Realme 13 Pro Plus Review: Delivers Pro-Quality Photos With Style and Reliability

In less than four months of launching the Realme 12 Pro series, Realme has announced its successor, the Realme 13 Pro series, focussing on the camera. The new Realme 13 Pro series has two variants: the Pro Plus, top-of-the-line, and the standard 13 Pro variant. The 13 Pro Plus is priced at around 32,000, on par with the recently announced Realme GT 6T. I have used the Realme 13 Pro Plus and the standard model for the past three weeks. There isn’t much difference except for the camera performance.

Realme 13 Pro Plus certainly takes impressive shots but misses on a few minor things. AI features are more of a gimmick; it offers good performance and solid battery life. However, The under-35k market is already filled with exceptional smartphones. How will Realme 13 Pro Plus stand out? Will it become your best all-rounder or the best camera smartphone, or is it just another smartphone in the iteration? Let’s find out.

Realme 13 Pro Plus Pricing: 

• 8GB + 256GB costs Rs. 32,999/-
• 12GB + 256GB costs Rs. 34,999/-
• 12GB + 512GB costs Rs. 36,999/-

Realme 13 Pro Plus Specifications

Realme 13 Pro Plus: Unboxing

You get everything in the box when you purchase Realme 13 Pro Plus. The box includes:

• Charger: 80W Super Vooc Fast charger.
• USB Cable: USB Type-A to USB Type-C cable.
• Protective Case: Nice Quality leather pattern protective case
• Quick Start Guide: The usual quick start guide is the SIM ejector pin.

Realme 13+ Pro Plus Design: Comfortable, Compact and Leather Edition

The Realme 13 Pro Plus looks similar to the Realme 12 Pro Plus, with minor changes or improvements bringing a cleaner look. It has a big circular camera module on the back featuring gold accents. Unlike the Realme 12 Pro series, which only comes in a leather finish, the Realme 13 Pro Plus also offers a glass-back variant.

It comes in two variants: The Monet gold color with glass back and the Emerald Green with leather. I like the leather finish; if you want a glass back, you can choose Monet gold inspired by the Monet design, which is the only option. The glass back is aesthetically pleasing but very slippery while holding it in the hand. I have seen and played it for a while in the demo area.  For those who prefer leather, Emerald Green is the only option. The leather variant feels comfortable and secure in hand.

The big circular camera module on the rear is unchanged, but the arrangement of the camera lenses is different. The Realme 13 Pro Plus has three main cameras, with the fourth circular cutout used for flash. The leather variant has a cleaner look without the zip-line structure in the centre. The case provided in the box has a leather texture finish, which is a nice touch if anyone wants to use it with the case.

The smartphone is compact, not too wide or narrow, and weighs 190g for the leather variant. It is IP65 rated for dust and splash resistance and supports nano dual SIMs without a microSD card.

Realme 13 Pro+ Display: Bright, Curved but Missed on HDR

The smartphone features a 6.7-inch Full HD+ AMOLED curved display on the front with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 240Hz touch sampling rate. The display is bright, reaching 2000 nits of brightness, making it easy to use outdoors.

The display is sharp and set to vivid by default. You also get nature and pro modes like cinematic and brilliant. You can adjust the display tone in the settings based on your preference. I haven’t changed the default vivid mode, which looks good with contrasty colors. The display and text look sharp, with no noticeable issues or color shifts while using it.

However, it lacks HDR support, so you cannot watch HDR content on platforms like YouTube and Netflix. Additionally, there’s an issue with playing 4K content. This could be due to a processor bug that could be fixed with an update. Still, it’s annoying if you want to watch high-quality videos on YouTube.

The display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 7i, which protects against drops up to one meter and scratches. The screen guard is pre-applied and can protect most of the display from scratches.

