realme 6i Review: A budget gaming phone with quick charging USB-C

During our time with the realme C3, it’s been established that the company is serious in offering a sub-PhP 6K phone that can deliver uninterrupted gaming performances. With its gaming-focused processor and a massive battery, it pretty much got the bases covered except for one small issue — its long charging time due to its micro-USB implementation.

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CHECK OUT: realme 6i Unboxing and Hands-on

Now that the realme 6i has been officially launched in the Philippines, it still boasts of its gaming capabilities, multiple-camera setup, and ample battery capacity but now promises a faster charging time. This is our realme 6i review.

Design

Back panels that sport a reflective shine have become quite popular for smartphones and it’s the same case for this phone’s plastic back. While the more affordable C3 comes with a pattern that mimics the sun’s rays, the 6i opts for straight vertical lines that sort of move around depending on how the light hits it.

Additionally, it has a matte finish which is easily a plus for me since it doesn’t attract fingerprints easily.

Housing a 6.5-inch HD+ IPS display, it has a resolution of 1600 x 720 with a waterdrop notch which we’ve seen on previous realme phones. On the right, we have a solo button for both lock and power while the volume buttons sit on the left side of the phone.

Turn it around and we see four cameras slightly protruding off the surface and, just to the right of it, the fingerprint scanner. Its SIM tray can house two SIM cards plus it has an additional microSD slot to add to its storage.

Down below, we pleasantly find a USB Type-C for charging, 3.5mm audio jack towards the left, and speakers on the right. The realme 6i comes in two colors: White Milk and Green Tea — obviously, this one here is the Green Tea variant.

Software

Running on Android 10 with realme’s UI, the interface is simple and similar to Android’s native look so the experience is very straightforward.

Just like with the C3, swiping down on the home screen will take you to your notifications and settings.  Icons are fully customizable with the ability to change from round to square and even adjust their transparency. The original icons can also be customized with your own photos or icons.

Animations and transitions are smooth and navigating through the phone is effortless. Additionally, there’s support for Dark Mode, dynamic wallpapers, native screen recording with internal and external audio, and tap to lock.

Camera

The realme 6i’s quad-camera system consists of a 48-megapixel main sensor, 8-megapixel ultra-wide, 2-megapixel macro, and another 2-megapixel sensor for portrait photography. This is one more camera added to the C3 to be able to capture better scenery using a wide-angle lens.

After a couple of days of shooting what was around our condominium’s compound, I’d say the cameras work together to be able to capture a wide variety of subjects.

For casual snaps, I used its main camera. When I needed to bring out more details on a small subject, its macro shooter comes in handy. For landscapes, nothing beats a wide-angle lens. And finally, if I want a bit of bokeh effect on my shots, the depth-sensing camera is always available.

Images produced by its main camera have good details in them. HDR works well when there are light and dark areas in your shot and its Chroma Boost pulls out extra vibrance for your photos.

For close-ups, its macro sensor is able to produce sharp photos with noticeable details. As for its depth-sensing camera, it was a hit-and-miss especially when it comes to tracing out the hair of the subject you’re shooting. Sometimes the photo comes out decent, but other times you see a bad trace when separating hair from the background.

Meanwhile, its wide-angle mode is probably my favorite among its different shooting modes. Capturing landscapes is simply more interesting when you have a wide-angle lens.

Situated in the display’s notch is a 16-megapixel front camera. Again, it comes with software features to tweak unwanted elements. The app can make your skin smoother, have your face shape slimmer — the whole AI beautification thing, basically. Some might be keen on using it but like other beautification effects, it doesn’t look too natural when you go overboard with the filters.

Performance

Internally, the realme 6i houses a MediaTek Helio G80 octa-core CPU paired with up to 4GB of RAM and up to 128GB of storage. With this combination, daily usage for the 6i has been a smooth sailing affair. Browsing through social media pages and reading articles also benefit from its tall display since more lines can fit the screen.

After taking photos using its quad-camera setup, importing and editing them in apps like Adobe Lightroom or Google Snapseed were easily handled by the phone.

Gaming

We also ran popular titles on the 6i to test its gaming capabilities. Kicking things off with Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, our gameplay was uninterrupted and graphics were rendered from the get-go until after a couple of online matches. The fast-paced racing game Asphalt 9: Legends ran smoothly with minimal to no hiccups. There were some slight lags once in a while but not noticeable enough to affect the outcome of the match. PUBG Mobile, on the other hand, was also handled like a boss.

We also ran other games like Pokémon Go and TapTap Music to test its accuracy for location via GPS and touch response, respectively. After a few hours of playing, we’re confident to say the phone is able to accurately pinpoint our location and touch response was on point.

