For me last year's realme 8 series wasn't very impressive if you go head to head with the redmi note 10 series which still looks fabulous in 2022 with offers or with out offers but this year realme going all out with the realme 9 pro plus and definitely beats the redmi note 11 pro plus very convincingly on the camera and performance segment and somewhat at giving the latest android version as well.
Camera Performance:
let's talk about it first cause that's the favourite thing for me in this particular smartphone and I was completely blown away to see the hardware specs in 25k segment, so we are getting a primary rear 50MP sony IMX 766 with OIS yes that's the show - stopper here and I would like to mention the 8MP ultrawide sony IMX 355 as well which I think performance a bit better than outher 8MP sensors. So the main sensor performs like a charm in day ligh, low light and dark conditions with out a doubt and very consistent as well which for me was very important, I also compared the samples with my favourite OnePlus Nord 2 and find out exposure control and night mode was better on nord2 (slightly) front camera was also bit better on nord 2 and videography was also better on nord 2 in terms stabilization and colours but here I was comparing it with a under 30k segment smartphone which is arguably the best in terms camera performance but still going head to head. It will be unfair to say that realme 9 pro plus is the best camera phone under 25k price segment as there are smartphones like samsung galaxy M52 5G, Xiaomi 11 lite ne 5G and may be upcoming iqoo z6 pro but I thing having OIS will be biggest differentiator. And OIS works for videos as well_ does come handy for low-light images and nightmode immensely but for videos I would say it's ok_ish. Front camera was 16MP sony IMX 471 (again) and what can I say it was decent enough and nord 2 was better again.
Software:
So after a lot of praise let's talk about some issues_ the software issues, realme UI 3.0 based on android 12 is unpolished good that it's comes with the latest software out of the box but I think the experience would have been better with realme UI 2.0 which is way more optimised atleast as of low or till the time realme fixes everything with software updates, realme UI 3.0 asthetics and design is not something to talk about, for me 2.0 was better and animation lags and gitters are there, 90hz doesn't feel very responsive (smooth scrolling is no more a Beta function at this moment) heart rate measurement through optical fingerprint scanner is something to appreciate. Realme 9 pro plus supports 5 5G bands and 4G+ carrier aggregation, (2CA maximum I have seen with jio) during travelling about 300kms with jio as my primary I have seen the device to struggle maintaining 4G+ carrier aggregation, download upload speeds were not good and drains battery a lot (not a full day battery if you are someone who travels a lot).
Design and Build Quality:
Realme 9 pro plus doesn't follow the modern 2022 iphone like flat frame design language and I found it similar to realme 8 series except the camera module which I liked a lot, it has a glass sandwich design protected by gorilla glass 5 on both sides, I was using the blue color varient which has a photochromatic glass back and can change color in direct sunlight, green and black varient doesn't have this fancy tech (I think green is the most sophisticated color option) the device feels light-weighted around 184gms I guess and has an ugly chin (a bottom chin that big is not acceptable at 25k)
Display and sound:
Realme 9 pro plus has a 6.43 inch full HD plus Amoled display with 90hz display refresh rate and 180 Hz touch sampling rate (quite debateble as lot reviewers think it has 360hz) supports HDR 10 (Netflix play back not supported as of writing this review), display experience was good no issues were there in my unit viewing angles were impressive too but the ugly bottom chin hinders media experience, out door visibility of the display in direct sunlight was quite impressive (1000 nits peek brightness) in display fingerprint scanner was fast and can measure heart rate.
The device has dual sterio speakers (60-40 ratio) which was also very good supports Dolby Atmos and Hi-Res and haptic feed back was quite premium although Nord 2 feels better in terms of sound and haptics. I found the display of Redmi note 11 pro plus to be more superior than realme 9 pro plus and OnePlus Nord 2.
Performance:
Dimensity 920 is quite a performer based on 6nm architecture and almost similar to SD778G, you can play BGMI at 60fps (smooth plus extreme) and the gameplay experience was impressive & feels better than SD778G in normal tasks and multitasking it feels like a breeze although the software experience was bit buggy as I discussed in software section. One thing I want to mention hare is I was using A.11 software version during my review and the download upload speeds were not good with jio and drains battery a lot during travelling to maintain 4+ carrier aggregation (this issues can get fixed in future via software but remember I mentioned the software version) and one more thing ufs2.2 128 GB base storage with LPDDR4X RAM type and support for WiFi 6 is there.
Battery and Charging:
The device has 4500 mAh battery which has a good battery backup in normal conditions, during travelling it can be horrible and it has a 65 Watt charging brick which comes bundled with the device and supports 60 Watt charging takes about 45- 50 minutes which I didn't like as I was spoiled by realme's own charging tech.
Conclusion:
With Realme 9 pro plus realme has gone all guns blazing and produced a better alrounder device than Redmi NOTE, before realme GT 2 pro this was the best camera phone realme has ever produced even if you compare it with their own flagships, for me it was reame' best midranger camera centric device and realme 7 pro will follow.
Special mention:
In 2022 if you are giving 65 Watt charger, screen protector pre applied and good quality tpu case with the device you are a consumer centric smartphone brand which I am sure realme is (period).
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