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Performance
Realme 5 packs in Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 which was announced earlier this year. It is also the first phone in India to carry this new chipset that’s been fabricated on an 11nm architecture process. The SD665 offers better graphics and camera performance, thanks to Qualcomm’s 3rd generation AI Engine.
The phone has an octa-core CPU which consists of four Kryo 260 Gold cores clocked at 2.0GHz and four Kryo 260 Silver cores clocked at 1.8GHz. This is paired with Adreno 610 GPU as the graphics processor.
The chipset supports Vulkan graphics library instead of the OpenGL ES library which assists in improving the gaming performance of the phone which consuming 20% lesser power.
The Snapdragon 665 works in tandem with 3GB or 4GB of RAM with 32GB/64GB/128GB storage options to choose from. Besides, users can also expand the storage by upto 256GB via dedicated microSD card slot. So, depending on the kind of user you are, you can choose between the different variants and know that there will always be room for upgradability.
Realme 5 is powered by ColorOS 6.0.1 which is based on Android 9.0 Pie. Realme has made some minor tweaks to the user interface, reordering different elements on the homepage such as the clock widget and Google search bar to give it a more stock Android-like experience.
The notification area which earlier had rounded square toggles have been replaced with button-like round toggles. In addition, the phone has a private space to store apps, pictures, documents and can be secured with a password or the user’s fingerprint.
ColorOS developers have also included a hotspot management feature which offers advanced control over a phone’s hotspot, connected devices and usage limit.
Right off the bat, we couldn’t notice many cosmetic differences that would hold Realme’s claim of offering close to stock Android experience. ColorOS is not the most fluid Android UI around and hence it feels a bit slow to use the phone from the get-go. Over time, buyers will surely adjust to its speed, or should I say, slowness, that it wouldn’t be an issue to most. However, those of you who’ve had a taste of MIUI, OxygenOS and even Samsung’s OneUI, would immediately feel the difference.
Basic functions such as swipe-down to access Notification Bar are missing and instead, we’re greeted with a Search Panel. The phone takes a bit to bring up the app drawer as you swipe up from the homescreen and in general, animations take a minuscule but noticeable time to properly load.
And this is after receiving two updates, both of which were directed at improving system stability and optimizing animations.
We also ran Geekbench on the Realme 5 and it was awarded 1128 points on single-core tests and its score was 3183 on multi-core tests. The phone put PUBG Mobile playable on the lowest settings by default for the smoothest experience.
When we switched the graphics settings to Balanced, the game wasn’t that smooth and we could notice frame drops here and there. So, don’t expect a very great gaming experience from the phone. Being a budget phone, it can run games like Asphalt 9 and PUBG Mobile decently. For anything better, you will need to look elsewhere.
Battery Life
Realme 5 is fitted with a big 5,000mAh battery and doesn’t support fast charging. Realme claims that the battery on the Realme 5 can power 49 hours worth of call time, 12 hours of YouTube and 156 hours of music via earphones.
In our usage, we managed to churn out close to two days worth of battery life on low to moderate usage. On heavy usage, including but not limited to a generous amount of PUBG Mobile sessions and calling, the battery on the Realme 5 died after 24 hours, which is excellent.
Verdict
On paper, the Realme 5 looks a pretty sweet and a versatile deal. However, its a bummer that the company couldn’t fit in a Full HD screen to make it a great all-round package under the Rs 10,000 price bracket.
The phone feels sturdy in-the-hand and the addition of four cameras make it a much more comprehensive budget phone for the masses. That said, if you’re expecting a great ultra-wide and macro performance, you’d be disappointed. It even features a powerful Snapdragon 665 processor that is able to power through most of the tasks without breaking a sweat. However, these additions don’t add much value to the phone’s overall experience which feels bogged down by underwhelming ColorOS.
Whether the Realme 5 is worth its salt depends on what kind of user are you. If you’re someone who watches a lot of YouTube videos and doesn’t fret on the low-resolution display, the Realme 5 offers a big screen and a huge battery capacity which would be perfect.
