realme 13+ 5G review

Back in August, we reviewed the realme 13 Pro 5G and realme 13 Pro+ 5G with price tags going up to almost PHP 26,000. Fast forward to today, we now have the new additions to the family: the realme 13 5G and realme 13+ 5G.

These new smartphones from realme are also the successors of the realme 12 5G and realme 12+ 5G that came out back in March of this year.

In this article, we are taking a deep dive into the realme 13+ 5G and how it handles everyday tasks. Can this be your next daily driver? Let’s find out.

If you want to read about the realme 13 5G, you can check out our review right here on our website.

Design and Construction

Compared to the realme 12+ 5G’s vegan leather back, the realme 13+ 5G features a polycarbonate back panel has a marble design. You can also see some realme branding at the lower portion of the rear.

Our review unit came in Dark Purple, but there is a Victory Gold colorway available for those who prefer brighter phone designs.

It comes with the usual rubber case which I highly recommend users to take advantage of. Though it does have IP65 Dust & Water Resistance, you can’t go wrong with having another layer of defense. realme states that it also has Wear and Corrosion Resistant Surfaces along with Cushioning Protection Structure for more drop resistance.

Other than that, the design is very minimal. You can see the realme branding right on the bottom of the device and, of course, the very notable circular camera island. We’ll talk about its sensors later.

For I/O, you have the volume buttons and power button on the right side, the USB Type-C port, SIM card tray, and one half of the dual stereo speakers at the bottom, and the other half of the speakers and 3.5mm audio jack right on top.

I have to say, I did not expect this phone to come with a 3.5mm jack so kudos to realme for adding this in. This means you can plug your wired earphones in for your calls or tunes.

Display and Multimedia

For display, the phone has a 6.67-inch FHD+ OLED panel and caps at a refresh rate of 120Hz with up to 2,000 nits peak brightness.

There is also realme’s ArmorShell protection spotted here. This allows the device to have a slightly better overall durability in situations like accidental drops and provides Tempered Glass with it too.

You will not hear any complaints from us here as the realme 13+ 5G gets you immersed in what you are watching or viewing. Even when the sun is bright outside, you don’t have to worry about not seeing the screen at all. It is able to produce true-to-life colors and deep blacks along with thin bezels that won’t bother you when you want to watch a movie.

In the audio department, you get Hi-Res dual stereo speakers that are very loud. It caught me off guard at first especially with how thin the phone is, but nevertheless, I didn’t need to turn the volume all the way to the max as it was able to deliver detailed audio with clarity.

Of course, as mentioned before, you also have the option to plug in your wired earphones should you want to use them.

For biometrics, you have an in-display fingerprint scanner and face recognition. The realme 13+ 5G was able to detect my face in almost an instant when I raised it up. Fingerprint detection is also really fast as it takes less than a second to unlock the device.

Cameras

What caught me by surprise is the camera. The realme 13+ 5G only has a 50MP rear camera with OIS and an aperture of f/1.88. For the front, you get a 16MP camera.

This is where I think the realme 13+ 5G isn’t strong. It appears to have the same sensor as the realme 13 Pro 5G, but without the other two lenses, it appears to be lacking in sharpness and clarity.

It has different modes depending on what subject you are trying to capture. Street photography, night photography, portrait, and more can be found here.

Beauty mode, in my opinion though, is over-the-top for me and not my cup of tea at all when it comes to taking selfies. The AI colors the lips too much and softens the face to the point I don’t recognize myself in the camera.

You have your usual AI Eraser in post-processing to remove clutter or any photobombers disrupting the image you took. The AI replaces the object with something similar to the background to make sure it looks natural in the final results.

Though the colors of photos and videos come out really decent at first glance, you can see the lack of details and spot noise when you zoom in just a bit. I’m very picky when it comes to textures and details of my photographs so grainy shots are a bit of a turn off for me.

With my hobby in toy photography, seeing the lack of sharpness in my subjects irks me. Instead, you can spot that there isn’t much clarity despite having good lighting. Yes, the phone is able to detect the subject and blur everything behind it, but the device’s singular sensor needs a little back up in my opinion.

Still, I have to give credit where it’s due as the singular sensor is able to reproduce the colors of the moments. It can also record up to 4K at 30fps. The OIS comes into clutch here as the stabilization of the device provides a result where the video isn’t wobbly compared to the 12+ 5G.

And though details are still not evident at night, the realme 13+ 5G is able to take night shots decently despite not having that much light in its surroundings. As long as it has something to focus on, the camera will do its best to capture it.

You can check our sample photos here to see for yourself.

Front video sample:

Rear video sample:

OS, Apps, and UI

Next, the realme 13+ 5G uses realme UI 5.0 based on Android 14. It has a LOT of bloatware and you get a notification of an ad every now and then which can be a bit annoying.

You have your usual features like floating windows and split screen. A notable feature that the smartphone has is Riding Mode which is a function that allows users to access necessary functions while driving or travelling. Apps like Google Maps, Music, and Google Dialer fall under this.

You also have Air Gestures where the phone’s AI can detect a hand gesture that you make while using the selfie camera. You can perform actions like swiping up and down and the AI will detect your hand and palm from up to 40cm.

It also has Rainwater Smart Touch, letting users be able to use the phone even when there is mist or droplets of water. This means it can register swipes and taps despite having wet hands.

Performance and Benchmarks

Powering the device is a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Energy chipset with an ARM Mali-G615 GPU. To get into more detail, this processor was made back in May 30 of this year. It’s got four ARM Cortex-A78 Cores and four ARM Cortex Cortex-A55 cores with CPU speeds of up to 2.5GHz.

