Realme 5 Review: The best budget smartphone with quad-camera

Realme 5 is the latest budget smartphone to come out from the brand and by just looking at its specs, you already know that the smartphone is one of the best in the market already. The price? It’s damn affordable and today, we’re gonna talk about the latest quad-camera packing smartphone from Realme, the Realme 5 smartphone.

Realme 5 Review: Design and construction

One thing is for sure, the Realme 5 is a massive phone. No, it’s not bad because we’re getting a lot of features from its massive build including a large battery and a larger screen estate which is better for gaming. The body of the smartphone is plastic but it does look like glass when you’re looking at it.

The Realme 5 features a geometric pattern at the back that adds to the eye candy to the looks of the smartphone and it’s a lot better than a plain-looking one. The smartphone also has a thick build at 9.3mm and surprisingly, the smartphone is still comfortable to hold and the curves at the back of the smartphone were really good.

The Realme 5 is a massive and tall smartphone thanks to the 20:9 display aspect ratio of the smartphone. Yes, it’s tall but also means that the smartphone is narrower which means that the smartphone is more ergonomic. The button placements are just fine however, I would prefer that the buttons be placed in the middle of the sides of the smartphone.

At the back of the smartphone is where you can find the fingerprint scanner and it does offer a minimalistic look at the back compared to other smartphone and yes, this one is pretty fast and in case you want another way to unlock your smartphone, the Realme 5 supports face unlock too.

The smartphone is unfortunately still stuck with micro USB. Well, it’s not really a bad thing however, we’re slowly transitioning in where our devices are mostly USB-C already and unfortunately again, there’s no VOOC flash charge on this smartphone so you have to rely on the 10w charger of the smartphone which will take some time before you can fully charge your device.

Realme 5 Review: Display

One of the big features of the smartphone is its display. What I mean by big is that the smartphone’s display is really big since we’re getting a 6.5-inch display in here with a 20:9 display aspect ratio. The smartphone also comes with 1600×720 resolution so don’t expect that the display would be as sharp compared to other smartphones with Full HD+ resolution.

We’re getting a lower resolution in here and the colors of the display aren’t perfect but it will do just fine. The sunlight legibility of the smartphone was good too as I can use the smartphone outside at direct sunlight. The smartphone also packs good viewing angles.

Realme 5 Review: Battery Life

There’s a reason why the Realme 5 got a thick body. Well, the smartphone does come with a pretty large 5000mAh battery inside and yes, the smartphone didn’t disappoint in our test as we were able to get a long battery life on the smartphone. In our PC Mark test of Realme 5, we were able to get a battery life of 17 hours and 10 minutes which is one of the longest-lasting smartphones that we’ve reviewed. So if you want to have a long battery life smartphone, the Realme 5 is the one for you. Unfortunately, it takes sometime before you can fully charge the smartphone.

Realme 5 Review: Software

The Realme 5 is still running on ColorOS 6 based on Android 9 Pie. Of course, there are some software and apps that come preinstalled on the smartphone. Navigating on the smartphone was smooth, swift and without problems. Everything on the UI of the smartphone is user-friendly and unlike other ColorOS 6-running smartphones, the Realme 5 features an app drawer by just sliding up the smartphone from the home screen.

As expected, the Realme 5 will come with Google apps, Game Center, Game Space, ORoaming, Clone Phone, and many more. Some of them are useful but some of them are not. Nonetheless, the UI of the smartphone is fast, smooth and very easy to use.

Realme 5 Review: Performance

The smartphone is one of the most powerful in its price range as we got here a Snapdrapdragon 665 processor along with the Adreno 610 GPU which is more than enough to run most games and applications without problems. The smartphone also starts at 3GB RAM but the one that we got comes with 4GB RAM and 128GB internal storage.

We tested the smartphone in different benchmarking applications and we got really decent scores on the smartphone especially for its price. Check out the scores that we got below:

• Antutu – 169515
• 3DMark Open GL – 1150
• 3DMark Vulkan – 1061
• GeekBench Single-Core – 311
• GeekBench Multi-Core – 1380

For most normal usage, the Realme 5 won’t have a problem with that as the Snapdragon 665 processor is already too powerful for that and if you wanted to run many apps, I didn’t experience lags and slowdowns when using the smartphone and if you’re using the smartphone to play games, you’ll be happy to know that the Realme 5 is actually capable of running some games at heavy graphics, however, I still prefer using the smartphone and setting it at mid settings. Nonetheless, Snapdragon 665 is doing just fine.

• Call Of Duty Mobile – high graphics – max frame rate – other features are off
• NBA 2k20 – Ultra high
• Mobile Legends – highest settings possible

• Download Gamebench here: https://bit.ly/2Ei3daX
• Check out the Gamebench app here: https://bit.ly/2m4t0LR

Realme 5 Review: Camera

There’s a quad-camera setup on the smartphone just like its pro brother however, this one is different from the Realme 5 Pro as we got a 12MP main camera + 8MP ultrawide camera + 2MP macro camera + 2MP depth sensor and then there’s the 13MP selfie sensor on the notch of the smartphone.

Surprisingly, the quad-camera of the smartphone performed better than I expected. Again, it’s not on-par with the Realme 5 Pro but Realme 5 can really capture details and some of them have pretty good colors with sharp details. The macro camera of the smartphone performed better than I expected too but I barely use that camera of the smartphone and then there’s the night mode that produces vivid shots with brighter images which reach beyond my expectations. The night shots that we got on the Realme 5 are just amazing especially when we consider the price of the Realme 5.

Realme 5 Review: Verdict

The Realme 5 offers really good hardware and features for its price. Actually, the Realme 5 might be one of the best budget smartphones around. We got here a long battery life, a decent Snapdragon 665 processor, a quad-camera, and a very large display. All the features that you need on a smartphone

However, the smartphone didn’t have a VOOC Flash Charge which will take you some time to fully charge the smartphone and the display of the smartphone is just at HD+. Despite these flaws, the Realme 5 is still a great contender in the budget segment.

The Realme 5 is now available and the smartphone comes in these variants:

• 3GB+64GB – Php6,990
• 3GB+32GB – Php7,990
• 4GB+128GB – Php9,990