and speaker grille and at the top, it has a mic. It feels very handy and light in hand despite having a massive 5000 mAH battery.

 Display

As we know, Realme 9i features a 6.6” IPS display with a maximum 90 Hz refresh rate and FHD+ ( 2400 x 1080 Pixels). I am disappointed at this refresh rate as Realme already had 120Hz of refresh rate in its preceder Realme 8i. Also, you can switch its refresh rate to 30Hz, 48Hz, 50Hz, 60Hz but I think you won’t. The touch sensor work with a 180 Hz sampling rate. 

 Adding my experience, the touch sampling is fine. The phone feels brighter while using it indoors. Also in the matter of brightness, there is no issue while using the phone outside or under direct sunlight. You can manually adjust brightness or set it in auto mode, which also works fine.

Performance

Talking about performance, Realme 9i comes with Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 4G ( 6nm mobile platform ) chipset. This processor is a better choice than Realme 8i which sports Mediatek Helio G96 (12 nm). To test its technical performance, we perform some standard benchmarks test on Realme 9i to see how it stands against the competition. In the AnTuTu score, Realme 9i stands better than 72% of smartphones whereas Geekbench 5’s single-core and multi-core tests managed 383 and 1533 points respectively. 

From the benchmark scores, we can say that this phone is not incapable. More than that, real-life experience matters most. We have played plenty of games with good 3D graphics and watched movies and series too. The phone runs smoothly at 120fps and we can’t complain about the multitasking ability. To be honest, Realme 9i is not lacking in performance and we are quite happy with the experience given by this device at this price range.

Furthermore, it runs with Adreno 610 GPU and when we played movies and series, we felt no lacking in performance. 

And the Realme 9i is available in two configurations that are 4GB RAM + 64GB and 6GB + 128GB. Both are LPDDR4X RAM. it also offers the UFS 2.1 storage and also offers external memory of up to 1TB.

Camera

This time the camera housing is quite different. It houses two big cameras vertically and a small camera sideways of them in a rectangular bump. Finalising, it has a triple camera setup. The primary camera is a 50MP with a wide-angle lens which is followed by a 2MP macro shooter, and a 2MP B&W lens. For selfies, there is a 16MP selfie camera.

Talking about more photography features, it has 50MP mode, night mode, Panoramic view, Expert, Timelapse, Portrait Mode, Slow Motion, Super Text, Ultra macro, HDR.

Also in video recording, it supports 1080P/30fps video recording,720p/120fps slow motion, 1080P/30fp 720P/30fps Digital Zoom mode. When we record videos, we found average results.

Camera Samples

Portrait

Selfie

macro

Panaroma

Night Mode

Battery

The Realme 9i gets its fuel from a 5000 mAH massive battery with 33-Watt fast charging. The charging speed is very good and the battery life also is good. This phone could last me more than 2 days with my daily usage. It takes around one hour to full charge.

Software

The Realme 9i  runs on Realme UI 2.0 based on Android 11. The phone is smooth and Realme UI is also not bad. But the bloatware may take your time to uninstall irreverent apps when you first set up the phones. But one of the good parts that Realme UI offers is, it allows you to install third-party icon packs, through which you can customize your home screens.

Verdict

In my experience, this phone is satisfactory at this price point. Overall the performance is considerable. Probably you can get quite upset considering its refresh rate as Realme 8i already wrapped 120 Hz. With the camera option, you will get considerable photos but there are many supportive modes. you will get battery performance very good with this device. Realme UI is also not bad but you may entangled with lots of bloatware.

 Pros and cons 

Reasons to buy	Reasons not to buy
Good battery life	Lots of bloatware
Good design	Average display quality
Pricing	No 5G support