[REVIEW] Realme 6 is a cheap mid-range phone with a 90 Hz display and a brilliantly optimized system

Realme has started rolling out one smartphone after another, especially in the mid-range. But since competition in this segment is fierce, the Chinese progressive company had to come with something more distinct—exactly like the Realme 6.

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The Realme 6 offers mainly a 90 Hz display, which stands out the most. You’ll also like the still very good performance thanks to MediaTek Helio G90T and fast 30 W charging. In this review, we’ll look at all its pros, but also its cons.

We bought the Realme 6 here

For us, the biggest disappointment was the camera, which could have been handled better. The cut-out in the display is also a negative feature, especially because of its size and it gives a distracting impression. These are complaints, though—if they didn’t exist, it would be an almost perfect smartphone for its price tag. In its price category, however, it’s a really solid piece.

Yellow Realme packaging

At Realme, they like the color yellow—so the entire packaging is dyed in it. Inside, besides the smartphone with a pre-applied film, you’ll also get the standard included accessories: a SIM card ejector pin, a protective silicone case, a 30 W charging adapter, and a USB Type-C cable.

The adapter is a proper brick in terms of size and weight, so make sure you leave some extra space at the outlet.

If you plan to use the included silicone case, we have to warn you that it’s, in our opinion, far too thick and makes the device larger than it should be. It also has a less attractive brown-gray color that gives the impression of long-term use. So it’s better to order your own preferred protective case.

Realme 6 has an attractive design

Our test model is in a blue colorway that the manufacturer calls “Comet Blue”. The back is coated with a gradient from light blue to vivid blue. It’s a plastic material with a glass-like finish. From our personal perspective, the smartphone looks really good. On the back, you’ll also find a quad camera, an LED indicator, and the Realme logo.

The phone’s dimensions are 74.8 x 162.1 x 9.6 mm, and the weight comes in at 191 grams. It’s a very light device that feels great in one hand thanks to its slim body.

On the side, it has a button for locking and unlocking the screen, which also works as a fingerprint sensor. The sensor is truly lightning-fast and definitely ranks among the highlights of the Realme 6. On the other side, you’ll find the standard volume controls and a slot for two nano SIM cards and a micro SD card.

On the bottom, there’s a 3.5 mm audio jack, which will surely make more than one fan of wired headphones happy. There’s also a USB Type-C connector and the main speaker.

Smooth 90 Hz display

When describing the specifications, we start with a quick 90 Hz display. However, it’s only a JDI LCD IPS panel. Compared to a 90 Hz AMOLED display, we didn’t feel as impressive a user experience. AMOLED would have significantly increased the device’s price, and then we probably wouldn’t be able to talk about a mid-range phone.

Still, it’s a clear improvement over the conventional displays used by most smartphones on the global market. It’s great to see that, after higher refresh rates, manufacturers of even cheaper devices are also jumping on board.

The display diagonal is 6.5 inches, the resolution is FHD+ (1080 x 2400 px), and the sharpness is 405 pixels per inch. Corning Gorilla Glass 3 is used for protection. The sampling rate is 120 Hz.

What we don’t like about the display is clearly the large cutout for the front camera, which is distracting. The manufacturer could have handled this part better, but thanks to the perforation, the screen-to-body ratio of the smartphone is 90.5%.

Another downside is the missing LED indicator. On some smartphones from other brands, it’s replaced with animations within the ambient display, but the IPS panel doesn’t offer such a feature, and neither does the Realme UI system itself. There’s only a wake-up display function when you receive a notification.

Sufficient performance with Helio G90T

Realme 6, as a phone under €200, surprisingly delivers enough power. During testing, we didn’t notice significant system stutters or weak performance while gaming. Inside, there’s a MediaTek Helio G90T chipset, which has also been used, for example, in the popular Redmi Note 8 Pro.

Some customers may be put off by the aforementioned MediaTek processor—especially due to the cheating scandal in the benchmarks—as well as its not-so-ideal reputation. In real-world performance testing, though, we think it’s more than sufficient, and the number of points from the tests doesn’t change that.

Realme 6 performance test

In terms of gaming performance, we pushed its limits using PUBG: Mobile, the 3DMark test, and Geekbench. Since AnTuTu isn’t available anymore, the test couldn’t be run here. The display was in 90 Hz mode.

As for the gaming experience itself, it actually did very well. Hardcore players will definitely appreciate the higher refresh rate, which gives them an advantage over their opponents. Overall, we had no issues with game smoothness. There weren’t any lag spikes either. So we rate the gaming performance very highly.

In the GeekBench 5 test, the smartphone landed among, for example, the Redmi Note 8 Pro class—which even outperformed it. Above it are the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 or the Redmi K20 Pro, just by a few points.

The 3DMark test showed that the smartphone from the best doesn’t score as many points, but it still placed ahead of some well-known models. Its 2533 points earned it 212th place and even let it beat, for example, the Redmi K30 or the Honor 9X.

RAM and storage

Our configuration comes with 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. The RAM is LPDDR4X, and the storage is UFS 2.1. The highest offered configuration has 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. However, in our test, even 4 GB of RAM looked like enough capacity. In this respect, we had some slight concerns at the start, but the system is genuinely well optimized.

