Realme 13 Pro+ Review: Best Camera Phone in Its Segment?

The Realme 13 Pro series is here, and I’ve been using the Realme 13 Pro+ for a couple of weeks. While it’s not a major upgrade over the Realme 12 Pro+ in terms of sheer numbers, there are a couple of hardware changes that make it better to use. And there are also new AI features baked in, which are claimed to improve user experience and the photography prowess of the phones. Just like last year’s 12 Pro+ model, the new Realme 13 Pro+ is also mostly all about the cameras.

In our Realme 12 Pro+ review, we concluded that the phone was one of the best in the segment when it comes to camera performance, especially the telephoto sensor. The Realme 13 Pro+ gets a new telephoto sensor, but it’s also now slightly more expensive. It now starts at Rs. 32,999 for the 8GB RAM + 256GB storage variant. The 12GB + 256GB and 12GB + 512GB variants are priced at Rs. 34,999 and Rs. 36,999, respectively.

Will the Realme 13 Pro+, with its new features, continue to be the best camera phone in its segment? Read on to find out.

Realme 13 Pro+ Design: Looks and feels premium

• Dimensions – 161.3×73.9×8.2mm
• Weight – 190g
• Colours – Monet Gold, Emerald Green

The design of the new 13 Pro+ is mostly similar to last year’s model, but there’s now a glass-back variant as well. The Monet Gold colour option, which we received, has a glass back with a unique pattern that looks like sand waves. The edges of the rear panel are curved, which makes it easy to hold the phone. The frame is still plastic, though.

Realme has kept the large circular watch-dial-like camera module with the flute bezel, but it now gets the HyperImage+ logo at the bottom. However, one thing that’s missing from the leather variant is the strip found in the older model that ran vertically across the centre of the rear panel. The rear is cleaner now, with the camera module being the standard design element.

The phone has a plastic frame and Gorilla Glass 7i on the front

Button placements are pretty much the same as the older model. The volume and power buttons are on the right edge, with the left edge not housing anything. You’ll find a speaker grille and a mic at the top, and another mic, SIM tray, USB Type-C port, and a second speaker grille at the bottom. The phone gets an IP65 dust and water resistance rating.

In the box, the phone is accompanied by an 80W charger, a USB Type-A to Type-C cable, a case, a SIM ejector tool, and some paperwork.

Realme 13 Pro+ Display: Curvy with slim bezels

• Display size – 6.7-inch
• Type – AMOLED LTPS
• Refresh rate – Up to 120Hz

Moving on to the front, you get a familiar-looking display setup. There’s a 6.7-inch AMOLED curved panel that offers full-HD+ resolution with up to 120Hz refresh rate. You can choose between 60 and 120Hz refresh rates, while there’s an auto mode that selects the best refresh rate based on what’s happening on the screen. The display gets slim bezels all around and a hole-punch cutout at the top centre. There’s also an under-display fingerprint scanner that’s placed at the bottom. It works well, and I never faced any issues with it. The display doesn’t support HDR unfortunately, but it is a 10-bit panel. Realme provides Vivid, Natural, and two Pro modes and also lets you adjust the screen colour temperature.

The panel offers a 120Hz refresh rate and up to 2,000nits of peak brightness

While all this sounds very similar to the display on the older Realme 12 Pro+, there are some improvements. The new phone now offers a much brighter panel with a peak brightness rating of 2,000 nits. The display is easier to read outdoors thanks to the improved brightness.

A protection film is also pre-applied on the display, but I’d recommend removing it and installing a different screen guard. Talking about protection, the display gets Armor Shield Glass with Corning’s Gorilla Glass 7i. Once again, the curved sides make the phone appear and feel thinner than it is.

