Realme 6 Review: The affordable one with a 90Hz display

Realme is now among the smartphone makers that are working hard and have (in some sense) changed the definition of an affordable smartphone. In 2020, we now get pretty good a deal for a price quite easy on our pockets. Realme has further upped the ante by launching for the Realme 6 series (comprising the Realme 6 and the Realme 6 Pro), that too, with 90Hz displays. This way, the Chinese company has launched for us the first budget smartphone with a high refresh rate, marking a milestone for both the company as well as budget smartphones.

I got a chance to use the younger sibling -- the Realme 6 -- out of the two and I was all intrigued to use this one. Read on my review to find out whether or not the Realme 6 is a steal at a starting price of Rs. 13,999.

Realme 6 Review: Design

The Realme 6 follows the design ethos we have been seeing in the Realme smartphones for a while now. There is the Ombre effect on the smartphone, which the company calls ‘Comet Design,’ giving rise to two colour options: Comet Blue and Comet White. I got the Comet Blue option, which acts as freshness and proves to be better than the gaudy Lightning Orange hue seen on the Realme 6 Pro. The smartphone feels quite comfortable on the hands and has decent build quality for the price tag. The interesting addition for the Realme 6 is the punch-hole display, which is a first for Realme. While punch-holes have never made me uncomfortable and I have liked all sorts of notches as a whole, the one on the Realme 6 is big enough to be easily noticed. I don't like it.

On the back, there is a vertical camera setup, LED flash, and company’s logo. Upfront, you get a punch-hole display, with the punch-hole situated in the top left corner. The left side has the power on/off button that doubles as a fingerprint scanner while the right side has the SIM slot and the volume rocker. The bottom part has a 3.5mm audio jack, USB Type-C port, and the speaker grille. The top part is left bare. 

There is nothing wrong with the Realme 6’s looks; you get pleasing colours, the device isn’t heavy, and the overall feel is good. However, the monotony in style bothered me. Realme launches smartphones quite frequently and when these smartphones appear alike, that gets slightly disappointing. 

Other than that, the Realme 6 scores decently for me in the design department and the side-mounted fingerprint scanner is a likeable inclusion.

Realme 6 Review: Display

The display is Realme 6’s one of the attractions. It spans 6.5-inch and has a screen resolution of 2,400 x 1,080 pixels. As mentioned earlier, we get a punch-hole in the top left corner to ensure there are lesser bezels. However, the chin still has significant bezels. The display is covered by a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 5. The display comes with the usual display features such as auto-brightness, dark mode, eye care, and the option to switch between 90Hz and 60Hz refresh rates.

The main attraction of the display is the 90Hz refresh rate, and this makes the Realme 6 the first budget device to have a high refresh rate. Scrolling through the device was smooth and you can clearly feel the high refresh rate on the device but it isn’t a lot. Having said that, the 90Hz refresh rate on a budget smartphone is still a commendable addition. The Realme 6 is decently bright and viewing videos on it or just using it was quite decent. The apps icons are aptly-lit, viewing angles were good, and the sunlight visibility was fine too.

Realme 6 Review: Cameras

The cameras are other highlights for the smartphone. The Realme 6 is home to four rear cameras rated at 64MP (main camera), 8MP (Ultra-Wide lens), 2MP (macro lens), and a B&W Portrait lens. The front camera stands at 16MP and is an in-display one. The smartphone comes stacked with various camera features such as AI, beauty mode, Nightscape mode, HDR, Portrait mode, 4K videos, slow-motion videos, ability to control the depth effect, time-lapse, and even facial recognition.

The Realme 6 did a decent job in almost all lighting conditions. The images turned out with details and the colour production was decent too. There wasn’t a lot of saturation and the images didn’t appear processed as such. However, upon zooming, the images lost details and became grainy. This wasn’t to my liking. The Portrait mode felt more like a filter than the depth effect. Additionally, it took a while for it to take focus and produce a bokeh-ed image. Another thing that didn’t impress me much was the NIghtscape mode. The images had zero details and it didn’t work quite well in low-light. Additionally, images in low-light using a flash were really saturated.

However, the HDR mode and video recording were decent. The videos had a decent amount of stabilisation and it proved fine. Among others, the Ultra-Wide angle worked fine and captured a lot in the frame.

As for the front camera, it could do better. The selfies came out quite processed and that’s one thing I never like about a camera of a smartphone. While the natural colours fail to appear, the images still had details, which was a positive point. The front portrait mode worked fine and it felt better than the rear camera portrait mode.

Realme 6 Review: Spec Sheet

Here are the Realme 6 specifications:

Realme 6 Review: Performance, Battery, OS

The Realme 6 is powered by the MediaTek Helio G90T processor and gets its multi-tasking capabilities from three RAM options: 4GB/6GB/8GB. The storage options are two: 64GB and 128GB. I got the high-end model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage option. The smartphone did a fairly decent job in terms of performance. It was able to take basic tasks such as social media usage, scrolling through apps, a lot of apps in the background, taking pictures, and watching videos with ease. On top of it, gaming was also a delight when I played the popular PUBG Mobile on high graphics and the easiest subway surfers on it. It didn’t lag much but for a 90Hz refresh rate, it wasn’t that smooth. Among others, the audio quality was decent, but, it lacked depth to it when the smartphone was put on speaker.

The Realme 6 sources its fuel from a 4,300mAh battery, which supports 30W Flash Charge fast charging tech. There is support for USB Type-C port, which is always a good inclusion. The battery part is something I am quite impressed with. The smartphone lasted more than a day and a half on normal usage such as video streaming or just browsing the internet. It did come down to a day’s usage due to gaming but still, it proved to be decent. Additionally, the fast charging tech was above average and charged the device fully in an hour. The side-mounted fingerprint scanner proves to be snappy and is a refreshment for those who aren’t fans of the in-display fingerprint scanning and its placement is just right. Personally, I liked it. Face Unlock was good too.

As for the UI, this time we get Realme UI based on Android. The Realme UI proves to be better than the ColorOS and is clean too. The app icons appeared fine too and you get the smart sidebar, which proved quite handy to access things you use on a daily basis. Additionally, the device has the dark mode and screen recording, coming from Android 10 feature pool. However, the UI had bloatware and that’s a drawback. Another thing that got annoying was the flow of the device's own browser notifications.

Realme 6 Review: Verdict

The Realme 6, which starts at Rs. 13,999, is a good addition to the budget smartphone arena. It gets impressive features such as a 90Hz display, 64MP quad-camera setup, a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, making it a budget phone difficult to avoid. However, it also has its share of problems such as a not-so-amazing camera performance, bloatware, and lags here and there.

It stands against the likes of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro, which has a better design, a bigger 5,020mAh battery, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G processor, also starting at Rs. 13,999. That said, it is a decent attempt at bringing high-end features to budget smartphones, which makes it an option to consider.

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