Last August 28, realme Philippines recently unveiled its latest Number series model with the realme 13 Pro Series 5G. The realme 13 Pro Series 5G boasts of a 120Hz Curved OLED display, massive battery capacity, flagship chipsets, and Ultra Clear Camera with AI capabilities using a Sony LYT600 imaging sensor.
The realme 13 Pro Series 5G consists of two models – the realme 13 Pro+ 5G its top variant and the realme 13 Pro 5G. For our hands on review we will be focusing on the realme 13 Pro 5G.
The realme 13 Pro 5G will have a suggested retail price of PHP24,999 now available in all realme stores, authorized distributors, and its online e-commerce partners in Lazada, Shopee and TikTok Shop.
So, let’s explore the realme 13 Pro 5G’s new features and find out how well its position in today’s mid-range smartphone market.
Unboxing
The realme 13 Pro 5G comes in its familiar golden yellow packaging box constructed using a thick cardboard material as it continues the brand’s signature minimalist design.
If you look closely at the top cover, it has an attractive striped line patterns with UV coating for a premium packaging design. Added in the box is an AI logo in foil stamping placed on the top left corner.
Printed elements seen on the front and sides of the box are the model’s name and a realme logo. While the back portion of the box shows the key features, company information, IMEI, and certification marks.
Taking out the top cover box will reveal an inner yellow compartment box containing some of the included accessories.
Underneath the compartment box is the realme 13 Pro 5G unit and a plastic tray with the other remaining accessories.
If you take everything out of the box, you have the following items:
- realme 13 Pro 5G unit
- SIM Ejector Tool
- Protective Case
- USB-A to USB-C Cable
- 45W Charging Adapter
- Safety Guide
- Quick Guide
There’s no need to buy a screen protector as the phone comes with it that’s already pre-applied and provides an extra layer of protection right out of the box.
Design and Build Quality
The realme 13 Pro 5G comes in two colorway options with the Monet Purple and our review unit in Emerald Green. Just by looking the phone’s rear panel, it certainly stands out offering a premium aesthetic look!
The Monet Purple through realme’s collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston features a Monet-inspired design. For this colorway the brand used a ‘Miracle Shining Glass’ effect with millions of shimmering particles brushed onto the high-gloss AG Glass on the back.
Our Emerald Green color option has a premium Vegan leather finish made using a silicon material. This colorway has a nice silky feel, dirt resistant, and offers a comfortable grip.
Another prominent design feature on the back panel is the camera module, which resembles a classic luxury watch face design. The circular camera design, known as the Sunrise Halo, has golden fluted bezels with 436 metal lines encircling the entire camera module.
It also features four circular camera lenses positioned within the Polished Sunburst Dial area along with the HyperImage logo at the bottom. Notably not included in this model which is found to the previous one is the 3D Jubilee bracelet design.
The thickness of the Emerald Green variant is 8.41mm and it weighs 185.5 grams.
For the ports and buttons, the right side edge features a volume rockers and a power/sleep button.
The left side edge is completely clean.
The bottom side edge holds the SIM card slot, USB-C port, microphone and speaker grills.
A secondary microphone and speaker grille is placed on the top side edge.
Going to the front panel of the phone, it offers a nice curved OLED display with thin bezels all around and a tiny punch-hole design at the top center for your selfie camera. It supports an has ArmorShell protection with a Corning Gorilla Glass on the display to prevent scratches and made more durable against accidental drops.
The Emerald Green color variant obtained an SGS 5-Star Drop Resistance Certification resisting damage from drops with a height of 1.65 meters from all six sides and corners of the phone. The device also has an IP65 rating from dust and withstand splashes of water. The realme 13 Pro 5G underwent over 320 stringent tests to ensure users that the phone is durable, reliable, and able to perform under various conditions.
Display
As we’ve mentioned, the realme 13 Pro 5G has a curved OLED display panel with a screen size at 6.7-inch FHD+ with a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz, and a peak brightness of 2,000 nits.
It has a screen resolution at 2412×1080 pixels, 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, and 240Hz touch sampling rate for a better user experience. The 93% screen to body ratio of the phone is suited for watching any multimedia content and play your favorite mobile games.
The brand prioritizes its users’ visual health, which is why the realme 13 Pro 5G’s display includes a variety of eye protection features embedded with AI capabilities and it acquired SGS AI Eye Protection Screen Certification.
