This month, realme Philippines will be introducing us the realme 6i, one of the new devices in the realme 6 line up. It is all about the speed on the budget.
The cheapest and gaming-friendly of the roster, it is expected to have the price point under Php 10,000.
The realme 6i offers fresh looks, decent performance, and quad-camera setup with a large 5000mah battery. The phone packs with a MediaTek’s Helio G80 processor and has a screen resolution of 720p. It manages to have a capable rear camera with 48mp primary, 8mp ultrawide, 2mp macro, and 2mp depth sensor.
Finally, it runs an Android 10 OS with realme UI skin on top. realme will be offering the phone in different RAM and storage as 3GB/64GB, 4GB/64GB, and 4GB/128GB. Storage can further be expanded via MicroSD.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
The packaging comes in a yellow box with its name printed all over the front. Inside the box is the unit, free silicone case, USB cable, 18W charging brick, and quick start guide and documentation.
DESIGN AND LOOK
The realme 6i comes in eye-catching designs. The 6i has a glass front base on Gorilla Glass 3, and an all-plastic back and frame. The finish on the plastic is matte, which improves the grip on the phone.
The surface is coated in a green tea or cream white color.
The front of the phone is a 6.5″ IPS LCD with a droplet-shaped notch for the 16MP selfie camera. The screen resolution is at 720p that looks bright, punchy, and sharp. At the back of the phone, there is a fingerprint scanner along with a vertically arranged quad rear camera 8MP ultrawide, 48MP primary, 2MP portrait, 2MP macro shooters module.
On its left there’s a tri-card slot and the volume keys, the power button is on the right, at the bottom is the 3.5mm audio jack port, mouthpiece, speaker combined by a USB Type-C connector.
The phone weighs around 200g, fits well in the hand, and feels good and easy to handle. The 6i’s design and build quality is yet another solid job from Realme.
BATTERY
The realme 6i is powered by 5000mah battery that supports 18w fast charging. The charger can give back around in an estimated 33 percent of the battery in 30 minutes and 50 percent in 50 minutes. Not fast but considerable.
The device is scored notably around the 186hour endurance battery test. It does an excellent job with some video playback, calls, and browsing.
SOUND
The realme 6i has single loudspeaker that is good enough for audio listening, although it can still be improved. Other sources say it lacks bass and high-pitched sounds.
CAMERA, IMAGE AND VIDEO QUALITY
The 48mp main camera can shoot in the12mp mode. The 119-degree ultrawide-angle 8mp sensor is capable of distortion correction. The 2mp is not just a depth sensor but can be a monochrome unit that certainly helps bokeh rendering and also used to enhance the contrast of the photo. Finally, the 2MP macro camera has a fixed focus at 4cm away so you can easily get close to your subject when taking a photo.
The camera app has a few tweaks, menus, and options for selecting different modes. It offers also AI scene recognition which means the software will tweak (detect and correct) all set up accordingly to the image captured.
Photos taken in the Image quality of 48mp looks good, has enough details, great contrast, and accurate colors. Noise is pretty low in a bright environment; the dynamic range is wide enough. The camera offers 2x and 5x zoom toggles but pure digital.
Capturing in a low light scenario, the main camera shoots soft and noisy photos. The detail is medium at best.
Night mode improves the exposure and brightens a little bit in some areas.
The 16mp selfie camera has a fixed focus, but there is beautification mode and enhancement software. You can get a good quality selfie image when there is enough light. Although not very detailed. Colors are nice and the contrast is good. Selfie Portrait mode is saved in 8MP instead of 16MP.
Video recording captures 1080p videos at 30fps using its main and ultra-wide cameras. No 60fps and image stabilization options are available. The clips show good detail and accurate colors.
SOFTWARE
The realme 6i boots up in Android 10 OS with realme UI skin ad launcher that was promised to be a good as ColorOS by OPPO. It looks a lot like vanilla Android with home screen, app drawer, basic notification/toggles, and easy to use task switcher.
realme UI supports icon packs and you can even fully customize by your style. It offers Smart Sidebar that can be used on the edge of the screen so that you are able to customize the actions and app shortcuts on it. Multimedia apps preinstalled are fully redesigned.
PERFORMANCE
realme 6i packs the newly introduced MediaTek Helio G80 which is a gaming SOC on budget purposes. A 12nm FinFET by TSMC, octa-core CPU with two high performance Cortex A75 at 2.00GHz and six energy efficient Cortex A55 cores at 1.8GHz
The Mali-652 MC2 GPU is the graphics unit that powers each of its two cores clocked at 1000mhz that provide great performance on 720p screen. it has inferior GPU raw performance and a slightly lesser main processor. The performance is more than acceptable for the class, though. It turned out to be an excellent performer should provide good performance for sub 10k budget class. We experienced no throttling and heating issues.
The Realme 6i is offering in different RAM and storage option, 3GB/64GB, 4GB/64GB, and 4GB/128GB. Storage can be expanded via MicroSD.
SPECS
Body: 164.4 x 75.4 x 9 mm, 199g; Front Gorilla Glass 3, plastic body, splash-proof
Screen: 6.5″ IPS LCD, FHD+ (720 x 1600px) resolution, 270 ppi
Camera: Primary: 48MP Quad-Bayer, f/1.8 aperture, 0.8µm pixel size, 1/2.25″ sensor size; Ultra-wide: 8MP, f/2.3 aperture, 1.12µm pixel size; Macro: 2MP f/2.4, 1.75µm pixel size, 1/5″ sensor size; Depth sensor: 2MP mono camera
Front camera: 16MP f/2.0 aperture
Chipset: MediaTek Helio G80 (12nm): octa-core (2×2.0 GHz Cortex-A75 & 6×1.8 GHz Cortex-A55), Mali-G52 MC2 GPU
Memory: 3GB/64GB, 4GB/128GB, expandable via microSD card
OS: Android 10, Realme UI
Battery: 5,000 mAh, 18W fast charging
Connectivity: 4G LTE; Dual SIM; Dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, USB Type-C 2.0
Misc: Rear-mounted fingerprint reader, 3.5mm audio jack
CONCLUSION
realme brought us an affordable solid budget smartphone with great gaming performance. A good looking body, large screen, good for gaming, decent photo and video quality, best-rated battery life, clean and snappy software
How much? This realme 6i, available in White Milk & Green Tea with SRP 3+64 – Php7,990 with a special price of Php7,490; 4+128 -Php9,990 with a special price of Php9,490. 1st Flash Sale will be on May 15 and 2nd Flash Sale on May 20.
