Realme 5: the complete Review

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Still unknown to the general public today, Realme has great ambitions. The young Chinese brand (which belongs to the same group as OnePlus and Oppo) is betting on the entry level to make itself known with smartphones with value for money defying the ordinary. Its latest, the Realme 5, could justly appeal to many consumers. Ultra high capacity 5000 mAh battery, Snapdragon 665 processor, 128 GB storage and quadruple camera module… The qualities of this Realme 5 are numerous despite its low price of 169 euros. Is that enough to beat Xiaomi's excellent Redmi Note 8T, the full Review of which you will give us soon?

A successful design… but low-cost

Based only on the appearance of Realme 5, it would be difficult for us to guess its price. Its edge-to-edge screen in 20: 9 format gives it a modern design, its colorful back looks like that of more expensive mobiles while its handling is rather pleasant, despite a slightly high weight of 202 grams. The fingerprint sensor on the back is very fast and easily accessible. Gradually, entry-level smartphones are becoming less and less … entry-level.

Obviously, at this price, everything cannot be perfect. The back of the mobile that we thought was made of glass is actually plastic (let's see a positive side, it will resist falls better) while its charging port is Micro USB. If you've already tasted USB-C (with a computer or Nintendo Switch for example), going back seems almost impossible as the universal reversible port is practical. Fortunately for us, the Realme 5 does not need to be recharged every day. We will return to this subject later.

Another slightly disappointing point, the speaker of the smartphone is of poor quality. It's enough to make a phone call, but not to listen to music. Fortunately, Realme offers a jack.

A screen worthy of the price  

If aesthetically, the edge to edge aspect of the screen of Realme 5 could let us predict good things, the reality is more disappointing. At a diagonal of 6.5 inches, the screen of the Realme 5 is only HD + definition. We can therefore discern the pixels with the naked eye when the smartphone is close to the face, which is becoming rare today. Another defect, its quality is one of the least satisfactory on the market, all categories combined. The LCD panel chosen by Realme displays a contrast ratio of 975: 1, which is too little to fully appreciate the reading of films and series while its maximum brightness is, for its part, too weak. Our laboratory has not managed to exceed 493 cd / m² which, without being catastrophic, can be a problem in bright light or when used outdoors. In comparison, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T offers a brightness of 631 cd / m².

As far as color fidelity is concerned, it is not without surprise. The brand abuses the bright tones that we know are designed for the Asian public, which loves them. Our laboratory confirms these poor results with a measured Delta E of 6.33 (the more this value moves away from zero, the worse it is).

The fourth best autonomy on the market

Thanks to its 5000 mAh battery, the Realme 5 offers a formidable autonomy. Truth be told, it’s the fourth most enduring smartphone according to artbzen.com’s laboratory, behind the Asus Rog Phone 2, the Moto G7 Power and, our grand champion, the iPhone 11 Pro Max. Realme 5 resisted 6:07 p.m. to our versatile autonomy Review which, on a daily basis, allowed us not to recharge it for almost three days. It’s very satisfying! We can also pass 2:03 p.m. on streaming apps like Netflix without being interrupted or 37h28 on the phone.

Micro USB requires, charging is unfortunately not the strong point of Realme 5. In fact, it is one of the slowest seen on a smartphone in recent months. It takes 3:32 to go from 0% to 100% autonomy, which is a little eternity. 30 minutes of plugged-in charger will only give you 19% back. It is true that recharging 5000 mAh takes a little time when the mobile is not equipped for rapid charging …

A fairly disappointing quadruple camera module

On the back of Realme 5, there are four cameras. It sounds great for an entry-level smartphone but we will disappoint you, not all of them are really useful. There is for example a sensor dedicated to the measurement of the depth of field, which could very well be replaced by an algorithm). There is also a macro module attached to a tiny 2 Mpix sensor, which duplicates the ultra wide angle and does not offer sufficient quality. In other words, the Realme 5 has only two really usable objectives.

Thus, there is a 12 Mpix sensor on the back of the mobile (lens opening at f / 1.8). It ensures correct photos during the day, nothing more, but more disappointing at night. The light management is not good, the colors are not very faithful to reality and the focus is often in the wrong place. The slowness of execution is so great that some photos even take an (almost) artistic look.

The second camera offered by Realme is an ultra-wide angle (f / 2.25) attached to an 8 Mpix sensor. We are also disappointed with its quality, the angles are particularly distorted and it needs a lot of light to function properly. Good luck on the other hand to quickly reach this objective. Unlike all other manufacturers, Realme decided to hide it in a camera menu and did not integrate it into the zoom selector. We bet that many owners of this mobile will not even know that they have an ultra wide-angle …

A good processor, an overlay polluted by advertising

The Realme 5 is based on the Snapdragon 665 processor from Qualcomm. Randomly or not, it is the same SoC as that present in the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T, its main rival. This chip generally equips mid-range smartphones and therefore delivers exceptional performance for a smartphone sold for less than 170 euros. Slowdowns are rare and you can play on this device without much difficulty. Note that 4 GB of RAM are integrated as well as… 128 GB of storage. At such a price, it's really very generous, especially when we say that some brands like Apple still offer 64 GB by default at more than 1000 euros. It is also possible to expand the memory with a Micro SD card.

Unfortunately for Realme, the software does not match the hardware. This is the Oppos ColorOS overlay that equips this smartphone (in version 6 based on Android 9, version 7 based on Android 10 is not yet available) and the latter continues to divide us. If its interface modeled on that of iOS is attractive, there are still lots of bugs. Examples include translation issues ("Multi-screen" for "Chromecast"), bugs in animations, or strange choices, such as showing only two notifications on the lock screen. Even more surprising, these are not the most useful. Missed calls go after your number of steps, for example…

More problematic, Realme abuses advertising. And yes, it must be compensated for this small price of 169 euros … There are a total of fifteen third-party applications that are preinstalled on this smartphone and which are full of ads, some of which are amazing like this "voice modifier" including interface seems straight out of the 2000s. This application is also full of advertisements. More annoying, the smartphone sends us a notification almost daily to encourage us to "download new themes for free, it's a gift". This is the limit of Realme’s broken prices, the brand is trying to earn money elsewhere even if it means degrading the user experience. Too bad.

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