Performance: Surprising Optimisation

The Realme 13 Pro Plus uses the same Snapdragon 7S Gen 2 processor found in the previous Realme 12 Pro Plus. I have mixed opinions about the Realme 13 Pro Plus’s performance. The Snapdragon S series processors are lower-end, with the base series in the middle and the Plus series at the top. I wasn’t impressed with the performance of using the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 in the Vivo V30. Surprisingly, even though lower-end, the Snapdragon 7S Gen 2 performs better.

I haven’t faced any issues during daily use. The performance is not solid or too low; it lies in the middle. It performs without issues for daily tasks like media consumption, but there are problems when the smartphone displays ads, which causes slight delays. Additionally, it also lags while playing 4K video playback on YouTube.

However, things got interesting when the processor was put through heavy testing. The processor handled gaming and multi-tasking really well. It can run PUBG at ultra HDR and Ultra framerate, and the gaming experience is smooth.

I haven’t had any issues while playing in the high graphic settings, which surprised me. I have also played Infinite Flight Simulator, which is also the same. It runs smoothly with no issues. I also ran several benchmarks showing some slowdowns, and the CPU throttled to 80% during multiple stress tests. Realme has done a good job processing optimizations.

However, I still wouldn’t recommend this phone for gamers. For a better experience, consider the Realme GT 6T, which comes with 7+ Gen 3 and has the top bunch performance.

Realme 13 Pro Plus Camera: Amazing Shots and Surprising Low-Light Performance

The Realme 13 Pro series’ primary focus is the cameras, and I must mention that I was really surprised with the results. I haven’t used Realme 12 Pro, so Realme 13 Pro Plus is my first Realme series smartphone. I was pleasantly surprised by what it offered when I clicked the first picture. It continued to impress me with its camera capabilities.

First, it takes great daylight photos with crisp detail and sharpness that are slightly contrasty and vibrant, which looks good in real life. A dedicated telephoto lens offers up to 3x optical zoom, which is the biggest advantage of this smartphone. It produces accurate colors and excellent details when zoomed in. Unlike all ultrawide cameras, the ultrawide lens maintains good color accuracy but loses details compared to the main sensor.

It performs well in low light with good details, less noise, and somewhat balanced colors. Portrait shots also excel, with nice edge detection and overall quality. However, when taking pictures of the people, there is sometimes a slightly warm tone and brighter skin tone, which can vary.

The 32MP front camera captures good shots in daylight but shows slight noise in low light. It also handles HDR well. See the third short of the image below, where I directly pointed the camera against the bright sky in the background, and it handled exceptionally without missing the details or over-exporting the shot.  Initially, there were issues with lens flare in direct sunlight, but a later update fixed this.

The AI features in the Realme 13 Pro are helpful, but I believe many AI features shouldn’t be the sole reason to choose a smartphone. You can get the same functionality, and even better, on any smartphone using third-party apps and websites. AI features can be handy if the smartphone uses on-device models, with advantages like more privacy and speed. However, Realme uses cloud AI models, meaning your data is transferred to the cloud for processing. It was fast, but it doesn’t mean you should choose a smartphone solely based on AI features.

Speaking of the AI features on the Realme 13 Pro Plus, it comes with AI Ultra Clarity, which improves image clarity. It does work in a few scenarios, like enhancing older images, but in some cases, it over-sharpens the images and misses more details. Another feature, the Magic AI, helps remove unwanted objects from photos. This works great, and I have used it in many instances to remove unwanted objects in the image.

#realme13ProSeries5G AI features in action.

1. AI Ultra Clarity

Before After pic.twitter.com/xWBTJyhK8U

— Rameshreddy🏁 (@rameshreddy71) July 23, 2024

The Realme 13 Pro Plus’s video quality is also good. It can record up to 4K at 30 fps, and the front camera can also shoot 4K at 30 fps videos. The videos are stable and offer good details. The video quality is also good in low light; there is some noise, just like any other phone tends to get when there is less light, but I was impressed by the output the smartphone offered. Overall, the Realme 13 Pro Plus is one of the best camera smartphones under 35,000, beating other smartphones in this price range.