Realme 13 Pro+ Software: AI and Bloatware infused

• UI – Realme UI 5.0
• OS – Android 14
• Latest Security Patch – June

The Realme 13 Pro+, like most phones in this segment, gets a lot of useful features with a hint of bloatware on the side. Luckily, you also get a couple of AI baked-in that work system-wide, which is nice. The phone runs Android 14-based Realme UI 5.0 out-of-the-box, and Realme has promised to provide 2 years of software updates and 3 years of security patches. If you ignore the bloatware, such as the Hot apps and Hot games, including the Glance lock screen and ad-filled keyboards, then you’ll find that the UI is pretty nice to use. It’s smooth, and I didn’t notice any major lag when navigating between apps.

There’s still a lot of bloatware, but the UI is overall smooth to use

Coming to the AI features, there are things like AI Screen Recognition, which is kind of like Google’s Circle to Search. You also get an AI Smart Loop feature that makes sharing images, text, and other things easier. Realme has also included the Air Gestures feature here, which lets you control some apps on the phone using air-based gestures. It works sometimes but is mostly a gimmick. There are other AI features, such as AI Eye Comfort, that can supposedly detect eye fatigue and adjust the screen temperature. All it does is change the display temperature to warmer, and I’m not so sure you need AI to do this.

There are also two AI features included in the camera called AI Eraser and AI Ultra Clarity and these actually work quite well. You should check out the separate story we did on these AI features for the Camera. Realme is calling its new image processing algorithm AI HyperRAW. You also get a few other AI features, such as AI Group Photo Enhance for selfies and AI Audio Zoom when recording videos.

Realme 13 Pro+ Performance: Decent

• Processor – Snapdragon 7s Gen 2
• RAM – Up to 12GB
• Storage – Up to 512GB

If you’re looking for a performance monster in this price segment, then you should not be considering the Realme 13 Pro+. While it does offer decent performance when it comes to multitasking and gaming, there are other phones in the segment that are much more powerful. There’s no major upgrade in the performance department compared to the outgoing 12 Pro+. You get the same 4nm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 SoC paired with the Adreno 710 GPU. Our review unit came with 12GB RAM and 512GB storage, which is the top-end variant. You get LPDDR4X RAM and UFS 3.1 storage.

The phone performed well in daily tasks such as using the Chrome browser, running multiple apps in the background, using the camera, and scrolling through social media apps such as Instagram. Gaming on the phone is also pretty decent, as it’ll play any game you’ll throw at it. However, graphics-intensive games will most likely run on medium settings, as I encountered with Genshin Impact and BGMI. The phone did get a little warm during long gaming sessions, and when using the camera for an extended period of time, but nothing to put you off.

You can play most games on the phone, and it doesn’t heat up too much

We ran some synthetic benchmarks on the Realme 13 Pro+ just to see how it performs against its competitors, and needless to say, it didn’t do a great job. Of course, these scores don’t really mirror real-world usage, but they do paint a picture.

The phone performed similarly to its predecessor, the Realme 12 Pro+, which is not a good look. However, the 13 Pro+ was not made to please the performance enthusiasts, it was made for those who want really good cameras at mid-range pricing. For connectivity, there’s Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 and the usual set of GPS features. The phone gets dual 5G standby and uses nano-SIM cards.

Realme 13 Pro+ Cameras: Impressive

• Main rear – 50-megapixel Sony LYT 701 1/1.56” sensor
• Telephoto – 50-megapixel Sony LYT 600 1/1.96” sensor
• Ultrawide- 8-megapixel
• Front – 32-megapixel Sony IMX 615 sensor

This is where the phone really comes into its own. The cameras are the star of the show, especially the telephoto. Out of the four cameras on the phone, three are from Sony. Realme announced its tie up with Sony to use Lytia sensors across all its flagship devices. Apart from the dual 50-megapixel sensors at the back, you get an 8-megapixel ultra-wide unit and a 32-megapixel Sony The camera app is easy to use, and everything is front and centre. You get access to 5 focal lengths ranging from 0.6x to 6x.

