The Oppo off-shoot brand, Realme, has been boldly pushing into the crowded Indian smartphone space, elbowing past even the likes of Samsung. The company does seem to take its ‘Dare to Leap’ motto is very seriously. Now, at the start of 2022, Realme is all set to put forward its 9 series, starting with the budget Realme 9i which has the job of filling the shoes of the 8i which did quite well. The landscape for smartphones changes very fast in India, so Realme can’t afford to take it for granted that the 9i will just take over where the 8i left off — specially since one of the most wanted features today has been downgraded. 

Glinting with light shining off its blue pin-striped back, the Realme 9i instantly looks anything but cheap. Plastic can look so much like glass these days (and glass like plastic for that matter) that no one would really know what your 9i was made of unless they examined it. Until it gets scratched, that is. The back isn’t outright glossy, but it is shiny and instantly seems to take on smudges. You do get a back cover in the box. The device is medium-weighted and relatively slim despite not being particularly compact and despite having a big 5,000mAh battery inside. That comes with a 33W charger in the box and has pretty good battery life. You can spot the headphone jack on the bottom. And that’s about all that’s remarkable about the design, really. 

Not a gamer’s phone

There’s a 6.6-inch LCD display on this phone - not an AMOLED. Read dull and lustreless. At one time you wouldn’t expect AMOLED at this price, but now there are several. It’s a 90Hz display that auto-selects between that and 60Hz unless you opt to stick with one setting which is recommended, really. It’s a little baffling to see the 90Hz screen as the 8i had a 120Hz refresh rate. The display is not a very bright one so perhaps not recommended for someone who’s always out and on the go. Peak brightness is at 480nits. 

The Realme 9i runs on a new processor, the Snapdragon 680 6nm chipset. Our unit has 6GB RAM with 128GB storage. The RAM is ‘expandable’ by another 2GB for high intensity tasks. This is a new fashion that makes it seem you really have a more powerful phone. The phone runs on Android 11 and Realme UI 2.0. Performance isn’t particularly impressive. The haptic motor also isn’t great and it just isn’t a gamer’s phone unless you want to use something really basic. There’s a cartload of nuisance apps, only some of which you can offload. Moj, Josh, Daily Hunt, Snapchat, ShareChat, FinShell and countless more. While one could argue that some apps can be uninstalled or put out of sight or stopped from working actively, it has to be overwhelming for those who aren’t yet digitally literate. 

Interestingly, after the noise Realme has been making about being a 5G phones leader, it chooses to start the year with a phone that isn’t 5G at all. The networks aren’t here yet, yes, but 5G chips bring other benefits and customers have been demanding they be future-ready as well. 

The primary camera on this phone is a 50MP. Expect no great things from it. Indoors, it’s very grainy. There’s a wholly unnecessary 2MP macro and a 2MP black and white lens. The front camera is a 16MP shooter. Overall, it’s a setup that’s ok for casual photos, not for someone who’s favourite pastime is taking phone photos. 

This phone is available with 4GB of RAM and 64GB storage for Rs. 13,999, or with 6GB of RAM and 128GB storage for₹15,999. We looked at the latter in Prism Blue. The other colour is black. This is an ok basics phone, but other offerings at this price will often get you more. 

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