Realme9i: Realme 9i in India is the first smartphone launched by Realme in 2022. It’s also the first smartphone of the new 9 series.
This is the successor of the Realme 8i. It was an excellent all-rounder that scored highly in our review. Is the Realme 9i worth upgrading?
Here are my initial impressions after I received the Realme 9i.
Realme 9i pricing and availability
The Realme9i begins at Rs. The base variant, which comes with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage, costs Rs. 13,999 in India.
The second variant has 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. It is available at Rs. 15,999.
Flipkart will sell the smartphone starting January 25, 2022
Realme 9i design features
Realme 9i now has a new “Stereo Prism” design. It is available in Prism Blue or Prism Black.
Hidden patterns are visible on the back panel when light hits it at just the right angle.
The phone was 8.4mm thick and weighed in at 190g. The Realme 9i comes with a plastic frame, which is reasonable considering the price.
The 6.6-inch LCD panel dominates the front. The top left corner has a hole for the 16-megapixel selfie camera.
The bezels are thin on the sides and thicker at the bottom. The display has a Full-HD+ resolution, a maximum refresh rate at 90Hz, and can be dynamically adjusted depending on what content is displayed.
This seems like a downgrade since the Reality 8i ( review_) had a higher 120Hz peak refreshing rate.
Dragontrail Pro glass protects the display from scratches.
The Realme 9i comes with a side-mounted fingerprint scanner integrated into the power button to the right.
It’s well placed, and my thumb rested naturally on it while holding the device.
The volume buttons are located on the opposite side, which is also easy to reach.
Realme 9i features a 3.5mm headset jack, USB Type C port, primary microphone, loudspeaker, and USB Type-C port.
The secondary microphone is located at the top.
Realme curved the edges on the back panel to make the 9i more comfortable to hold.
This camera module is similar to the Realme GT Neo 2. There are two large cutouts on the phone and one smaller for the cameras.
The phone has 50-megapixel primary and secondary cameras and a 2-megapixel portrait and macro camera.
A super-wide camera is not available. A Realme logo is also found on the rear panel in landscape orientation.
Realme 9i comes with a 5,000mAh lithium battery and 33W fast charging.
Realme also included the charger required in the box.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 Octa-core processor, clocked at 2.400 GHz, powers the Realme 9i.
There are two options, as I said before. Only the one with 6GB RAM is available.
The “virtual RAM Extension” software feature allows you to allocate a portion of your storage to be used as additional RAM.
Realme 9i supports dual SIMs and can also accept two Nano-SIMs.
There’s also a microSD card slot that allows for storage expansion.
The Realme 9i also has stereo speakers since the earpiece doubles as a second speaker.
The Realme 9i comes with Android 11 and the Realme UI2.0 skin. My unit came with the December 2021 Android security update.
There are a lot of apps pre-install on this phone, and many of them can uninstall. The 9i has been very easy to use.
The Realme 9i’s price starts at sub-Rs. It’s higher variant is price at the same level as the Redmi 11T 5G base model, boasting 5G connectivity.
Should you spend your money on Realme 9i or not? Would you instead choose the other options?
Keep checking back for the complete review.
