realme launched the realme 13+ 5G, the company’s latest smartphone in the number series, in India today. This has a faster SoC, upgraded cooling and faster charging, while retaining a similar display. Is this a worthy successor to the realme 12+ 5G smartphone? Let us dive into the review to find out.
| Box Contents |
| Camera |
| Battery Life |
| Conclusion |
Box Contents
- realme 13+ 12GB + 256GB version in Speed Green 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+ sports a 6.67-inch (1080 x 2400 pixels) Full HD+ flat E4 AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate, 240Hz touch sampling rate and 394 PPI, same as the 12+. 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 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. The screen has Panda Glass Protection.
The phone has a tiny punch-hole that houses a 16-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 3.5mm audio jack and the speaker vent.
Compared to leather finish in all the models of the 12+, the 13+ has a familiar Victory Speed design with Speedy Curve design below the camera
Deco. A golden shoulder line stretches from side to side, resembling a fast-paced racetrack, full of dynamism. Below, a lightning texture is simulated.
The phone also comes in Victory Gold, and Dark Purple colours. It also has IP65 ratings for dust and splash resistance.
Camera
- 50MP rear camera, Sony LYT-600 sensor, f/1.88 aperture OIS
- 2MP portrait camera with f/2.2 aperture
- 16MP front-facing camera, 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 16MP in size.
Daylight shots came out well, thanks to the 50MP Sony LYT-600 sensor, and the dynamic range is better with auto HDR. Even though you can zoom up to 20X, the quality of the image might not be the best when you zoom in. 2x zoom is good for macro shots.
The portrait mode is decent, thanks to the dedicated portrait camera, but this lacks an ultra-wide camera. 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. There is also a tripod mode. The 16MP 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 or 1080p 60fps, slow motion 1080p at 120fps from the rear camera, and the front camera can shoot 1080p 30 fps videos. Portrait video mode is limited to 720p. 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 July 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.
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). This doesn’t have AI features that are available in the Pro and GT series.
Apart from the usual set of realme apps and Google apps, it comes with several preloaded apps such as Facebook, Amazon, Snapchat, Spotify 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 11.18GB 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 14GB of additional RAM expansion. Out of 256GB UFS 3.1, you get about 222.6GB 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 also 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. HDR works on YouTube, but not on Netflix.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
The realme 13+ 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 5.4, GPS / GLONASS / Beidou. It has OTG support, but 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+’s body SAR is 0.797W/Kg and head SAR is at 1.103/Kg, which is well under the limit of 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g) in India.
Performance and Benchmarks
The realme 13+ 5G is powered by the latest MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Energy 4nm SoC that pack s4X Arm Cortex-A78 cores at up to 2.5GHz paired with 4X Arm Cortex-A55 cores. There is MediaTek NPU 655.
The phone has a 6050mm² large 9-layer stainless steel 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. There is also 90 fps gaming in major titles, including BGMI, Free Fire, MLBB, and COD with GT mode. It reached maximum 43º in our testing indoors in 5G, but this might vary outdoors.
There is Arm Mali-G615 GPU and MediaTek HyperEngine for gaming. In 3D Mark wild life stress test, it scored 98.8% which is good. The temperature increased from 33 to 37 degrees, which is not much, thanks to the cooling solution. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 5000mAh (typical) built-in battery, same as the realme 12+. It lasts for a whole day with Wi-Fi, but with 4G or 5G and dual SIMs. I got about 6 hours of screen on time with 2 days of use on Wi-Fi and in 120Hz. realme UI 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+. It can charge up to 50% in about 20 minutes and up to 100% in around 45 minutes with the bundled 80W charger, which is 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. 22,999 for the 8GB + 128GB, which is Rs. 2000 more than the predecessor, the realme 13+ balances the performance and battery life since it scores when it comes to performance without heating issues, thanks to the bigger VC cooling, and the battery life is good with faster charging.
There is also IP65 ratings in the phone, which is an added advantage for a phone in the price range, and it also has the 3.mm audio jack which is being removed from most phones in recent times. However, it has the same display, and lacks the ultra-wide camera which was present in the realme 12+.
Alternatives
There is Nothing Phone 2a with a better SoC, and ban unique design with glyph lights for the same price. If you spend a bit more, there is OnePlus Nord CE 4 with a bigger battery, and a faster performance. There is also the iQOO Z9s Pro in the under Rs. 25,000 range.
Pricing and availability
The realme 13+ 5G is priced at Rs. 22,999 for the 8GB + 128GB model, 8GB + 256GB version costs Rs. 24,999 and the top-end 12GB + 256GB model costs Rs. 26,999. It will be available from realme.com, Flipkart and offline stores starting from September 6th.
Pros
- Good display
- Smooth performance
- Good camera
- IP65 ratings
- Good battery life with fast charging
Cons
- No ultra-wide camera
- Bloatware