Realme P4 Lite review: high battery endurance on a budget

Weeks after the Realme P4 Power launch in India, the OEM has introduced its Lite variant. Dubbed the Realme P4 Lite, it is the fifth smartphone in the P4 lineup, positioned in the sub-Rs 10,000 segment. Like its elder sibling, the P4 Lite 4G boasts a segment-defining 6,300mAh battery, which also happens to be its headlining feature. Apart from that, Realme is also ensuring that the phone gets a toughened build by equipping it with military-grade shock resistance and an IP54 rating.

But, how do the Realme P4 Lite 4G’s highlighting aspects fare in real-world usage? Find out in this detailed review where I used the phone for over a week to assess its build quality, battery endurance, daily performance, imaging capabilities, and more.

Boxy yet eye-catching design

I was captivated by the reflective pattern running across the back panel of Realme P4 Lite’s Sea Blue variant. Also available in Beach Gold and Obsidian Black, the rear panel features a soft texture, which, while comforting to touch, doesn’t offer a confident grip when holding the phone single-handed. Fortunately, Realme has bundled a translucent TPU case for added protection and a stronger grip.

Just like the itel A100 (review) and Tecno Spark Go 3 (review), the two phones under Rs 10,000, which I reviewed recently, the Realme P4 Lite sports a boxy design with a flat sideframe. The handset weighs 201 grams and measures just 7.94mm in thickness, making it comfortable to hold. Coming back to the rear panel, similar to the Realme 15 Pro, the P4 Lite 4G gains ‘Pulse Light’, a circular LED that illuminates when receiving notifications or calls, playing music or games, or when an alarm goes off. While it acts as a fun party trick, I didn’t see myself turning the phone to its back to utilise this feature.

Moving on, the P4 Lite 4G features a 3.5mm headphone jack at the bottom, while a fingerprint scanner is integrated within the power button. After registering my fingerprint, tapping on the scanner unlocked the phone every time without any hurdles.

Tall display that gets the job done

The Realme P4 Lite sports a 6.74-inch IPS LCD display with an HD+ (720 x 1600) resolution and up to 90Hz refresh rate. While we’ve previously seen displays with punch-hole cutouts to house the front camera under Rs 10,000, the P4 Lite gets a dated-looking dew drop notch, much like the Tecno Spark Go 3. As for the display’s visual experience, I found myself enjoying the colours in the vibrant mode. The tones were sufficiently vibrant for an LCD panel.

The 90Hz refresh rate helps in offering a smooth scrolling experience; however, I noticed there’s no specific setting to force apps to run at 90Hz, unlike on the pricier Realme phones. With 563 nits peak brightness support, it might be slightly challenging to read the display’s content under direct sunlight, but indoors, the brightness remains sufficient. On YouTube, the phone can play videos at up to 1080p resolution. Since it’s a native 720p panel, it produces passable detail levels, which is to be expected at this price.

Entry-level performance aided by mature software

A chipset that has been making its presence felt in a lot of sub-Rs 10,000 of late, also happens to power the Realme P4 Lite. The smartphone is powered by the Unisoc T7250 SoC, which is a 12nm-based octa-core chipset with up to 1.8GHz clock speeds paired with Mali G57 MP1 GPU.

Even though the phone delivers decent performance for everyday tasks, we saw much more capable chipsets in the entry-level segment until last year. The MediaTek Dimensity 7060 on the Lava Storm Play 5G (review) and the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 on the Redmi 14C happen to be more powerful compared to the Unisoc T7250. But since the smartphone industry has been struck with a shortage of components, such as RAM and storage, most brands have been forced to cut down on aspects like raw power to keep the pricing in check this year.

On the bright side, the Unisoc T7250 handles daily operations much better than other phones powered by the same processor. Running on a light version of Realme UI based on Android 15, I felt the Realme P4 Lite delivered a slightly smoother scrolling experience when navigating apps, multitasking, summoning the quick settings panel, and more. While you can run popular titles like BGMI and Call of Duty: Mobile, don’t expect to see appealing graphical details or high frame rates. Less-intensive games like Subway Surfers run just fine, though.

That said, since it is a February 2026 device, the Realme P4 Lite could’ve booted on Android 16 out of the box. Furthermore, there’s no information on how many OS upgrades the P4 Lite 4G is set to receive.

