MANILA - The realme 9i boasts of a smooth-scrolling screen, decent cameras, fast charging, great battery life and big storage, all for under P12k. All of these features make the 9i a really good deal for people who want to upgrade to a new phone but are on a tight budget.

Midrange phones are the sweet spot for vendors right now. But with inflation eating into our wallets, entry level or budget phones have also become a good option. The 9i has its specs aimed squarely at this market.

For a budget phone, the 9i is pretty well-designed. Like a lot of phones in this price range, it is made from lightweight plastic. But the reflective coating adds a nice touch of premium-ness to the package.

It comes into two coloways, Prism Blue and Prism Black. Fortunately, I got the latter for review as I really prefer my gadgets to be on the less shiny side.

On the right hand side is the power key, which also functions as a fingerprint scanner. On the left-hand side are the volume keys and the SIM and microSD card tray.

At the bottom is a Type-C USB, and a 3.5mm headphone jack– it’s always nice to be able to plug a good old-fashioned wired headphones. This is great because people on a budget can still get great wired Sony earphones at an affordable price compared to the generally crappy cheap Bluetooth earphones.

Also at the base are the external speaker and mic.

The phone features a 6.6-inch full HD LCD display with a 90Hz refresh rate.

For anyone moving up from a 60Hz screen, which was the standard 2 or 3 years ago, this means games and videos look smoother. Scrolling through menus also looks less jaggy compared to an older phone.

It’s also reasonably bright, but like other budget phones, don’t expect too much under direct sunlight.

The guts of our review unit 9i feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 680, 4GB RAM (although some models are 6GB) and 128GB of storage. It also comes with a beefy 5,000 mAh battery.

These are good specs for a phone in this category. However, it would have also been nice if realme had thrown in 5G. This would have made the 9i a real stand out, but I guess also more expensive. Still, these are decent specs.

For social media, and watching videos, this phone does a pretty good job. For most games, this phone will also do a nice job. In more demanding games like PUBG however, the phone does seem to struggle with high graphics requirements.

Sample shots taken with the realme 9i. Art Fuentes, ABS-CBN News

Sample shots taken with the realme 9i. Art Fuentes, ABS-CBN News

Sample shots taken with the realme 9i. Art Fuentes, ABS-CBN News

Sample shots taken with the realme 9i. Art Fuentes, ABS-CBN News

Sample shots taken with the realme 9i. Art Fuentes, ABS-CBN News

Sample shots taken with the realme 9i. Art Fuentes, ABS-CBN News

Realme also spec'd pretty good cameras on the 9i. There are technically 3 cameras on the back: a 50 megapixel main camera, a 2MP black & white lens for sensing depth, and a 2MP macro lens. Up front is a punchhole that houses the 16MP selfie camera.

In good lighting, the 9i takes pretty good images. Colors are sharp, and not overly-saturated. The built-in AI also helps in high contrast settings, allowing you take good, clear photos “against the light.” Night shots are okay. The finer details of shots sometimes get clipped, but that is to be expected for budget phones.

The selfie camera works best in day light, and the portrait mode’s back blurring is decent.

For videos, the 9i can shoot 1080p at 30fps. But since it doesn’t feature stabilization, you will need a tripod or some pretty stable hands when shooting.

All in all, this is a good choice for those seeking to upgrade from phones 3 or 4 years older, but who are struggling with a tight budget amid the rising cost of living.

The realme 9i retails for P11,990.