realme launched the realme 13 Pro+, the company’s top-end smartphone in the number series, in India today. This has as brighter display, new design, upgraded cameras, and a slightly bigger 5200mAh battery compared to the realme 12 Pro+, while retaining the same SoC. Is this the best smartphone to buy in the Rs. 30,000 range? Let us dive into the review to find out.
| Box Contents |
| Camera |
| Battery Life |
| Conclusion |
Box Contents
- realme 13 Pro+ 12GB + 512GB version in Monet Gold color
- 2-pin 80W SuperVOOC fast charger
- USB Type C Cable
- SIM Ejector tool
- Protective case
- User Guide and Warranty information
Display, Hardware and Design
The realme 13 Pro+ sports a 6.7-inch (1080 x 2412 pixels) Full HD+ curved AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate, 240Hz touch sampling rate and 394 PPI, same as the 12 Pro+. The display is bright since it has up to 2000 nits peak brightness. It offers good colour output since it has 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, and the sunlight legibility is good as well. You can select from vivid, Natural and Pro screen colour modes.
The phone has a 2160Hz high-frequency dimming technology with AI eye protection function. The phone also has HDR 10 support, which works for YouTube, but it doesn’t work with Netflix.
The phone doesn’t have a notification LED, but this has an always-on-display that shows contextual info and notifications all day or as per schedule. The phone has ultra narrow bezels side bezels, making it compact to hold. It has X-axis linear vibration motor. The screen has Corning Gorilla Glass 7i protection.
The phone has a tiny punch-hole that houses a 32-megapixel camera. Above the display, there is an earpiece on the top edge that doubles up as a secondary speaker. It has an in-display fingerprint scanner.
Coming to the button placements and ports, the power button is present on the right side along with the volume rockers. There is nothing on the left. The Dual SIM slot, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the loudspeaker grill are present on the bottom. The secondary microphone is on the top, along with a speaker vent.
Compared to leather finish in all the models of the 12 Pro+, the 13 Pro+ has a frosted glass back in Monet Gold version, reproduced by millions
of shimmering particles that come together to emulate Monet’s brushstrokes on the frosted high-gloss glass, capturing the fleeting moments of his painting.
The finish in inspired by painter Monet’s paintings of “Haystacks” throughout his lifetime, aiming to capture the fleeting light and scenes of the same subject at different times of the day and seasons.
realme said that it has chosen the most iconic masterpieces from these works, preserving the captured ephemeral light and shadows by Monet in the design of their smartphones, transforming them into handheld works of art.
The phone also comes in Emerald Green with a leather finish and Swiss SGS Premium Performance 5 Stars Drop Resistance certification capabilities, visual quality, and long-lasting performance. The phone also has IP65 ratings for dust and splash resistance.
Camera
- 50MP 1/1.56″ Sony LYT-701 sensor, f/1.88 aperture, OIS
- 8MP ultra-wide camera with f/2.2 aperture
- 50MP 1/1.95″ Sony LYT-600 3X periscope telephoto lens, 6X in-sensor zoom, up to 120x zoom, f/2.65 aperture
- 32MP front-facing camera with Sony sensor, f/2.45 aperture
The camera UI in the realme UI 5 is familiar. There is Pro mode, Panorama, Macro, Flim, Slo-mo, Time-Lapse, Dual-View video, text scanner, starry mode and tilt-shift. The rear camera offers 12.5MP output after pixel binning, and the front camera images are 32MP in size.
Daylight shots came out well, thanks to the new 50MP sensor, and the dynamic range is better with auto HDR. There is AI mode which recognizes different photo scenes and automatically adjusts camera settings to make boost the colours.
Thanks to the dedicated 50MP periscope telephoto portrait camera offering 3X optical zoom and 6X in-sensor zoom that you rarely see in phones in the price range, portrait shots are good. Even though you can zoom up to 120X, the quality of the image might not be the best when you zoom in.
The portrait mode is good with good edge detection, and the 8MP ultra-wide camera is decent. Low light shots are good with a lot of details and less noise. The night mode is useful, but it takes a few seconds to process, and you can also shoot the moon even though there is no dedicated moon mode. There is also a tripod mode. The 32MP front camera does a good job. The bokeh shots are good, with decent edge detection.
Check out the camera samples
It can record videos in up to 4K 30 fps, slow motion 1080p at 120fps from the rear camera, and the front camera can also shoot 4K 30 fps videos. Portrait video mode is limited to 1080p. There is also ultra-steady video shooting, but it is limited to 1080p 60fps. OIS does a good job for the rear camera.
Software, UI and Apps
It runs Android 14 based realme UI 5.0 out of the box. It has Android security patch for June 2024. The phone should get 2 Android updates and 3 years of security updates, similar to other phones. realme UI 5.0 offers improved self-developed technology for smooth performance, and enhanced safety and privacy tools. There is a new GO Green feature, promoting climate change awareness.
The File Dock feature enables collection, analysis, and sharing of global information through the Dock or other applications simply by making gestures. Flash Capsule provides convenient access to popular third-party services such as Grab, Swiggy, and Zomato directly from the device. Smart image matting lets you easily isolate and share subjects from your photos. It can separate subjects from similar backgrounds and recognize multiple subjects (up to 3).