To reduce eye strain and potential damage from screen flickering, the display has a 2160Hz PWM Dimming feature. For a comfortable viewing experience, it also supports 20,000 levels of automatic brightness, adjusting the screen’s brightness based on ambient lighting conditions you’re at.
Now fused in the realme 13 Pro 5G’s display are AI eye protection features that detect when the user yawns or blinks as well as prolonged gaming sessions, and automatically adjust the color temperature and brightness of the screen.
A feature now common in new phones is Rainwater Smart Touch, which allows users to interact with the display even when their hands or the screen are wet.
Biometrics offers a face unlock and an in-display fingerprint sensor at the bottom for quick unlocks, in-app security approvals and an embedded heart rate monitor.
Performance
At the core of the realme 13 Pro 5G, it boasts of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 octa-core processor a 4nm 5G processor with maximum clock speeds of 2.4GHz. For its GPU, it uses an Adreno 710 with 10-bit color depth which supports the APIs OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.0 FP and Vulkan 1.13.
The phone comes with a large 256GB of internal storage, though it’s not expandable. During our initial setup, we found that 26.3GB is already used up by the system and pre-installed apps.
The device also features 12GB of RAM, with support for Dynamic RAM Expansion, allowing you to use up to 12GB of unused internal storage as additional RAM, bringing the total to 24GB. You may opt to choose to allocate 4GB, 8GB, or 12GB of extra RAM as needed.
So far, these chipsets combined deliver a solid performance for any tasks we throw at the phone. Everything ran smoothly as we browsed the web, updated our social media apps, watched videos, and more. For gaming, performance was solid, with no lags or delays, even on mid to high settings, depending on the game you’re playing.
To handle any potential overheating especially intense gameplay, the chipset is aided by a 3D Vapor Chamber cooling system with 9 layers of cooling. The vapor chamber covers 4,500 sq.mm, while the graphite sheet spans an area of 9,953 sq.mm.
Here’s our benchmark scores on the realme 13 Pro 5G
- GeekBench 6 CPU: 934 Single Core / 2832 Multi-Core
- GeekBench 6 GPU: 1739 GPU OpenCL Score
- CPDT: 390.79 MB/s Write, 564.68 MB/s Read
- PCMark: 12625 Work 3.0 Performance
- 3DMark: 2793 Wild Life (16.73 fps)
The realme 13 Pro 5G supports 4G internet access during phone calls and features dual carrier aggregation technology, allowing two 5G SIM cards via the dual-nano sim card tray to work simultaneously.
To help provide stable signal and reduce latencies the phone has an Antenna Array Matrix or multiple antennas built on the device, so regardless of how the user will hold the device you get a secure connectivity and signal.
The realme 13 Pro 5G enhances the user experience with its Tactile Engine feature equipping it with an X-Axis Linear motor that delivers strong vibrations. It makes interactions on the display more intuitive and engaging by simulating the sensation of pressing a button.
Connectivity and Sound Quality
For connectivity, it has WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and a 360-degree NFC that uses the device’s antenna layout to work seamlessly from any angle or position when placed on a terminal. Video or audio calls are clear and the 5G network connection works smoothly with no issues during our test.
The audio on the realme 13 Pro 5G delivers good sound quality, thanks to its Dual Stereo Speakers that support Hi-Res audio for better sound when playing both videos and music. The sound is well-balanced, with clear vocals and more pronounced mid-tones and treble. On the bass tones, it needs a few improvements although it’s still noticeable.
Camera and Photo Samples
On the camera department, the realme 13 Pro 5G sports a dual camera setup on the back comprising a 50MP main camera with its image sensor using a Sony LYT-600 with a f/1.88 aperture. The Sony LYT-600 has 1/1.95-inch sensor, optical image stabilization (OIS), 26mm Focal Length, 79-degree field of view, and 5P lens which is current trend in the camera of a smartphones.
With the Sony LYT-600 sensor on the camera, it excels in low-light conditions, capturing clearer, and blur-free photos thanks to its OIS.
The secondary camera is an 8MP ultra-wide lens with a f/2.2 aperture, a 16mm focal length, and a field of view of 112-degrees.
For selfies, it has an upgraded front camera than its previous model which now sports a 32MP lens using a Sony IMX615 with the sensor size at 1/2.74-inch, f/2.45 aperture, and a field of view of 90-degrees.