When we were using the realme C3 for its review, we found that it can handle resource-heavy games with no interruptions as long as you have no other heavy apps running in the background. Whenever this happened, the phone would be lagging and touch inputs are delayed. This is not the case for the realme 6i at all. Even with multiple games running, jumping from one game to another provided a smooth experience thanks to its G80 CPU.

One thing we noticed, though, was that the phone gets warm with prolonged gaming. This is nothing new for a smartphone and temperature doesn’t really go too high. Although you’ll definitely feel it get warm.

Battery

As for the battery department, it’s got a large 5000mAh capacity that also supports reverse charging. We played games on it non-stop and it was able to stay on from around 7AM until past 5PM where it hit more than 10 hours of continuous gaming between Asphalt 9, Mobile Legends, and Pokémon Go.

As mentioned earlier, it now rocks a USB-C port with support for 18-watt charging to lessen the time it takes to fully charge the device. From 0-100%, it took one hour and 52 minutes as compared to the realme C3’s 3-hour charging time via micro-USB.

Creature Feature

In our reviews, The Modern Creatures aims to find that one special feature of a device that makes it worth having — something that gives the product a slight edge from among its peers. For the realme 6i, it would be the implementation of USB-C.

It’s not new that smartphone brands today are offering powerful performances for an affordable price. Of course, they have to cut corners to be able to lower the price and most of the time, charging time suffers since many in this price range only offer micro-USB connectivity to power and charge their device.

With the realme 6i’s USB-C, charging time has been sped up significantly. While there may always be the convenience of power banks, a faster charging time simply translates to the ability to focus more on other tasks at hand.

Conclusion

Overall, the realme 6i is a very strong contender in the sub-PhP 10K smartphone category. It’s got a straightforward UI, a capable array of cameras, powerful gaming performance, and a battery life that lasts long and charges faster than its peers. Probably the least element that we like about it is its design which is a bit simple for us. But then again, the designer of this phone has that simplistic trademark that he maintains.

The two variants for the 6i starts at PhP 7,990 with 3GB RAM plus 64GB of internal storage. The other model, which has 4GB RAM and 128GB of storage, is priced at PhP 9,990. Plus, to celebrate its launch, realme is having an introductory flash sale on May 15 and May 20 for both variants as well as the realme fitness Band. The 3GB/64GB variant will have a special discounted price of PhP 7,940 while the 4GB/128GB variant will be at PhP 9,490. Both phones will be available through realme’s official shop on Lazada.

At the end of the day, the realme 6i s a well-balanced phone with very little trade-offs. And with its really competitive price points, I’d say that realme has come up with a gaming phone that’s hard to resist.

You may also check out our video version of this review:

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OPPO Find N2 Flip: What it does better than other flip phones

04/22/2023

Samsung has basically cemented its position on the top with its Flip and Fold devices but that was during a time when options were, well, pretty scarce.

But as each day passes, technology improves and I can confidently say that the OPPO Find N2 Flip does bring pretty significant improvements to the flip game.

The crowd-favorite: its large cover display

It’s really quite obvious that this is the main draw of this flip phone and among all the available folding phones on the market right now, the OPPO Find N2 has the largest cover screen at 3.2 inches.

The size makes it really really easy to navigate through the widgets and read notifications and messages. And as expected, it works incredibly well with the cameras, too. I’m also glad that it’s a really well-built screen. It’s a really good first attempt at a large cover screen for a flip phone.

Colors are vibrant, animations are smooth, and it’s pretty bright even when used under the sun.

It’s functional, too, but not as functional as I’d hoped, I’ll get to why in a bit. First, let’s talk about the things it can do.

As mentioned the large display made it easy to read notifications and you’re even given quick reply options. This works for all the messaging apps I used including Facebook Messenger and Instagram but OPPO says that it should work across a number of popular apps.

Another useful little feature the Find N2 Flip’s cover screen offers is quick toggling of commonly used settings. And you can find all of these with a single swipe down — pretty nifty when you want to quickly silence your phone, switch to airplane mode, or even access the flashlight.

Widgets are few but you do get some essentials — calendar events, a timer, wireless earphone controls, and of course, the camera. The cover display also supports animated wallpapers and even offers interactive pets. They don’t do much but they are pretty cute. I would much rather put a cute gif like this that matches this adorable moonlit purple color.

OPPO says, though, that more widgets are coming including a voice recorder and Spotify widget.

My favorite, and probably everyone’s favorite use of this screen is for the camera. With the usual form factor, rear cameras are your best bet for higher-quality photos and that’s what makes the flip factor appealing to selfie-takers — more so with the large cover display.