Cameras that aren’t extraordinary

The Realme P4 Lite 4G features a 13MP main camera with an f/2.2 aperture, while the front camera is a 5MP selfie camera. In addition to 1080p video recording at 30fps, the camera app offers modes such as slow motion, panorama, portrait, professional, and dual-view video.

Coming to the shooting experience, I found the Realme P4 Lite capturing images with warm tones in natural lighting, especially during bright sunny days. For the pricepoint, the details are manageable, while the highlight control could have been better. If you prefer your shots to have a hint of vibrancy, the phone won’t disappoint, even though it struggles to deliver balanced contrast levels. Shots taken during the night, as expected, come out soft and noisy.

As part of Realme UI, several AI imaging features are available, such as AI Eraser for removing unwanted elements from photos, AI Clear Face for enhancing facial details, and AI Image Matting for replacing faces in images.

Now, let’s take a look at how the cameras of the Realme P4 Lite fare against its close rival, the Tecno Spark Go 3, in various scenarios:

Daylight

In daylight, the Realme P4 Lite 4G does a much better job of retaining the scene’s actual colours and tones by keeping exposure levels under control, compared to the Tecno Spark Go 3. Similarly, the Realme P4 Lite highlights darker areas well, though the Spark Go 3 has a slight edge in detail.

Portrait

Once again, the Realme P4 Lite offers better highlight control in the shot while adding a touch of warmth. Nonetheless, its shot shows more detail, while the portrait mode’s edge detection appears better on the Tecno Spark Go 3.

Selfie

The Tecno Spark Go 3 pulls ahead in the selfie comparison because it doesn’t add a white tone to the face or clothing, unlike the Realme P4 Lite. Furthermore, Realme’s processing has darkened the image’s black points, such as the hair, making it difficult to make out the details in its shot.

Night mode

If the actual scene is anything to go by, the Realme P4 Lite delivers an image that closely matches it. Since the board in reality is red, the Tecno Spark Go 3’s processing fails to depict the actual colours. However, the Spark Go 3 offers a tad better details.

Superb battery endurance

The Realme P4 Lite 4G’s primary focus is its 6,300mAh battery. In our in-house PCMark Battery drain runs, the phone achieved a runtime of 18 hours and 43 minutes from 100 to 20 percent. These numbers are the best we’ve seen on a sub-Rs 10,000 smartphone, making the large battery a valuable addition.

The battery endurance is equally decent when using the phone as a daily driver. Upon installing some of my most used apps, such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Spotify, and others, the phone ran for over four days on a single charge during casual use, indicating excellent idle drain even with mobile data and location enabled.

However, charging the P4 Lite with its in-box 15W charger is less impressive. In our testing, it took roughly 160 minutes to charge the phone from 20 per cent to full.

Final verdict

Starting at Rs 9,999 for the base 4GB RAM and 64GB storage option, the Realme P4 Lite 4G impressed me with its reflective yet striking rear panel design, superb battery life, a good-looking and functional UI, probably the smoothest one I’ve tried this year under Rs 10,000, and a display that gets the job done for casual entertainment.

The major drawback of the P4 Lite 4G, in my opinion, lies in its name itself, and that is the lack of 5G. Even though 5G phones in the entry-level segment could end up being a thing of the past due to the rising memory costs, phones like Lava Bold N1 5G (review) and Ai+ Nova 5G (review) are currently available under Rs 10,000. Along with 5G support, both handsets offer superior performance over the Realme P4 Lite, even though their software may not be as mature as Realme UI.

So, if 5G is up your priority list for high-speed mobile data, it’s better to consider other alternatives, unless their prices see an increase in the future. As for the Realme P4 Lite 4G, it stands as a decent grab for what it’s worth, especially for power users seeking long battery life.

Editor’s rating: 7.7/10

Reasons to buy the Realme P4 Lite 4G

• Colourful and tall display for daily entertainment needs.
• Eye-catching and sleek design that is appealing to look at.
• Excellent battery endurance on a single charge.
• Mature software design that is functional and fun to use.

Reasons to skip the Realme P4 Lite 4G

• Comes with slightly dated Android 15 out of the box. No word on the software update yet.
• Lacks 5G support.