Good news also includes the option to expand storage with a micro SD card. The slot sits alongside the SIM cards on the left side. For us, the current storage capacity is sufficient, but for sure, some people will appreciate the ability to upgrade.

Overall, good battery life

The battery capacity is 4300 mAh, suggesting an average runtime. Still, the smartphone held up really well even in the 90 Hz mode. In our test, the battery lasted 7 hours with the screen on. The total time since charging was 2 days and 1 hour.

This was standard use with social networks and watching videos on YouTube. During this test we didn’t play any games, so it was mostly light activity. The Realme UI system also offers good power-saving options and can track well which apps drain the battery the most.

On the other hand, the very fast 30 W charging is a welcome addition. In this price category, that’s a great feature and you won’t have to wait long at all to top it up. In our test, the battery charged from 20 % to 100 % in a very quick 54 minutes.

Overall, in terms of battery life it sits at an average level, but the fast 30 W charging pushes it slightly above average. Realme 6 therefore has a really solid battery side.

The Realme 6 camera disappointed us

The camera area can be subjective. But here we probably agree with other users who tried this smartphone that it is one of the weak points of the Realme 6. In good lighting conditions, the detail quality is fine, but in worse light you can see the big gaps in the Samsung S5KGW1 sensor.

It will probably be due to poor manufacturer optimization, because the Samsung sensor does not have such a bad rating in other models as the Redmi Note 8 Pro. When zooming in, you can see unpleasant noise and not completely high-quality details.

But the night photos actually surprised us quite a bit. The results were not that bad, although it also depends on how bright the environment is.

Original photos in full resolution are available in the following link.

The main sensor is the mentioned 64 MPx Samsung S5KGW1 with an f/1.8 aperture and a sensor size of 1/1.7”. It also includes an 8 MPx wide-angle sensor with 119° FOV, a B&W sensor with an f/2.4 aperture, and a 2 MPx macro sensor with 4 cm focusing.

The front selfie camera has 16 MPx and uses a Samsung S5K3P9 sensor. Photos from this camera are quite decent. You can view them in full quality in our shared folder.

4K video with UIS stabilization

It can shoot video in up to 4K resolution at 30 fps. Smooth motion is also ensured by UIS stabilization. This is Realme’s own image stabilization and is probably a special form of digital stabilization. For an even better video result, there is also UIS Max.

It can record slow-motion video in FHD at up to 120 fps, which is not very impressive at all. What pleased us, however, is the option to create wide-angle video, which some smartphones lack.

So we rate the camera area with a average grade.

Realme UI surprised us

In the past, Realme smartphones were under the control of Color OS, which is an extension from their parent company OPPO. One of the first smartphones to receive Realme UI in version 1.0 is the Realme 6.

We really like the system; it is smooth, well-designed visually, and also includes very handy features that speed up control. The Slovak translation is also at a very good level.

One of the handy features is the side smart panel, which slides out by swiping from the edge of the display. You can set its position freely, and it includes quick shortcuts for starting screen recording, taking a screenshot, or opening various apps.

Live wallpapers, appearance settings

A nice visual upgrade to the system is also the live wallpapers, of which there are several available. The home or lock screen is thus complemented by really nice animations. There are also icon theme packs. These can also be supplemented from external sources.

You can personalize the status bar the way you like, including the layout. The design is also really well done, and after applying the dark mode it transforms completely into black. You can configure it in the Screen & brightness section. There’s also an eye protection feature here.

Gesture control

Today’s smart smartphones have very thin bezels and fairly large displays, which makes traditional control via the bottom panel somewhat impractical. However, Realme UI offers gesture-based control, similar to other popular custom skins.

We enabled navigation mode using “Swipe from both sides” and it works really well. Swiping from the edge of the screen goes back one step, swiping from the bottom takes you to the home screen, and swiping up from the bottom and holding opens a list of active apps.

Good connectivity

Support for our LTE networks is also a given. The smartphone features dual SIM support and also includes a micro SD card slot. That way, you can expand storage easily whenever you need.

There’s also NFC, which you can use for payments or to connect devices.

The combination of GPS /AGPS / Glonass / Beidou navigation systems ensures precise location positioning.

Standard speaker

The speaker area isn’t anything special, which is why we’re somewhat disappointed. A stereo speaker is becoming a kind of standard in today’s new models. The main driver is placed on the right side of the bottom edge with four cutouts. The sound is flat and lackluster, so it’s an average audio device.

Final assessment of Realme 6: 90 Hz for an extremely low price

The whole point of this device is to deliver an above-standard user experience for the price of under 200 euros. Realme managed to do it thanks to the 90 Hz display refresh rate, as well as a very well-made system. Helio G90T performance is sufficient and handles any mobile game without stuttering. Overall, the phone runs smoothly and responsively.

Its weaker points, which must be mentioned because the price is being lowered, are clearly visible. Not an entirely great camera, an IPS panel that can’t match the quality of an AMOLED panel, and a 4300 mAh battery that lands in the average range. Also, having the whole build made of plastic won’t appeal to everyone.

Buy Realme 6 at the best price

However, these are areas that could get in the way of more demanding users, who are looking at a completely different price category. So we can say that Realme is a smartphone for ridiculous 200 euros, and year after year 2020 it keeps pushing the boundaries of what you can achieve within that price range.