Realme 13+ Review – A Power-Packed Performer with Gaming at Its Core

Realme’s new 13+ series, positioned just above ₹20,000, promises a well-rounded experience for users, especially those focused on performance and gaming. While the brand’s flagship models offer cutting-edge features, the Realme 13+ aims to strike a balance between affordability and high-end performance. This review breaks down its design, performance, gaming capabilities, camera quality, battery life, and more, to help you decide if this phone is worth your money.

Realme 13+ : Design and Build Quality

The Realme 13+ continues Realme’s tradition of offering sleek, modern designs that stand out in the mid-range segment. The phone boasts a curved rear panel that enhances its look and feel. Despite its affordable price tag, Realme has managed to make the 13+ feel premium in the hand. The phone’s dimensions are ergonomic, even for long hours of usage, making it comfortable to hold during extended gaming sessions.

The Realme 13+ comes in three vibrant colors: Speed Green, Victory Gold, and Dark Purple. Of these, the Speed Green variant is especially eye-catching with marble-like accents that shimmer in the light. The phone’s build quality is decent for the price, featuring a polycarbonate back with an IP65 rating, providing resistance against dust and minor water splashes. However, the phone lacks a metallic frame, which is a minor compromise compared to higher-end models.

One noteworthy design decision is the placement of the 3.5mm headphone jack at the top, which is rare but could be beneficial for gamers who find it more comfortable while holding the phone in landscape mode. Realme has included a 6.67-inch OLED panel on the front, ensuring a rich display experience.

Display Quality

The Realme 13+ shines in the display department with its 6.67-inch OLED panel that offers a Full HD+ (1,080 x 2,400 pixels) resolution. The screen supports a 120Hz refresh rate and 180Hz touch sampling rate, delivering smooth scrolling and snappy touch responses, which are crucial for gaming and everyday usage.

In terms of brightness, the display hits up to 1200 nits, making it suitable for outdoor use, though it’s not the brightest in its class. Competing models like the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion offer slightly higher brightness levels, but the Realme 13+ does an admirable job in most lighting conditions. The OLED panel ensures deep blacks and vibrant colors, making media consumption a pleasure. HDR support adds to the visual experience, though some may find the color saturation slightly exaggerated, particularly when viewing photos or videos with a lot of greenery or sky.

A notable feature of the display is the Rainwater Smart Touch, which ensures the screen responds accurately even when wet—a small but practical feature for rainy environments.

Performance and Gaming

Under the hood, the Realme 13+ is powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 7300 chipset. This chip, paired with 12GB of RAM in the higher variant, delivers solid performance for gaming and multitasking. Realme’s software optimization allows the 13+ to handle high-performance tasks without noticeable slowdowns.

For gamers, the Realme 13+ provides a great experience with support for Ultra frame rates and Ultra HDR graphics in popular games like Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) and Call of Duty: Mobile. Frame rates remain consistently high, reaching up to 90FPS in some games, making it a standout performer in this price range. Its 180Hz touch sampling rate ensures responsive controls, further enhancing the gaming experience.

During extended gaming sessions, the phone’s stainless steel vapor cooling system helps prevent thermal throttling, maintaining performance even after hours of use. That said, more graphically intensive games like Genshin Impact may cause occasional frame drops, with frame rates dipping to around 25-27 FPS at high settings.

On the benchmark front, the Realme 13+ holds its own, scoring slightly higher than similarly priced competitors like the CMF Phone 1 and Oppo F25 Pro. However, it falls short of the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3-powered phones like the Infinix GT20 Pro.

Cameras

The Realme 13+ comes with a 50MP Sony LYT-600 sensor as its primary camera, a solid performer in good lighting conditions. While the phone does not feature an ultra-wide lens, the main sensor captures detailed and crisp images, making it a good choice for everyday photography. Colors are vivid, and the phone has a tendency to slightly boost the sky’s color, creating an effect that is pleasing to the eye but may look unnatural to purists.

The Realme 13+ performs well in daylight, though low-light photography shows some softness and noise. The lack of an ultra-wide lens might be disappointing for some users, but the phone compensates with solid portrait shots. However, there are occasional issues with the portrait mode not applying the desired bokeh effect.

The 16MP front camera also does a decent job, producing selfies with good color accuracy in well-lit environments. However, low-light selfies can appear noisy and lack detail. The portrait mode on the front camera can also be hit-or-miss, sometimes failing to separate the subject from the background cleanly.

For video recording, the Realme 13+ supports 4K at 30fps. The OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) ensures smooth footage, though it’s best suited for casual video shoots. Content creators looking for top-tier video performance may need to look at more expensive alternatives.

Battery Life and Charging

The Realme 13+ is equipped with a 5,000mAh battery that offers respectable longevity. With moderate usage—such as web browsing, social media, and some gaming—the phone can easily last an entire day. Even with heavier gaming sessions and streaming at 120Hz refresh rate, the phone manages to hold up fairly well, delivering around 6.5 hours of screen-on time.

One of the highlights is its 80W SuperDart fast charging support. Realme includes the charger in the box, and it can charge the phone from 20% to 100% in around 31 minutes. This rapid charging capability is one of the fastest in the segment, making it a huge convenience for users who are always on the go.

Software and UI

The Realme 13+ runs on Realme UI 4.0 based on Android 13, which brings a host of customization options and features. However, the software experience is a bit of a mixed bag. While the UI is feature-rich and smooth, it comes with a significant amount of bloatware—around 65 pre-installed apps, to be precise. Although some of these apps can be uninstalled, it would be better if Realme reduced the number of pre-loaded apps to create a more streamlined experience.

Realme offers two years of Android OS updates and three years of security patches for the 13+, which is decent but not as generous as what Motorola and Samsung are offering in terms of long-term software support.

Verdict: Should You Buy the Realme 13+?

The Realme 13+ stands out in the mid-range segment, especially for users focused on gaming and performance. Its Dimensity 7300 chipset, 120Hz OLED display, and 80W fast charging make it a compelling option for gamers and power users. The design is sleek, the camera performance is solid for casual photography, and the battery life is dependable.

However, the phone does have its shortcomings. The camera setup lacks versatility due to the absence of an ultra-wide lens, and Realme’s UI could benefit from fewer pre-installed apps. Moreover, the two-year OS update promise, while standard, could have been more generous considering some competitors offer three years.

If you’re a gamer looking for a powerful phone under ₹30,000 or someone who needs a fast-charging phone with a vibrant display, the Realme 13+ is definitely worth considering. But for users prioritizing cameras or a cleaner software experience, other options like the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion might be a better fit.