The Sony cameras perform very well

Let’s look at the main camera first. The 50-megapixel Sony LYT 701 sensor produces excellent results in good lighting conditions with plenty of details, great dynamic range, and accurate white balance. At times, the saturation can go a little overboard, and you get very contrasty pictures, but this happens only when there’s a lot of foliage. The camera also fares well in low light conditions, and there’s also a dedicated night mode. There’s good detail, even in the shadows, and you will generally not find any issues with white balance, colour saturation, and exposure. The camera also does a great job of producing very accurate skin tones as well. Check out some shots from the main camera below.

Now, the telephoto camera. Last year’s 12 Pro+ surprised us with its periscope telephoto sensor, and the new 13 Pro+ has upped things. Photos taken at 3x are full of details with great colour saturation and good contrast. You can also get a natural bokeh using this sensor. Below, you’ll find some photos taken using the telephoto camera.

Portrait photos also look great on the telephoto camera, with skin tones once again being very close to natural. I used the telephoto much more than the main camera. It also does a good job at night, with not much to complain about. You will see some noise once you start going above 3x zoom, but till that point, the photos are still pretty good, with lots of detail, nice dynamic range, and good white balance. Check out some portrait shots below. 

The ultra-wide camera on the phone is fine, and although it can produce good images during the day, it’s not so great in low light. While there is a macro mode that uses the ultra-wide sensor, it can’t really focus all that well when held close to objects. It is a usable camera, though.

Selfies from the phone are decent as well, but not in low light conditions. The HDR isn’t that great and you’ll find plenty of sharpening happening in the photos.

Finally, video performance. The phone does a good job with video in both 4K and 1080p resolution when using the main rear camera, but stabilisation is not that great. Even the telephoto camera produces similar results. Both cameras max out at 4K 30fps, whereas the ultrawide only does 1080p 30. There’s an ultra-steady mode available on the phone, but it only works at 1080p 60 and produces good results. The dynamic range in 4K resolution is good, with very little noise. Colours and white balance are also good.

Realme 13 Pro+ Battery and Sound: Pretty good

• Capacity – 5,200mAh
• Charging – 80W
• Speakers – Dual stereo

I was quite surprised with the battery life on this phone, especially since the older model also performed really well in our independent battery test. The Realme 13 Pro+ comes with a larger 5,200mAh battery that lasted an impressive 32 hours in our HD video loop test. Once again, this test doesn’t equate to real-life usage, but rest assured, you can certainly binge-watch at least two entire seasons of The Boys without having to charge up your phone. With normal usage that involved watching YouTube videos, scrolling on Instagram, making a couple of calls, texting, using the camera, and about 45 mins of gaming, the phone consistently lasted over a day with screen-on times of over 7 hours.

The battery life is impressive on the phone

Charging is also quick, thanks to the 80W fast charger included in the box, but it doesn’t really peak out at 80W. We managed to charge the phone from 0 to 100 percent in under 1 hour 10 mins.

The Realme 13 Pro+ comes with a dual speaker stereo setup, with the bottom speaker delivering most of the volume. The phone does get pretty loud, and there’s some bass as well. These are a good pair of speakers.

Realme 13 Pro+: Verdict

I’d totally recommend this phone to anyone looking to buy a good camera phone under Rs. 35,000 over all its competitors. And the Realme 13 Pro+ has plenty to fight off. There’s the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G (Review), the recently launched OnePlus Nord 4 (Review) with its metal build, the performance powerhouse Poco F6 (Review), the Samsung Galaxy A35 (Review), and the just-launched Motorola Edge 50. All of these devices offer something more in other departments, but when it comes to cameras, nothing really matches up to the Realme. In some cases the camera also performs better than phones that cost more than Rs. 50,000.

However, like I said, if you want a phone mostly for camera performance, then the Realme 13 Pro+ is the easy recommendation. Apart from the great cameras, you also get plenty of AI features, a good display, loudspeakers, and a great design. It’s a great phone overall and definitely the best camera phone in the segment.