Realme 6 Review

This year, premium features have trickled down significantly, both the Realme phones have high refresh rate screens, high specced cameras and chipsets that can comfortably handle everything you throw at them, including gaming.

There aren’t many smartphone brands that have been able to make such a massive impact in such a short span of time. Many have tried and failed.

Realme has been one of those rare brands that has been consistently delivering stellar smartphones across various price ranges.

The company started with the budget and mid-range segments, and is now confidently standing toe-to-toe with premium brands like OnePlus.

Realme has managed to diversify its smartphone lineup, from the C-series to the so-called number series to the high-end X series.

Realme 6 key Features

• Display : 6.5 inch IPS 1080 x 2400 90Hz & 120Hz touch-sensing
• Chipset : Helio G90T
• RAM : 4GB/6GB/ 8GB – 8GB
• Storage : 64GB or 128GB – 128GB
• No telephoto lens
• Included 2 MP B/W depth sensor
• No 8MP ultra-wide selfie
• Plastic back instead of glass black
• Fractionally smaller display 6.5-inch vs 6.6-inch (same spec though)
• Bluetooth 5.0 instead of 5.1

Design & Display

The company has managed to set them apart by offering a unique finish on the back of each smartphone. The Realme 5 Pro had a crystal design with diamond-shaped patterns on the back.

With the Realme 6, you get what the company calls a Comet design, where you see streaks of light on the rear panel originate from the bottom center of the panel. It sure looks unique, but it’s probably not the best finish that Realme has offered so far.

At first glance, you wouldn’t tell the difference between this and the Pro model. Both look suitably premium, the sample came in Comet blue, which is a sort of two-tone metallic blue, whereas the pro model came in Light night Blue, which has a lightning-shaped shimmer down the centre.

The Pro model does look a bit more impressive, but look fantastic though. While the display is a touch smaller than the Pro model they have the same spec, using an IPS panel running at 1080 x 2400 with a 90Hz refresh rate and 120Hz touch sensing.

They seem to perform the same too; the 90Hz refresh rate gives a buttery smooth experience with no noticeable lag in responsiveness.

Realme has upgraded the display from a 6.3-inch FHD+ water drop screen on the Realme 5 Pro to a 6.5-inch FHD+ (1,080 x 2,400) punch-hole display on the Realme 6.

It has also increased the refresh rate from 60Hz to 90Hz, which is quite impressive given the price of the phone.

In fact, the Realme 6 is the cheapest phone right now to offer a 90Hz LCD display. The high refresh rate means the scrolling experience is going to be smoother.

And honestly, this makes the budget phone feel faster and more responsive than what you would typically find on a smartphone with a 60Hz screen.

Camera

Realme 6 comes with a quad camera setup that includes a 64MP Samsung GW1 primary sensor, an 8MP wide-angle lens, a 2MP macro lens and a 2MP mono lens.

The 64MP high-resolution sensor means you can expect some crisp and detailed daylight shots.

The camera UI is pretty user friendly as you can easily switch between different shooting modes such as Video, Night mode, Portrait and 64MP mode by swiping through the bottom carousel.

The Ultra Macro, Expert, Slo-mo and other options are tucked away under the ‘More’ section. On the top of the viewfinder, you’ll have options to enable HDR, Chroma Boost, flash and so on.

Similarly, low light performance drops rapidly. With moderate light, the phones performs perfectly well, but very low light conditions things suffer.

The difference between a normal photo and night mode does not appear to be that significant either.

Under exceptionally low light the Pro model seems to perform better, and neither phone comes close to the Huawei P30 Pro (which costs 3 to 4 times as much).

Finger Print Scanner & Facial Recognition

For biometric security, performance is identical to the Pro model, from what I can tell. The fingerprint scanner will have the same issues for left-handed people, you will have to adjust your grip to wrap around more so you can unlock it with your index finger.

For the 90% of people that are right-handed, the side-mounted scanner should pose no problems.

Facial recognition appears to be excellent, quite often unlocking before you’ll get the chance to use your finger.

Performance, Hardware & Software

So far the biggest upgrade to the Realme 6 is the processor. The phone is powered by the 2.05GHz octa-core MediaTek Helio G90T SoC, which is the same chipset that powers the Redmi Note 8 Pro.

The Helio G90T is a gaming processor that delivers a smooth, lag-free gaming experience and snappy day-to-day usage. Realme 6 base variant starts at 4GB RAM and goes up to 8GB RAM.

In terms of benchmark scores, the Helio G90T blows away the Snapdragon 665 SoC that powered the Realme 5. It scores around 2,90,000 on AnTuTu, which is at par with what the Redmi Note 8 Pro (review) scored.

Notably, the Realme 6’s Helio G90T also outscores the Realme 6 Pro’s Snapdragon 720G SoC. You can check out the scores of all three smartphones below (left to right – Realme 6, Redmi Note 8 Pro and Realme 6 Pro).

On the software side, Realme 6 ships with Android 10-based Realme UI. It’s the latest skin from the company that tries to replace ColorOS on a symbolic level.

In reality, Realme UI still looks like ColorOS, albeit with a cleaner interface.

By cleaner we mean the app icons and themes get a redesign. Realme UI still brings some bloatware in the form of pre-loaded apps like Opera, UC Browser and Hello, among others.

Additionally, we also received a lot of spammy notifications from the default browser app, UC browser and so on.

Battery

While the Realme 5 Pro offered a 4,035mAh battery, the Realme 6 gets a bigger 4,300mAh capacity. This should technically mean a longer battery usage if you’re coming from the Realme 5 Pro.

That being said, the battery life of the Realme 6 will vary depending on the refresh rate. It gets affected when using the higher 90Hz refresh rate.

Realme 6 Price

The Realme 6 is priced at $180 USD which is (NGN)64,000 in Nigeria, $205 USD which also is (NGN)73,000 Naira, and $220 USD which is (NGN)79,000 Naira for the 4GB + 64GB, 6GB + 128GB, and 8GB + 128GB respectively.