Realme 13 Pro review: a camera-focused mid-ranger with some trade-offs

• By Ashish Kumar
Published On: 14 August 2024 | 14:30 IST

Alongside the Realme 13 Pro+, the company also introduced Realme 13 Pro in India. It is practically the same device as the Pro+ but a few corners were cut to make the Realme 13 Pro significantly more affordable than its more accomplished sibling. The 13 Pro boasts a 2MP macro sensor and 45W fast charging instead of a 50MP periscope lens and 80W charging solution offered by the Pro+. Does it make or break the smartphone against the face of the competition where we have the likes of Nothing Phone (2a) Plus, Motorola Edge 50, and more? Read this Realme 13 Pro review to find out.

Verdict

The Realme 13 Pro is worthy of your attention if a camera-centric smartphone is what you are after with a tight budget. The handset excels with its primary and selfie cameras, which offer images with good colour accuracy. The handset’s design and display are also noteworthy, though its performance and software experience might fall short of expectations.

Design and display

The Realme 13 Pro is almost indistinguishable from its Pro+ cousin. The Monet Gold edition features elegantly curved edges and a glass back with a sandblasted finish, offering a premium feel and look. Beneath the glass, a pattern inspired by Claude Monet’s artwork enhances the smartphone’s visual appeal. The design is further elevated by a circular camera module, reminiscent of a luxury watch, with golden rims that seamlessly blend with the frame. The only noticeable difference between the two models lies in the camera module, where the Pro has a smaller sensor next to the LED flash compared to its Pro+ counterpart.

Despite the glass back, the Realme 13 Pro weighs 188 grams, which makes it comfortable for prolonged usage. The handset is IP65 rated against rain and splashes of water. For security, the phone features an in-display fingerprint scanner that consistently unlocks the device in a jiffy. The handset also boasts a USB Type-C port for charging and data transfer, as well as stereo speakers with Hi-res support that provides decent sound quality.

On the display front, the vanilla 13 Pro flaunts a 6.7-inch AMOLED panel which comes with a peak brightness of 2,000 nits peak brightness, FHD+ resolution, and up to 120Hz refresh rate. The display delivers an outstanding indoor and outdoor viewing experience, with its razor-thin bezels, vibrant colours, and deep blacks. Notably, the curved edges don’t suffer from accidental touches, a common issue with similar designs. While the phone lacks HDR support, it can stream content in FHD resolution from Netflix and other platforms. The 120Hz refresh rate also ensures smooth UI and animation across supported apps performance. The display supports Rainwater Smart Touch as well to avoid false touches when it is wet.

Cameras

For photography, the Realme 13 Pro sports a 50MP Sony LYT 600 OIS primary sensor (as opposed to the latest LYT-701 on the Pro+), along with an 8MP ultrawide lens, and a 2MP macro sensor. The front camera is a 32MP snapper handling selfies and video calling duties in a punch-hole setup. Much like the Pro+ variant, the handset also rocks AI-based Hyperimage+ technology to enhance the images. Furthermore, the smartphone supports features like AI Portraits, AI Group Photo Enhance feature, and AI Audio Zoom. While the AI takes a bit of time to work its magic, most of the features work as advertised.

While the Realme 13 Pro macro and ultrawide cameras are average, the primary and selfie cameras capture good images in daylight with pleasing colours and good exposure to details even around shadowy areas. Here’s how the Realme 13 Pro cameras stack up against its close competitors, the Motorola Edge 50 and Nothing Phone (2a) Plus:

Daylight

The Realme 13 Pro captures images with near-accurate colours, unlike the Motorola Edge 50, which oversaturates them, and the Nothing Phone (2a) Plus, which brightens images to enhance their appeal. Additionally, the Realme 13 Pro excels in capturing superior details in shadowy areas and offers a better dynamic range, where the Motorola and Nothing smartphones fall short.

Ultrawide

For ultra wide shots, the Nothing Phone (2a) Plus and Motorola Edge 50 would be better choices than the Realme 13 Pro. The latter offers images with underwhelming details, and there is also a discernible shift in colours from the primary camera.

Portrait

Unlike Motorola Edge 50, the Realme 13 Pro uses computational skills to separate the foreground from the background, and it appears to excel at that. The handset outputs portraits with minimum warping around the edges of the subject. The skin tones are brighter than they should have been to make the images more appealing. The facial detail levels are on par with the Motorola smartphone.

