Realme 9 review

Triple-camera setup with 108MP sensor

The Realme 9 features a fairly standard triple-camera setup but the main sensor stands out. It's a 108MP, 1/1.67", 0.64µm unit paired with f/1.8 aperture. The sensor itself isn't the biggest one around, yet it's a rare find in the current price bracket. Most of the handsets feature 64MP cameras.

The ultrawide shooter, on the other hand, is the commonly used 8MP, f/2.2, 1/4.0", 1.12µm camera while the 2MP f/2.4 snapper is used for macro photography. As usual, it's fixed focus.

On the front, we have a 16MP f/2.5, 1/3.09", 1.0µm selfie shooter.

Camera menus

Realme's overhauled software didn't reach the default camera app as it looks exactly the same as before. Swiping left or right switches between the usual camera modes while the "More" section accommodates the secondary modes, including the Expert. The latter gives you granular control over ISO, exposure, focus, white balance and shutter speed.

Camera UI

In the standard Photo mode, you will find an AI toggle for boost in colors, HDR control, three toggles for the ultrawide, main and 3x zoom.

Camera settings

Daylight samples

Main camera

The daylight samples taken with the main camera are of good quality, in general. They seem to be decently sharp, there's plenty of detail across the whole frame and the dynamic range is somewhat wide enough. Some shadows may appear darker than usual, though, especially indoors and when there's overcast. We've also noticed the strong tendency for cold color temperature. Notice how most of the samples below have an apparent blue-ish tinge. Color reproduction is rather conservative and may even be called dull in sub-optimal lighting conditions.

12MP daylight samples

The 108MP mode isn't recommended as there's some obvious upscaling going on here. Going by Qualcomm's official specs, the ISP of the Snapdragon 680 doesn't support sensors with resolutions higher than 32MP. The jagged edges of the buildings and the high amount of noise make it quite obvious that the images are upscaled to 108MP.

108MP daylight samples

3x zoom

Perhaps due to the large 108MP resolution, Realme is bold enough to offer a 3x zoom toggle as a default, even though that's a simple crop from the main sensor. And as long as there's enough ambient light, the results are not bad. The samples below seem to be on par with competing 2x zoom solutions when it comes to sharpness and the amount of resolved detail. Some highlights turn out to be a bit fuzzy at times and noise starts to creep from the shadows. Still, the 3x zoom seems to capture usable photos for your usual social media posting.

3x zoom daylight samples

Ultrawide camera

The ultrawide samples turned out to be more colorful than the ones taken with the main camera. However, the ultrawide photos are also considerably softer, have a narrower dynamic range and as a result, shadows are often crushed. Then again, the ultrawide seems to perform just as one would expect from a mid-range handset with an unimpressive ISP and the well-known 8MP sensor.

Ultrawide daylight samples

Low-light samples

Main camera camera

In low-light scenario, the main camera seems to be doing a pretty good job for the most part. The samples below are decently sharp with a good amount of detail, nice contrast, punchy colors, while noise is visible only in some darker parts of the image. There's one considerable downside, however, and that's dynamic range. Even though there's some sort of HDR algorithm working in the background, most of the shadows are crushed with little to no detail inside them while most of the light sources are clipped.

Low-light main camera samples

The Night mode allows a bit more noise at times but adds quite a bit of detail, especially in the shadows, and boosts sharpness. Light sources look better too. We definitely like the trade-off and we recommend you opt for the Night mode after dusk. Be patient, though, as the system takes all the needed shots pretty fast but stacking and processing takes a couple of seconds. The ISP is working overtime.

Night mode main camera samples

3x zoom

It's no surprise that the 3x zoom shots at night don't look flattering. They are extremely soft and have limited dynamic range, although noise is non-existent. It could be the noise suppression algorithm ironing out fine detail. The Night mode, however, bears a significant improvement in overall quality. It's limited to 2x zoom by default, but we are impressed with the results considering the price range and the fact that it's a crop zoom.

Low-light: 3x zoom • 2x zoom Night mode

Detail is restored along with sharpness, noise can only be spotted in certain situations, contrast is great, colors are accurate and dynamic range is decent enough.

Ultrawide camera

The ultrawide is more of the same. The standard Photo mode isn't up to the snuff and the Night mode can't make up for the extremely soft nature of the standard samples. Dynamic range is largely improved and colors look nice, but it's arguable how presentable these images are, even for social media purposes.

Low-light ultrawide camera: Normal • Night mode

Once you are done with the real-life examples, take a look at our Photo compare tool for some pixel-peeping and see how the Realme 9 fares against the competition.

Realme 9 vs. Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G and the Samsung Galaxy A33 5G in our Photo compare tool

Portraits

Portraits look pretty solid with little to complain about. Dynamic range is wide, the level of detail is good an overall sharpness is more than satisfactory. Color reproduction seems to be on point, although some colors look more lively than they actually are. Even in more challenging lighting conditions, overall quality remains stable.

Portrait samples

As far as edge detection goes, we've seen better and we've seen a lot worse too. It may sometimes look a bit rough around the edges when a more complex background is introduced.

Selfies

The selfies look quite solid. There's some apparent fain grain but overall images look sharp, have the right colors, wide dynamic range and look quite decent in sub-optimal lighting conditions as well.

Selfies: Normal • Portrait

Video recording

The handset supports 1080p@30fps video recording due to the limited capabilities of the ISP. So even with the main camera, you can only do 1080p videos. Not many competitors can record 4K videos in this price range, though, as the most recent Snapdragon 6xx chipsets have incapable ISPs.

Unfortunately, even for a 1080p video, the quality is unimpressive. There's general softness in the frame, we can see the same tendency for cold color temperature and colors are washed-out.

As it's usually the case with ultrawide cameras, the video is extremely soft and has even more limited dynamic range - there's barely any detail in the shadows as a result. The good news is that colors are more lively and contrast is good.

Electronic stabilization is available in 1080p mode, which works okay but it's not much different from the advanced Ultra Steady mode, which is supposed to mimic an action camera.

Once you are done with the real-life scenarios, take a look at our video compare tool to see how the Realme 9 stacks against the other phones we've reviewed.

1080p: Realme 9 vs.Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G and the Samsung Galaxy A33 5G (2160p) in our Video compare tool