e recently reviewed the Realme 5 and gave it 8 points out of 10. A good score and you can check our full review of the phone on the India Today Tech website. But there is one aspect of the phone that we believe deserves a closer look. This is particularly so because the Realme 5 is a phone that sells at an affordable price of Rs 8,999, and unlike many other phones, is easily available in offline stores as well as e-commerce websites. We took a Macro-level look (see what we did there). It’s the camera, or rather, the cameras of the Realme 5, including its macro camera.
Realme’s camera with a macro lens is the sort of camera that we have seen for the first time at a price bracket under Rs 20,000. In fact, macro cameras aren’t that common and even if we include high-end devices, we have seen it only in a handful of phones. Along with the macro camera, it’s kind of neat to click photos of apples and oranges. Among other things, Realme 5 comes with 4 rear cameras and then there is one in the front. So there are five cameras in total. That is a whole lot of cameras for Rs 10,000, or rather for Rs 8,999, the price of the Realme 5.
Now we know about that quantity and quality talk and we concede that Realme 5 is no Pixel – but hey, that is a Rs 60,000 phone – but it is safe to say that the Realme 5 is still a fantastic camera phone in the under Rs 10,000 bracket and undoubtedly the most versatile of all.
Quad cameras have been seen in phones like the Samsung Galaxy A9, Honor 20 Pro and the Huawei P30 Pro in the past, but these have been launched north of Rs 20,000 going all the way up to the high-end premium segments. With the Realme 5, consumers can find a quad camera phone now starting at Rs 8,999.
Four cameras equal versatility
So, what does the Realme 5 offer? In addition to a 12-megapixel f/1.8 main camera, the quad camera system also includes an 8-megapixel ultra wide-angle lens camera, a 2-megapixel camera with macro lens and 2-megapixel shooter with depth sensor. With these four different camera sensors, the Realme 5 allows the user to capture a subject from different perspectives.
Talking of camera performance, the Realme 5, given its price point, works best when there is ample light. This is the time when all of its cameras shine bright, whether you are trying to fit in the whole lot of Humayun’s Tomb with its wide-angle lens, or whether you want to get up-close to the dew-drenched rose with its macro lens. In low light, the performance is respectable but not the kind that you get with the more expensive phones. Basically, in good light the Realme 5 cameras let you click high quality, unique photos that give you more than your money’s worth whereas in low light the Realme 5 performs like a Rs 8,999 phone.
Beyond the pixels and dynamic range, however, there is the versatility and the fun part that Realme 5 gets absolutely spot on.
The macro lens, for example, lets you get as close as 4cm to a subject, which makes it a great lens to capture small insects or water droplets. With the right amount of light around, you can capture some really good long close-up shots. The macro lens, though, is not recommended for indoors or in low-light. But if you’re not entirely satisfied with the Ultra Macro Mode, you can use the AI-based macro scene detection using the main camera, which often offers really good results, even though you may not be able to get as close to the subject.
The wide-angle lens has been seen on many Samsung phones in the budget segment already. It allows you to fit in a wider area in a single frame, which is useful when you want to capture a tall structure or a big group of people from a close distance. The wide-angle lens also works best in daylight conditions. More significantly, the wide-angle lens lets you create a unique perspective by getting up-close to what you are shooting and still fit in everything in the frame. If you get it right, you will instantly win some brownie points with a wide-angle lens camera.
The ability to easily switch between these sensors is a handy feature to have. Additionally, the Realme 5 also comes with modes like Nightscape and Chroma Boost to offer even more variety. The former is a long-exposure mode that lets you capture brighter and clearer photos in low-light, while Chroma Boost tends to artificially boost colours so that the picture looks vibrant and oversaturated. Again, if you’re not looking for terrific detail and accurate colour reproduction, these modes will get the job done.
Like we said earlier, the quad camera setup on the Realme 5 may not offer the best picture quality across the variety of sensors on board, but they are versatile as they offer a number of different shooting modes in a single phone. In this regard, there is no other smartphone under Rs 10,000 that offers a combination of sensors that includes a macro lens, an ultra wide-angle lens and a depth sensor.
We conclude our review of the Realme 5 saying that the quad camera setup does make the phone stand out from the crowd under Rs 10,000. Add to that everything else the Realme 5 offers and those 8 points that we gave in our review start to make sense. A large 5,000mAh battery that makes it last and last some more, the Crystal design that looks utterly appealing and very capable Snapdragon 665 SoC means the Realme 5 is a sort of all rounder. There aren’t many phones under Rs 10,000 – or even under Rs 15,000 – that can match up to it. Or to be specific, there is no other phone with a price of Rs 8,999 at which the Realme 5 sells that can match the versatility of its cameras.