On the camera app, all necessary functions are accessible and easy to use. First thing we’ve noticed are the wide range of available zoom switch options at 0.6x, 1x, 2x and 5x. This really help me create my shots to zoom in or out instantly thru the zoom switch options to fit the desired composition.
You have five shooting modes ready to use on the camera app with a night, street, video, photo, and portrait mode. Then if you tap on the more options you’ll have 12 additional shooting modes.
On the top of the viewfinder, you can toggle the flash, exposure value, action mode, Google lens, and a hamburger menu where the camera settings is located.
The rear camera can record videos in 4K resolution at up to 30fps, while 1080p and 720p resolutions support 30fps and 60fps. The front camera also shoots selfie videos in 4K, 1080p, and 720p, but is limited to 30fps.
Sharing our sample photos captured with the realme 13 Pro 5G.
1x Photo mode, Indoor, Ambient Lighting
1x Photo mode, Indoor, Ambient Lighting
1x Photo mode, Indoor, Sunny Weather
1x Photo mode, Indoor, Ambient Lighting
Macro mode, Outdoor, Sunny Weather
Selfie, Outdoor, Low Lighting
0.8x Selfie – Portrait mode, Outdoor, Low Lighting
0.6x Photo mode, Outdoor, Low Lighting
1x Photo mode, Outdoor, Low Lighting
2x Photo mode, indoor, Ambient Lighting
AI Professional Camera
One of the standout features on the realme 13 Pro 5G is incorporating its “NEXT AI” Technology, there’s a lot of AI features we’ve encountered on the phone that can further enhance your photos. Here are the following AI imaging technology available on the realme 13 Pro 5G:
- AI Ultra Clarity – It gives your blurry photos an option to enhance it further providing a sharper and more detailed result.
- AI HyperRAW Algorithm – Enhances image clarity by optimizing light and shadow to deliver purer and sharper photos.
- AI Denoise – With an advanced noise reduction techniques it process multiple RAW images while preserving original details and improve the clarity.
- AI Portrait Algorithm – Consists of two AI technology – AI Pure Bokeh that intelligently focuses on the subject then creates a natural depth effect with a proper blurred background. To improve different skin tones of a subject you have the AI Natural Skin Tone using AI-Trained image recognition.
- AI Smart Removal – Remove unwanted objects or people by drawing a circle or painting over the area you want to take away.
- AI Audio Zoom – When recording videos, the sound will be amplified on the subject or direction you zoom into made possible thru beamforming algorithms and noise reduction technology.
Software
The realme 13 Pro 5G ships in with the latest realme UI 5.0 based on Android 14.
There are a lot of pre-installed apps with some of them we usually use like social media and e-commerce apps. You have the following apps like Agoda, Booking.com, Facebook, Fineasy, Fitbit, Instagram, Lazada, LinkedIn, Netflix, Prime Video, ReelShort, Shopee, Spotify, TikTok, realme proprietary apps, and Google tools. You’ll even find apps grouped in folders like Hot Games and Hot Apps. If you don’t need the apps we’ve mentioned, you can easily remove or delete them instantly.
The new realme UI 5.0 also comes with a new and improved version with more customization features from its wallpapers, icons, layout, transitions, and widgets. It has an additional security and privacy options from its screen lock, biometrics, app security and more.
File Dock
Adding to the realme UI 5.0 version are some newly released innovations by realme for better productivity and user experience. You have the AI Smart Loop, Air Gestures, File Dock, Flash Capsule, Smart Image Matting, and PhoneLink.
Located at the smart sidebar, the File Dock offers a cross-app sharing feature to easily transfer or drag texts, links, images or a screenshot into a temporary folder which you can later drop them on another app.
Flash Capsule
The Flash Capsule, just like the Mini Capsule feature, offers a more interactive experience with real-time notifications and animations (audio recording, timer, music) that stays on top of the display much longer.
Users can now easily separate subjects from their backgrounds in their photos with the Smart Image Matting feature, enabling for quick edits, save, copy, share, add as a sticker and even drag into the File Dock.
Battery
The realme 13 Pro 5G is powered by a large 5200 mAh battery with support for a 45W SUPERVOOC fast charging technology. The battery capacity on the phone is slightly higher than the standard 5000mAh to provide users extended battery life.