The portrait on the Nothing Phone (2a) Plus was a bit buggy as of writing this article.

Selfie

The Realme 13 Pro offers selfies with good facial details and likeable skin tones. However, they are not as detailed as the Motorola Edge 50, which also produces skin colours that are close to real life.

Low light (night mode)

Both the Motorola Edge 50 and Realme 13 Pro struggle with detail in low light. However, the Realme 13 Pro’s night mode handles noise better, though it slightly boosts the colours. The Motorola Edge 50, on the other hand, delivers more accurate colours but with a bit more graininess in the images.

Performance and software

The Realme 13 Pro is powered by the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 SoC coupled with up to 12GB of RAM and 512GB storage onboard. The handset’s performance may not be the best for the price, but it seems to be better justified for the price than the 13 Pro+, which also rocks the same SoC under the hood. The 13 Pro scores 6,64,130 on AnTuTu, which is roughly 50,000 and 1,00,000 short of the similarly priced Motorola Edge 50 and Nothing Phone (2a) Plus respectively. On Geekbench, the handset achieves 872 on single-core and 2,826 on multi-core tests. The phone’s performance under intense load is also pretty impressive, with a 77 percent score on the Burnout CPU throttle test.

As for its real-world performance, the Realme 13 Pro handles games like BGMI, Call of Duty, and Real Racing smoothly at moderate graphics settings, with minimal thermal issues. In our lab test, the device’s temperature rose by approximately 15.6 degrees after playing all three games, which is respectable. The phone also achieved an average frame rate of 36.45 while playing BGMI in Ultra frame rate settings, comparable to its competitors. This suggests that the phone will have no trouble running day-to-day errands like browsing, social media scrolling, and multitasking for you.

Similar to the 13 Pro+, the regular Realme 13 Pro also comes with a slew of AI features. The handset boots Android 14-based Realme UI 5.0 out of the box, offering features like AI Smart removal to edit images, AI Ultra Clarity to enhance the quality of the images, and AI Smart Loop that recognises content and makes recommendations for the next step, among other things. These features have been discussed in length in our Realme 13 Pro+ review, so don’t forget to check it out.

Besides AI, the 13 Pro is also loaded with several pre-installed apps – 60 in total, out of which 10 are third-party ones. Furthermore, the handset is expected to receive just two years of major OS updates and three years of security updates.

Battery and charging

The Realme 13 Pro battery performance is also similar to the 13 Pro+. The handset is equipped with a 5,200mAh battery, which scores 10 hours 48 minutes on the PCMark battery test. Additionally, the phone consumed 4 percent battery during our 30-minute video test and a total of 21 percent battery after playing BGMI, Call of Duty, and Real Racing 3 for 30 minutes each. The charging speed is capped at 45W for which a compatible charger is provided in the box. While it takes 52 minutes (which is similar to most competitors within the segment) to charge the device fully to 100 percent from 20 percent, the timing is roughly 12 minutes more than the Realme 13 Pro+ that supports 80W charging.

Final verdict

Rs 26,999 is the asking price of the Realme 13 Pro’s base 8GB RAM + 256GB variant without any offers or discounts. The 12GB + 256GB and 12GB + 512GB variants are selling with an MRP of Rs 28,999 and Rs 31,999 respectively. The latter might not appeal that much, especially if you don’t need that much storage. The 8GB RAM and 12GB RAM variants with 256GB storage can be considered depending on your requirements.

The Motorola Edge 50 (review) and Nothing Phone (2a) Plus (review) would suit performance-oriented users. The handsets also offer a relatively clean software experience, but they are both more expensive (by Rs 1,000) than the Realme smartphone.

The Realme 13 Pro should be ideal for those looking for a smartphone that excels in photography, particularly in daylight and portrait scenarios, and offers a stylish and premium look.

Editor’s rating: 7.5 / 10

Reasons to buy

• Elegant design with a glass back, and curved edges.
• The display offers vibrant colours.
• Primary and selfie cameras capture images with good colour accuracy and dynamic range in daylight.
• Decent battery life with a 5,200mAh capacity and acceptable 45W fast charging.

Reasons not to buy

• The handset may lag behind competitors in terms of performance.
• Comes with 60 pre-installed apps, adding clutter to the user experience.