Apart from taking photos, you can even preview them too. I absolutely love this feature since I can instantly show my friends the photos without even opening my phone.

Now, the OPPO Find N2 Flip’s large cover display makes it easily loveable but it also became sort of frustrating — but in a sort of good way. Hear me out.

I personally came to love the cover display so much that I just ended up wanting more from it.

If it offered just a tad bit more functionality, like being able to type in replies or have social media widgets, I would be over the moon for this device but maybe that’s technology we’ll see on future foldable, I suppose.

One other thing that has me iffy over this cover screen is the extra care you’ll need to exert. I’m not the best at keeping my screen scratch-free so this is a real concern for me.

There is a screen protector pre-installed, luckily, and I would highly suggest that you keep it on as the display offers no protection against scratches.

Modern cameras suited for a modern flip

With the size and form factor of flip phones, I can see why getting flagship-level quality on cameras is a difficult thing to achieve. And it’s often one of the things that have kept me from getting a flip phone myself since I do highly value cameras.

But again, as each day passes, technology improves. And the OPPO Find N2 Flip’s cameras are definitely an improvement.

We have a dual camera setup here with the 50-megapixel main camera taking on the bulk of the work. The 8-megapixel ultra-wide does its job well enough, too, and is good support for the main camera.

In adequate light and for taking photos of people and animals, the OPPO Find N2 Flip is very very capable. That Hasselblad color tuning is a great big plus as the photos produced have well-balanced and faithful colors all around.

As a person who isn’t a fan of overly saturated images, I am very satisfied with the color science on this device.
Facial touch-ups, though a tad bit aggressive, are handled well and you won’t look overly filtered as long as you have the proper levels set.

And for fans of Pro Mode, we have the Hasselblad Professional Mode that offers support for 10-bit RAW captures and full manual control.

Overall, the cameras performed beyond what I expected especially since this is just OPPO’s second attempt at a flip phone.

But it’s not perfect. While it does very well in well-lit environments, it falls short on two things: low light and zoom quality.

Noise and artifacts are more prominent once you fall into less desirable shooting conditions. OPPO’s Marisilicon X can sometimes help in restoring lost details but, again, better lighting is the most ideal for these cameras.

For the selfie camera, it’s not surprising to see a high-megapixel shooter on an OPPO device. With the 32-megapixel shooter, you can also count on clean and detailed selfies though the same lowlight problem does exist.

But in all honestly, I rarely used the front-facing camera in my time with this device. It is a flip, after all, so I would rather use the rear cameras and that large cover display.

 

For one, quality is evidently better when you use the rear cameras and it’s easy enough to control with the cover display. Plus, it’s just fun to use and instantly impresses anyone I want to take a selfie with.

Better battery life

Another major pain point for flip phones is their battery life. With a tiny and alternative form factor from the usual brick phones, it’s unsurprising that companies are still figuring out how to make the battery bigger and last longer.

Well OPPO did its homework as the Find N2 Flip is able to pack a 4300mAh battery – the largest on a flip phone so far.

And not only that, it has 44W SUPERVOOC charging too that fetches you 50% battery in just 25 minutes.

In the real world, the phone was able to last about 6-7 hours. This was in using it for all sorts of things including taking photos and videos, killing time on social media, some email work, and all the usual daily smartphone tasks.

Still not as good as the usual phone but probably the best on a flip. And that fast charging is a welcome convenience since you will most likely have to charge before the day ends.

With these three major improvements, the OPPO Find N2 Flip becomes one of the most enjoyable flip phones to use, and dare I say it’s become my favorite so far. It still doesn’t tick all the boxes I have for my daily smartphone but it’s a great sign that flip phones are getting better and better with every release.

What else can you expect?

Before we wrap things up here, I do still want to glaze over the other noteworthy features of this flip phone.

OPPO really did its best to insert as much as it can to make this phone premium. Its main display is not only practically flagship level but the crease is also the most unnoticeable out of all the flip phones I’ve seen.

You also have a top-tier processor, a good amount of RAM, large storage, dual speakers with Dolby Atmos, and dual 5G sim support.

Another thing that makes it a bit more appealing is its price. For what the OPPO Find N2 Flip is offering, you’re getting a pretty good deal, especially when comparing it to other flip phones on the market today.

Final thoughts

Let’s head back to the question that started this video. What does the OPPO Find N2 Flip do better?

Three things: cover screen, cameras, and battery. Plus you’re getting a bunch of flagship-level specs too. Major downsides are the limited functionality of that cover screen and some heating issues but neither were problematic enough for me to really call out.

The OPPO Find N2 Flip is one heck of a good flip phone and becomes a very viable competitor to the ever-popular Samsung Flip devices. And we’re lucky enough to have it in our country.

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