Summary

Quick verdict: The Realme 5 has a long battery life and decent performance for a low price, but it doesn't offer as much value for money as other phones in Realme’s line-up.

Very affordable
Large battery
Includes a fingerprint scanner and headphone jack

Average camera
Shows fingerprint marks
Load time when multitasking or gaming

Details

Pricing & Availability

Launch price (RRP)	$299
Launch date	2019-10

Where to buy

Buy at Amazon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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
Specs

Display

Display Size
6.5 inches

Resolution
720 x 1600px

Pixels per inch (PPI)
269 ppi

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

Physical Dimensions

Dimensions
164.4mm x 75.6mm x 9.3mm

Weight
198g

Connectivity

NFC
No

Wi-Fi
802.11 a/b/g/n/ac

Network category speed
N/A

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

Device features

Headphone jack
Yes

Fingerprint sensor
Yes

Water resistance rating
N/A

Wireless charging
No
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Sarah Brandon is an editor at Finder. She has a degree in Psychology from New York University and loves learning about why people do what they do. Sarah has researched and written about a wide range of topics, from pool fences to private jets to personal loans. But no matter the subject, her number one priority is figuring out what information our readers need to make the best decisions. See full profile