The Realme 13+ 5G is a gaming beast on a budget. With the Dimensity 7300 Energy, a sophisticated cooling system, and 90 FPS gaming support, the phone is an obvious choice for mobile gaming enthusiasts. And it’s not a one-trick pony. The 6.67-inch OLED display is bright and crisp, the battery life is impressive, with excellent endurance and fast charging capabilities, and the primary camera produces solid results. The phone’s design, however, feels lacklustre compared to other Realme models, and the lack of an ultrawide camera is disappointing. Additionally, the phone’s bloatware is just excessive; there’s no mild way to put it.
Realme has been leaning heavily into catering to the mobile gaming market in 2024 with launches like the powerful Realme P1 and, now, the Realme 13+ 5G. Powered by the Dimensity 7300 Energy, this phone looks like a gaming beast on paper equipped with a large 6050mm² Stainless Steel VC cooling system, 90 FPS gaming support on popular titles like BGMI and Call of Duty: Mobile, and GT Mode support.
But it’s important to note that over the last few years, Realme has also been building a portfolio of well-designed phones with stellar cameras at an affordable price; so the question that’s on my mind is: has Realme sacrificed aesthetics and camera quality to make a powerful gaming phone? It has much to prove with competition like the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion (review), iQOO Z9 (review), and OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite (review). So, let’s see how the Realme 13+ 5G fares in our full review.
realme 13+ 5G Review: Build and Design
My first impression of the Realme 13+ 5G was that recent Realme phones seem to have taken a step back in terms of design and aesthetics. The Realme 13+, in particular, appears quite garish, especially in the Victory Gold colour variant I received for review. Of the three available colours, I prefer the Dark Purple variant. The phone has a plastic back with wave-like patterns on the lower half and a simple matte design on the top half.
The top half features a large camera module that includes a 50 MP primary camera, a 2 MP portrait or mono camera, an LED flash, and what appears to be a dummy camera lens. This module is encircled by a slightly oblong outer ring, which has the camera specifications engraved on it.
One aspect of the Realme 13+ 5G’s design that I appreciate is the matte, fingerprint-resistant finish on the rear panel and the frame. The buttons, however, feel quite mushy; I would prefer them to be a bit tighter. On the front, the bezels are slightly thick but nearly uniform all the way around, which I find appealing. The optical in-display fingerprint sensor is also quite speedy. The phone also comes with IP65 dust and water resistance. There’s also a 3.5 mm audio jack, which has become increasingly rarer over the years.
The in-hand feel of the Realme 13+ 5G is decent; the phone isn’t too slippery, and its curved back sits comfortably in my palm. However, this is far from my favourite design on a Realme phone.
realme 13+ 5G Review: Display
The Realme 13+ 5G features a smooth and crisp 6.67-inch OLED display with Full HD+ resolution and a 120 Hz refresh rate. The display supports HDR10+ and is Widevine L1 certified. It also includes ProXDR technology, which enhances the brightness of highlights when viewing HDR photos or videos. Additionally, the display is equipped with Rainwater Smart Touch, ensuring it works seamlessly even when wet.
HDR videos appear crisp with good detail and decent color accuracy. However, the phone encountered an issue where it wouldn’t boot up Netflix, even after a fresh installation. Hopefully, Realme will address this problem soon – watch this space for updates on this matter.
The display’s brightness levels are impressive as well. With a rated peak brightness of 2,000 nits, the Realme 13+ 5G’s display reached 1,128 nits under direct sunlight in Auto Brightness Mode during our tests using a lux meter. Overall, this is a stellar display for the price, but the Netflix issue is concerning and should be resolved promptly.
Performance beast!
The Realme 13+ 5G is in its element when handling strenuous tasks and intensive games. Powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Energy, the Realme 13+ 5G outperforms most of its competitors in benchmarks except the more affordable iQOO Z9. It boasts up to 12 GB of LPDDR4X RAM and up to 256 GB of UFS 3.1 storage. The phone also houses a massive stainless steel vapour chamber cooling system which keeps temperatures under check.
In synthetic benchmarks, the Realme 13+ impresses with an AnTuTu score of over 7.3 lakh. In GeekBench, the phone scores a respectable 1052 points in the Single Core test and a whopping 2976 points in the Multi-Core test. Its scores are one of the best in PCMark Work too. As for GPU benchmarks, the Realme 13+ beats both the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion and OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite in all tests but the iQOO Z9 skirts ahead with superior GPU power.
