The Realme 5i was just
unveiled in Vietnam – the phone brings four cameras and a large 5,000mAh
battery to the entry level segment. It costs VND 3,700,000 or around US$ 160/€ 145.
If these specs sound familiar, it's because this is basically the Realme 5.
Let’s look at the cameras
first. The main shooter on the back has a 12MP sensor and an f/1.8 aperture.
Then comes the 8MP ultrawide angle camera, which covers 119° field of view and
supports Super Night mode. The two cameras can work together to shoot videos
like this one: The main camera can also shoot
4K video at 30fps or go slow with 120fps slow-mo mode. There are two more
cameras to cover – the 2MP macro camera (which can focus at 4cm distance) and
the 2MP depth sensor.
The video recording is enabled
by the 11nm Snapdragon 665 chipset, which houses four Kryo 260 Gold and four
260 Silver cores (A73 and A53 based, respectively), plus an Adreno 610 GPU.
Realme is offering two memory configurations – 3/32GB and 4/64GB. In either
case, there’s a dedicated microSD card slot next to the two SIM slots. The
phone runs Color OS 6.1 based on Android 9 Pie.
At the front the 6.5” screen
features an IPS panel with 720 x 1,600px resolution. It’s guarded by Gorilla
Glass and promises 480 nits of brightness. There’s a teardrop notch on it,
housing the 8MP selfie camera.
The Realme 5i is available in
Blue and Green. Both versions feature a “Sunlight” pattern – a wavy texture on
the back, the result of 10 hours of polishing with a specialized machine. Also
on the back is the capacitive fingerprint reader. Besides the cameras, the
battery is the other major selling point of the 5i. It has 5,000mAh capacity
and with reverse (wired) charging, you can use it as a power bank to top up
your accessories.
The phone comes with a
standard 10W charger, which unfortunately uses a microUSB cable to connect to
the phone. At least there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack on top – that’s one old
connector we’re glad to see. Realme lists the battery life for various use
cases, including 9.4 hours of PUBG or 19.1 hours of YouTube. Also, the company
used a special coating on internal and external components to make the phone
splash proof.
Again, the Realme 5i is priced
VND 3,700,000 in Vietnam, the Realme 5 starts at VND 4,000,000.