View uncompressed Realme 13 Pro Plus Camera and video sample from here

Software: Dark Patterns Continues With Improvements

Ads in budget smartphones are becoming more common. Realme smartphones have had this for years, and the new 13 Pro Plus is no exception. It comes with Realme UI 5 on top of Android 14 out of the box.

System ads appear in various forms, such as in the notifications and the app drawer. These can be easily turned off from the settings, but some people might miss them while setting up the smartphone and continue using them with ads. Realme is not alone; many brands, including OnePlus, have started incorporating ads on their budget smartphones.

Despite the ads, the Realme 13 Pro Plus offers a great software experience. Realme UI is smooth, with excellent system animations and constant improvements. The device comes with some bloatware out of the box, but these apps can be uninstalled. Pay attention to the settings during setup to disable any dark patterns and unnecessary features.

Realme 13 Pro Plus offers two years of updates compared to three years from some competitors. However, Realme generally provides faster updates, and the Realme 13 Pro Plus is expected to receive two years of software updates.

Realme 13 Pro Plus Battery: Lasts LONG

One of the biggest concerns with Realme 12 Pro Plus is that it only supports 67W wired charging, which is significantly lower than the 100W on the previous 11 Pro series. However, with the Realme 13 Pro series, Realme has introduced 80W fast charging, a notable improvement. This can charge the smartphone in about an hour and 30 minutes.

The Realme 13 Pro Plus’s battery life is also impressive. It lasts all day and is regularly used for browsing, light gaming, and media consumption. Over the past two weeks of testing since unboxing, I have consistently achieved around 6-7 hours of screen-on time. The average battery life dropped to around 6 hours during intensive gaming sessions. It also has battery optimization features to help you optimize charging speeds on this smartphone.

Sound, Network, Connectivity, and the Missing NFC

Realme 13 Pro Plus has two variants: 8GB and 12GB with LPDDR4X RAM. The storage options include 128GB, 256GB, and 512 GB. The high-end variant uses UFS 3.1 storage, while the base variants (128GB and 256GB) come with UFS 2.0 storage. I have the 12GB RAM variant, which I didn’t notice any issues with. It can hold multiple apps in the background, and switching between them is smooth without major problems.

The sound quality is also impressive. It features stereo speakers with excellent separation. The loud audio has good depth, making it enjoyable for watching videos and listening to music. However, it doesn’t come with a headphone jack.

Regarding connectivity, it supports dual Nano SIMs with 5G capability and several 5G bands. It also comes with dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.2. Connectivity is stable, with strong signal reception. However, there is no support for NFC.

Realme 13 Pro Plus Review Verdict: Should You Buy It?

Let me answer the important question: Should you buy the Realme 13 Pro Plus smartphone? Well, yes, but… If you want a camera smartphone that takes great shots day and night and has other basic features like good performance, fast charging, a better display, and attractive looks, you can go for the Realme 13 Pro Plus.

Buy Realme 13 Pro+ If:

• You prioritize camera quality
• You want a stylish design.
• You need a vibrant display.
• You prefer solid battery life.
• You like fast charging.

Don’t Buy Realme 13 Pro+ If:

• You need top-tier performance.
• You require HDR support
• You need wireless charging

If you want powerful performance with an average to good camera, go for the Realme 6T GT. If you are a gamer and play more games, go for the Poco F6. If you want a solid smartphone with a metal build, great build quality, smooth software, and good cameras, go for the OnePlus Nord 4. There is also the iQOO 9 Pro, which comes down to under 30k with discounts, offers great performance and camera, and is even better than the Realme GT 6T.

Not every smartphone can satisfy all your needs. We have created a decision matrix below to help you make a better choice. We have divided users into six segments and compared four popular smartphones in this range to see which better suits your needs.

Which One Should You Buy: Decision Matrix

FAQs about Realme 13 Pro Plus