On our charging test starting with the battery at 8%, a 30-minute charge brought it up to 58 percent. It took only 56 minutes to fully charge the phone from 0 to 100%.
With a larger 5200mAh battery capacity, It was able to provide more than a day of power during our test including our photo samples, scrolling our social media, web browsing, a few audio calls, and hours of watching YouTube videos. But when we engage in graphics-intensive gameplay for long periods, the battery drains a bit more quickly.
An important feature which realme opted to equipped on the realme 13 Pro 5G is the array of safety features on the battery. It is fitted with 38 safety protections, an intelligent five-core chip protection system, and an AI smart charging functions. Even the included charging adapter supports slower charging speeds for enhanced safety and security.
The brand offers a 4-year battery health guarantee by realme Lab designed to maintain its capacity and performance over a prolonged period.
What We Like
- Vibrant and Sharp OLED Display
- Eye Protection Features
- Aesthetics and Curved Edges
- Lightweight
- Great Cameras with Sony LYT-600 Sensor
- 4K Video Recording
- RAM Expansion up to 12GB
- 3D Vapor Chamber Cooling System
- 5200 Battery Capacity
- 38 Safety Protection
- AI Camera Capabilities
- File Dock
- 360-Degree NFC
- Antenna Array Matrix
What We Want
- Expandable Storage via MicroSD
- 1080p at 60fps on Front Camera
- 5mm Audio Port
- Less Bloatware
- 67W SUPERVOOC
Conclusion
The realme 13 Pro 5G targets the mid-range market by offering new features and a slight modest upgrades, although it does omit some of the standout features from its previous model that we liked.
One of the most notable additions that impressed us is the brand’s latest NEXT AI technology, designed to enhance the camera experience and improves the photo quality thru its AI-driven capabilities.
Aside from the built-in AI features, the realme 13 Pro 5G has several noteworthy features such as the 50MP camera with Sony LYT-600 sensor, vibrant OLED display, a slightly larger battery capacity, flagship chipsets, and attractive design.
The main camera are pretty good especially in low light situations and videos can be recorded up to 4K resolution. The ultra wide camera may need some few improvements and it would be better if they equipped it with a telephoto lens.
The new aesthetics which is inspired by Claude Monet, gives the phone an attractive and premium look while maintaining its signature Sunrise Halo design of its camera module.
Overall, the realme 13 Pro 5G remains a remarkable and well-rounded mid-range phone, with its new added features especially with the NEXT AI technology will surely win over realme fans and new users.
realme 13 Pro 5G – Full Specifications
- PHP24,999
- Monet Purple, Emerald Green
- 7 inches OLED Display
- 93% Screen Ratio
- 2412 x 1080 pixels FHD+
- 5000000:1 Contrast Ratio
- 07 billion colors
- 100% DCI-P3 color gamut
- Up to 120Hz Refresh Rate
- 240Hz Touch Sampling Rate
- 2000 nits Brightness (Max)
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2
- 4nm Process, Octa-core, Up to 2.4Ghz
- Adreno 710
- 12GB RAM
- 256GB Internal Storage
- Rear Camera – Main: 50MP Sony LYT-600 OIS, 1/1.95-inch Sensor, 26mm Focal Length, 79-degree FOV, f/1.88 Aperture, 5P Lens
- Rear Camera – Ultra-Wide: 8MP, 16mm Focal Length, 112-degree FOV, f/2.2 Aperture, 5P Lens
- Front Camera: 32MP Sony, 90-degree FOV, f/2.45 Aperture, 5P Lens
- Video – Rear Camera: 4K at 30fps, 1080p at 60fps / 30fps and 720P at 60fps / 30fps
- Video – Front Camera: 1080p, 720P, 4K at 30fps (beauty is turned on by default)
- 5200mAh Battery Capacity
- 45W SUPERVOOC Charge
- USB Type-C Port
- Beidou, GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS
- Super Linear Dual Speakers
- Hi-Res Audio Certification
- Dual-mic Noise Cancellation
- realme UI 5.0, Based on Android 14
- Geomagnetic Sensor, Light Sensor, Proximity Sensor, AcceLeration Sensor, Gyroscope sensor
- Optical fingerprint underscreen
- 4/5GHz Wi-Fi
- Wi-Fi 6
- Bluetooth 5.2
- NFC Supported
- 2 Nano SIM Card Slots
- 34 x 73.91 x 8.41mm
- 5g
