The new realme 6i ups the ante of the sub-10k smartphone segment

A 48MP smartphone you can afford #UnleashThePower

Realme Philippines has finally unveiled a new entry-level smartphone, the realme 6i. It comes with a 48MP AI Quad Camera and it is the first phone in the world to use the MediaTek Helio G80 chipset. It also has a 5,000mah battery for super-long battery life. 

Design and Build 

The realme 6i has two color variants, Green Tea and Milk White. This design is similar to the realme X master edition designed by Naoto Fukasawa. It has a vertical gradient showing lines that appear depending on how light strikes the surface. It has a polycarbonate back with matte finish which doesn’t feel luxurious to the touch, but is smudge-proof and gives a better grip.

You’ll also find a rear fingerprint scanner in the middle which is reachable even with small hands, but I sometimes have issues with it unlocking immediately.

In addition, you will also find the rear 48MP AI Quad Camera. It’s a setup composed of 48MP main + 8MP wide-angle, 2MP portrait, and 2MP macro with 4cm Focus Distance. For the in-display camera, you will find a water drop notch housing the 16MP cam.

AI Quad Camera

For the front-facing camera, the images produced were satisfactory. The AI tech can smoothen your skin, make your face thinner, enlarge you eyes, adjust the size of your nose, chin, face and give yourself a touch up. Although, in my opinion, I don’t really favor the AI adjusting any of my facial features to a point that it would even remove natural beauty marks such as moles or birth marks.

For the rear camera, the images show crisp details; although it may easily be overexposed or over-sharpened. However, with the right lighting conditions needed, the colors are both vibrant and adequately saturated. Looking at the portrait shots, blurring can sometimes be inconsistent but at least the edges don’t appear harsh. For the night mode, the images can also be inconsistent with the shadows and highlights.

Under the hood

It operates with the realme UI which is based on Android 10. It has the worlds’s first MediaTek G80 octa-core processor and Mali G52 1000MHz GPU. I didn’t experience any gaming lags and the graphics were good with the 1600×720 screen resolution. I also didn’t have a hard time using it outdoors or under the sun (except when it’s exceptionally sunny)

It also has a split-screen option for multi-tasking but it doesn’t work with all the applications of the phone… so I don’t think I’ll be using that often. I do enjoy the dark mode to avoid eyestrain but you can also have eye care as another option.

The 5000mah battery is the strongest battery of realme. It lasted me nearly 5 days with very light to moderate usage at an average of 50-70% brightness. Charging however, took me 2 hours and 30 mins from 0-100. Pretty long actually despite its 18W Quick Charge upgrade.

Verdict/Opinion:

Overall, the realme 6i still offers great value for money for an entry-level smartphone. Compared to its predecessor realme 5, it has definitely upgraded most of its features to a point that it can compare to the realme 5 Pro because of its similar 48 AI Quad Camera. However, the realme 5 Pro was priced at P11,990/P12,990 when it was released while this realme 6i is launched today with a price tag P7,990/P9,990. 

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