Realme 5s hands-on review

Camera

The key difference between the Realme 5s and the older 5 is the camera setup on the back. While the ultra wide-angle unit remains the same - 8MP coupled with a f/2.2 lens - along with the 2MP depth sensor and 2MP dedicated macro unit, the main camera gets a significant upgrade. Coming from a standard 12MP unit with f/1.8 aperture, the new 48MP sensor with native support for pixel-binning and a bright f/1.8 aperture should deliver significantly better photos. Here are a couple of samples to see how it does in the real world.

12MP daylight samples

We also took 48MP photos.

48MP daylight samples

Here are some ultra-wide shots as well.

Ultra-wide samples

And the usual low-light photos.

Low-light samples with the main camera

We couldn't miss taking a couple of shots with the Nightscape mode, which, by the way, crops down to 8MP from the actual 12MP maybe because the SoC struggles with stacking 12MP images. After all, we've noticed that it takes some time to take a shot and then process it.

Nightscape samples

The night mode works on the ultra-wide as well.

Low-light ultra-wide: Normal • Nightscape

Early verdict

Realme has done its homework in terms of pricing, and the hardware refresh is proper. What we mean by that is that the Realme 5s launches in India at the same price as the Realme 5 did a couple of months ago - INR 9,999 (around $139). However, it introduces a significant upgrade to the camera setup and offers a more 2019-worthy memory configuration too - 4GB/64GB as opposed to the 3GB/32GB standard version on the vanilla Realme 5.

The Realme 5s is a highly-competitive low-end device with a few great standout features like the humongous 5,000 mAh battery, versatile camera setup including the trendy 48MP sensor and the competent Snapdragon 665 SoC, which is an excellent alternative to some other rivals still running the older Snapdragon 600-series chips.