The phone also doesn’t throttle extensively under high loads. In the CPU Throttling Test, the phone throttled to merely 81% of its peak performance in 15 minutes, which is pretty good. I also noticed that the heating is very much in check even when you’re gaming for longer periods; with the maximum surface temperature reaching 35.4 degrees Celsius after 30 minutes of gameplay.
In daily usage, the phone feels smooth and jitter-free. Animations look solid and the phone can keep up with pretty much any everyday task you throw at it. You can game at 90 FPS on popular titles like BGMI and Call of Duty: Mobile at stable frame rates. GT Mode is a great gaming tool that lets you get smooth gameplay with support for features like Geek Power Tuning (which allows you to manage clock speeds), Game Focus Mode, Voice Changer, and more.
The phone, however, is riddled with bloatware in the form of third-party apps. The infamous Hot Apps and Hot Games are here, and so are other third-party apps like Reelshort, Spotify, Finshell Pay, Myntra, and a bunch of games. There are also a fair number of ad notifications you get from time to time, which sours the overall experience. The phone should get 2 Android updates and 3 years of security updates.
Realme UI 5.0 based on Android 14 has some notable features like File Dock, Flash Capsule, Smart Sidebar, and Smart Image Matting. The phone has AI Boost 2.0 which optimises app performance based on usage patterns. Other AI features include AI Smart Loop and AI Clear Voice, and I really like how AI Smart Loop is integrated.
realme 13+ 5G Review: Camera
The Realme 13+ 5G has a 50 MP Sony LYT-600 primary with an unspecified 2 MP secondary shooter. The practice of adding nominal 2 MP shooters in place of useful ultrawide cameras is something I hope brands phase out in the near future as the functionality of these cameras is limited. I would have preferred an 8 MP ultrawide here in place of the 2 MP camera.
Now, the primary 50 MP Sony camera clicks solid photos in daylight with good dynamic range and close to accurate colours. However, I did notice some HDR blooming in a couple of shots. Close-up photos have good natural bokeh and portrait photos have great skin tones but average edge detection. 2x in sensor zoom photos are decent detail and dynamic range too.
Low-light photography is decent, with good colours and dynamic range but limited detail retention. As for selfies, the results were disappointing as the camera failed to capture textures and struggled against harsh lighting.
realme 13+ 5G Review: Battery Life
Equipped with a 5,000 mAh battery, the Realme 13+ 5G surprised me with its battery’s endurance. The phone easily gave me 6-7 hours of on-screen time on a daily basis with medium to heavy usage. Even playing intensive games like Call of Duty Mobile for half an hour only dropped the battery percentage by 6 per cent, which is impressive.
The phone supports 80 W fast charging to top up the battery. The charger inside the box juices up the phone from 0-100% in just 47 minutes, which is pretty speedy.
Should you buy it?
The Realme 13+ 5G is a gaming beast on a budget. With the Dimensity 7300 Energy, a sophisticated cooling system, and 90 FPS gaming support, the phone is an obvious choice for mobile gaming enthusiasts. And it’s not a one-trick pony. The 6.67-inch OLED display is bright and crisp, the battery life is impressive, with excellent endurance and fast charging capabilities, and the primary camera produces solid results. The phone’s design, however, feels lacklustre compared to other Realme models, and the lack of an ultrawide camera is disappointing. Additionally, the phone’s bloatware is just excessive; there’s no mild way to put it.
Despite these misses, the Realme 13+ 5G has the makings of a great budget phone, one not just catered to power users and gamers but also those who look for a more holistic experience. However, I do believe, the phone would be infinitely more appealing had it been priced under ₹20,000. At ₹22,999, it gets slightly overshadowed by the iQOO Z9, although I do believe the Realme 13+ is slightly superior thanks to its balanced camera performance.
Realme 13+ 5G Key Specs, Price and Launch Date
| Release Date: | 30 Aug, 2024 |
| Market Status: | Launched |
Key Specifications
Storage
128 GB
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Battery capacity (mAh)
5000
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Rear Camera Megapixel
50
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Screen size (in inches)
6.67
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Dhriti Datta
Perpetually sporting a death stare, this one can be seen tinkering around with her smartphone which she holds more dear than life itself and stuffing her face with copious amounts of bacon. View Full Profile