The phone has AI features that include AI Smart Removal, AI Group Photo Enhance, and AI Ultra Clarity. The AI Smart Removal allows you to manually select ‘passers-by’ and ‘clutter’ in your photos, which are then automatically erased. The background is smartly filled in, seamlessly rescuing and restoring your pictures without a trace of the unwanted elements.
The AI Group Photo Enhance allows you to take a group photo with the main camera or ultra wide-angle can have clear facial details even for those located on the edge or in the back row. AI Ultra Clarity can enhance the resolution and increase the clarity of blurry images.
Apart from the usual set of realme apps and Google apps, it comes with several preloaded apps such as Facebook, Amazon, Snapchat, and more. These apps can be uninstalled, but come back once the phone is reset. There are also Hot Apps and Hot Games.
Out of 12GB LPDD4X RAM, you get 11.14GB of usable RAM, and about 7GB of RAM is free when default apps are running in the background. It also has DRE or dynamic RAM expansion feature, which uses the built-in storage as RAM. This has up to 12GB of additional RAM expansion. Out of 512GB UFS 3.1, you get about 459.7GB of free storage.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
It has an in-display fingerprint sensor that unlocks the phone quickly, but it is not as fast as a physical fingerprint sensor. You can add up to 5 fingerprints. You can also use the fingerprint for app local and payments in apps. Furthermore, you can change the fingerprint animation and also disable it, and also enable quick launch option to launch apps directly from the lockscreen by holding the fingerprint. The phone also has face unlock feature.
Music and Multimedia
YouTube Music is the default Music Player. It has customizable Smart, Movie, Game and Music modes, but doesn’t have Dolby Atmos. It doesn’t have FM Radio support. Audio through the stereo speakers is good without any distortion even in full volume. Audio through earphones is good as well.
This has Widevine L1, so that you can play HD content on Netflix and other streaming apps. It doesn’t show the display as HDR, so HDR doesn’t work on YouTube and Netflix.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
The realme 13 Pro+ has support for n1/n3/n5/n8/n28B/n40/n41/n77/n78 Network Bands in India. It has 4G Wi-Fi and VoLTE, with support for Carrier Aggregation on 4G. Other connectivity options include Wi-Fi 6 802.11 ax (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.2, GPS / GLONASS / Beidou. It has OTG support, doesn’t have NFC support. Moving on, the call quality is good, and we did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume was loud.
The realme 13 Pro+’s body SAR is 1.133W/Kg and head SAR is at 1.191/Kg, which is slightly higher than the 12 Pro+, but it is well under the limit of 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g) in India.
Performance and Benchmarks
The phone is powered by Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 4nmMobile Platform, same as the 12 Pro+. This has Octa-Core Qualcomm Kryo CPUs that has 4 x Cortex A78 core clocked at 2.4GHz and 4 x Cortex A55 cores clocked at 1.96GHz. There is Adreno 710 GPU that decent gaming performance. The phone gets a bit warm on intensive gaming.
The phone has a 9-layer cooling system that includes 4500mm² tempered VC + 9953mm² graphite and 3394mm² large vapor chamber cooling area to help keep the phone cool. We did not face any issues or frame drops in the graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact. It reached maximum 42º in our testing indoors in 5G, but this might vary outdoors.
In 3D Mark wild life stress test, it scored 99.4% which is good. The temperature increased from 30 to 37 degrees, which is not much, thanks to the cooling solution. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
This shows a minor improvement in performance compared to the realme 12 Pro+ powered by the same chip, but Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 offers better performance, and the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 is even better.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 5200mAh (typical) built-in battery, compared to 5000 in the 12 Pro+. It lasts for a whole day with Wi-Fi, but with 4G or 5G and dual SIMs. I got about 5 and half hours of screen on time with close to 2 days of use on Wi-Fi and in 120Hz. For some reason, realme now shows screen on time only for the past 24 hours, and not full charge.
This has 80W SuperVOOC Charge, an upgrade compared to 67W fast charging in the 12 Pro+, but the 11 Pro+ had 100W fast charging. It can charge up to 50% in about 20 minutes and up to 100% in less than 50 minutes with the bundled 80W charger, which is still good.
There is smart charging and an option to stop charging at 80% to improve the battery health. However, this doesn’t show the battery health.
Conclusion
At a starting price of Rs. 32,999 for the 8GB + 256GB, replacing the 128GB model, the realme 13 Pro+ scores when it comes to design, while improving on the camera, and battery life . It still has bloatware, and it doesn’t see a huge boost when it comes to the performance since it uses the same chip, but it runs cooler, thanks to the upgraded cooling solution.
Alternatives
There is no competition in the range with a periscope telephoto camera, but there is OPPO Reno 12 Pro 12GB + 256GB model at a slightly higher price with a 50MP telephoto camera and a better 50MP front camera is a good alternative. For performance, there is OnePlus Nord 4, POCO F6 and realme’s own realme GT 6T in the price range.
Pricing and availability
The realme 13 Pro+ is priced at Rs. 32,999 for the 8GB + 256GB model, the 12GB + 256GB costs Rs. 34,999 and the 12GB + 512GB model is priced at Rs. 36,999. With bank offers, the effective price is Rs. 29,999.
It will be available from realme.com, Flipkart and offline stores starting from August 6th with early bird sale starting from today, July 30th from 6PM to 12AM, and pre-booking starts from tomorrow, July 31st.
Pros
- Good display
- Smooth performance
- Good cameras
- Attractive design
- Good battery life with fast charging
Cons
- Same old SoC
- Bloatware