You get 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. If that RAM isn’t enough for you (for some reason), you can get an additional 14GB of RAM through Dynamic RAM Expansion, giving you a total of 26GB of RAM.

With that much RAM, I was able to go through different apps and come back to where I left off in each and every one of them. There were no delays when I moved from one app to another.

realme has stated that this device is one of the first smartphones to have an S-Level in TÜV SÜD Lag Lag-Free Certification. This means that it has passed tests when it comes to its response speed, retention of smoothness for average and minimum frame rates in-game.

What does this mean?

You can be rest assured that when you play your games, your experience with the realme 13+ 5G is smooth sailing. I can vouch for that as I have experienced little to no problems when I play games on this device.

For context, I ran Pokemon Unite, Honkai Star Rail, Wuthering Waves and Zenless Zone Zero on the realme 13+ 5G. It was able to handle Pokemon Unite with much ease even at its highest of graphic quality and run at its max frame rate. There were no struggles when trying to fight in the game.

Honkai Star Rail is also no exception to this too. The device gave buttery smooth gameplay at its highest settings, allowing users to see their characters’ abilities in all their glory.

One of the other games we ran on the phone was Zenless Zone Zero. It was at High Settings and ran at 60 FPS. It was able to not stutter once and delivered buttery smooth gameplay. The most graphic-intensive game here is Wuthering Waves. Although there were some slight lag here and there, it was able to deliver a great gaming experience for the most part.

We have an article talking more about our gaming experience with the realme 13+ 5G on our website. You can check that in the link below.

It was able to garner a score of 736,652 in AnTuTu which is higher than the realme 12+ 5G that only has 603,307.

Of course, you can see our benchmarks here to know more about how the realme 13+ 5G fared:

• Antutu v10.3.4 – 736,652

Antutu Storage Test v10.3.4 – 119,116

S.Read – 20,506

Speed: 2062.0MB/s

S.Write – 20,008

Speed: 1743.7MB/s

R.Access – 61,322

R.Speed: 870.0MB/s

W.Speed: 769.0MB/s

AI Read – 17,280

Speed: 432.0MB/s

• 3D Mark: Wild Life – 3,173

Average frame rate – 19.00 FPS

• Geekbench 6 CPU

Single: 1,050

Multi: 2,992

GPU OpenCL: 2,593

GPU Vulcan: 2,521

• PCMark Work 3.0 Performance – 7,734

Battery Life

Wrapping up the review, the realme 13+ 5G packs a 5,000mAh battery with support for 80W Ultra Charge support via USB Type-C wired charging.

You don’t have to worry about this phone taking a long time to charge as it will be ready to go in about 45 minutes. This is when we charged it from 20% all the way to 100%.

It also lasted us the whole day where we took photos, scrolled through social media, watched videos and played games.

In our proprietary video loop test, where we run a 1080p video at 50% brightness with zero volume and in airplane mode, it gave us a result of 24 hours and 31 minutes. The tablet was able to pump 17 hours and 23 minutes of activity on PCMark’s Battery Test.

Pricing & Conclusion

So, with all that being said, how much is the realme 13+ 5G here in the Philippines?

Sadly, as of writing this article, we do not have the price of the realme 13+ 5G just yet.

For gamers, the realme 13+ 5G is a great choice for your next daily driver and partner when it comes to gaming. Not only will it give you a smooth experience, but with its battery life and charging speed, you can be sure to get back in the fray quickly.

But, if you were expecting to take photos and videos with this guy, I would not recommend it as much.

The realme 13+ 5G has just launched today so you can grab yours now in realme’s official stores in Shopee and TikTok. Until October 27 only, the realme 13+ 5G exclusively on Shopee will be available at P3,000 OFF, while the realme 13 5G is exclusively available on TikTok at P1,400 OFF.

From October 25 to November 3, every purchase of any smartphone from the Series at realme physical stores nationwide will come with a FREE realme Buds T110 worth P1,399. During the promo period, customers can also join the Spin The Wheel activity at selected realme physical stores to get the chance of winning amazing prizes such as realme TechLife Robot Vacuum, realme Pad X (6GB+128GB Wi-Fi), DIZO Power Bank 10000mAh, or TechLife 20W Charger with Type-C Cable.

So, what did you guys think of the realme 13+ 5G? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

You can also check our review of the realme 13 5G base model right here on our website too.

What we liked about it

• Bright display
• Powerful chipset and large RAM
• Elegant design

What we did not like

• Subpar camera
• A lot of bloatware seen

realme 13+ 5G specs:
6.67-inch FHD+ OLED panel @ 2400×1080 pixels, 92.67% screen-to-body ratio
120Hz refresh rate, 2000 nits (peak brightness)
ArmorShell Proection
MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Energy chipset @ 2.5GHz
ARM Mali-G615 GPU
12GB LPDDR4X RAM (+14GB Dynamic RAM Expansion)
256GB UFS 3.1 storage
50MP Sony LYT600 OIS f/1.88 main camera
Up to 4K@30fps, 1080p@60fps/30fps
16MP in-display selfie camera f/2.4
5G, dual nano-SIM
WiFi 6
Bluetooth 5.4
NFC
GPS, Glonass, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS
IP65 Dust & Water Resistance
Dual stereo speakers
3.5mm audio jack
realme UI 5.0 (based on Android 14)
5,000mAh battery, 80W Ultra Charge wired support
Victory Gold, Dark Purple [colors]
161.7mm x 74.7mm x 7.6mm [dimensions]
185 grams [weight]