Realme 5 review

Where to buy

Realme launched several phones in Australia last year, including the mid-range Realme 5. At a considerably lower price tag than many competing handsets from more well-established brands, the Realme 5 has a lot to offer.

Design

Design

• Comes in two colours
• Decent screen size
• Has a headphone jack
• Includes a fingerprint sensor
• Back of phone shows fingerprint smudges

• Read more about the Realme 5's design

  The Realme 5 has a hefty 6.5-inch screen that covers 89% of the phone's face. The front of the screen has a teardrop notch at the top and a decent-sized chin strap at the bottom.

  The screen resolution is a little on the low side for a phone this large, measuring in at 720 x 1600 with a pixel density of 269PPI.

  The back of the phone houses a quad-lens camera and the fingerprint sensor. Along the bottom of the phone, you will find the speaker, headphone jack and micro-USB charging port.

  

  It comes in two colours: blue and purple. Both colours have the same crystal diamond design that catches the light and shows off the pattern as you move it around. While the design is appealing, it collects fingerprint marks and smudges like crazy.

  Unsurprisingly for a phone of this price, the Realme 5 doesn't have a waterproof rating and doesn't offer wireless charging.

Camera

Camera

• Quad-lens rear camera
• 13MP selfie camera
• Supports 4k video recording

• Read more about the Realme 5's camera

  The Realme 5 has a quad-lens camera array at the rear combining a 12MP primary lens with an 8MP wide-angle lens, a 2MP portrait lens and a 2MP macro camera. The primary camera offers electronic image stabilisation and 4K video recording at 30fps.

  The Realme 5's 13MP selfie camera is nested in the small water-drop notch at the top of the phone. The selfie camera has a "beautification" mode, but it washed out and blurred the photos too much to be useful.

  The camera app includes a night mode and a Chroma Boost mode, but like the beautification mode, they don't particularly improve your photos.

  Overall, the images I took on the Realme 5 are adequate but lacklustre. Surprisingly, I actually preferred the photos I took with the Realme C2, Realme's most budget option that costs just $199 in Australia.

  Photos taken using the Realme 5

  

  

  

Performance

Performance

• Suitable for regular use but not gaming
• Fingerprint scanner is awkward to use
• Some load time when multitasking
• Speakers are adequate, but not impressive

• Read more about the Realme 5's performance

  The Realme 5 is powered by Qualcomm's popular Snapdragon 665 CPU. You also get 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage, with the ability to add external storage up to 256GB.

  It's powerful enough for everyday use, but I experienced some load time when using multiple apps, switching apps or opening games.

  The phone comes with a lot of pre-installed apps, most of which you'll want to delete. Navigation is fairly intuitive and you can customise gestures to make it even easier.

  While the Realme 5 does include a fingerprint sensor, it isn't intuitive to use. It's located on the back of the phone and I had trouble finding it with my finger without flipping the phone over to look. It made the fingerprint scanner virtually useless as it took just as much (if not more) time to locate it and scan my finger as it did to type in my passcode.

  In terms of audio, the Realme 5's speaker is loud enough for watching the occasional video or listening to a song or two, but it has no bass and isn't something you'd want to use to listen to or watch content regularly.

Battery

Battery

• Large, 5,000mAh battery
• No fast or wireless charging
• Micro-USB charger

• Read more about the Realme 5's battery

  A 6.5-inch screen requires plenty of juice, and the Realme 5 delivers this via its 5,000mAh battery. Realme claims the phone can survive as long as 718 hours on standby or up to 49 hours' worth of call time.

  During testing, it lasted around two days of regular use before I needed to recharge each time.

  The downside is that it takes a long time to charge the phone fully.

Verdict

Verdict

How we score our reviews

• Decent value for money
• Not at appealing as the Realme 5 Pro or Realme C2

Should you buy it?

While the Realme 5 offers a lot for the price, it suffers from a bit of middle child syndrome.

For $100 less, you can get the Realme C2, which has a slightly weaker performance, but an excellent battery life and a design that looks more expensive than it is. For just $100 more, you can get the Realme 5 Pro, which packs a lot more bang for its buck than the Realme 5.

Ultimately, the Realme 5 isn't a poor choice, but it doesn't have as much to offer as some of the other phones in the brand's Australian line-up.

Pricing and availability

• Price: RRP $299
• Where to buy: Amazon, Bing Lee, JB Hi-Fi , Realme
  

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  Specs

  Display

  Display Size

  6.5 inches

  Resolution

  720 x 1600px

  Pixels per inch (PPI)

  269 ppi

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  Camera

  Rear camera megapixels

  12MP + 8MP + 2MP + 2MP

  Rear camera aperture size

  f/1.8 + f/2.25

  Video recording

  4K

  Front camera megapixels

  13MP

  Front camera aperture size

  f/2.0

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  Physical Dimensions

  Dimensions

  164.4mm x 75.6mm x 9.3mm

  Weight

  198g

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  Connectivity

  NFC

  No

  Wi-Fi

  802.11 a/b/g/n/ac

  Network category speed

  N/A

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  Power, storage and battery

  Processor

  Qualcomm Snapdragon 665

  RAM

  4GB

  Operating system

  Android 9

  Internal storage

  128GB

  External storage support

  Up to 256GB

  Battery capacity

  5,000mAh

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  Device features

  Headphone jack

  Yes

  Fingerprint sensor

  Yes

  Water resistance rating

  N/A

  Wireless charging

  No

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