It’s just banger after banger with realme, as they’re on the grind once again to drop their gaming-centric entry into their latest series, the realme 13+ 5G. As we’ve all had a taste of some sweet mobile photography in all shapes and forms, it’s about time they gave some much-needed TLC to those who subscribe to a different sensibility–sweet mobile gaming.
As such, the realme 13 Series 5G is set to cater to our brothers and sisters deep in the gaming trenches, longing for something that comes close to the brand’s powerhouse flagship, but offers a more affordable, yet compelling price. The realme 13+ 5G just might be what the doctor ordered, in this case.
Coming in hot with the brand’s patented GT Mode–which is tailor-made for gamers, a stainless steel vapor chamber cooling system, a smooth 120Hz refresh rate, and some top-shelf specs, it’s only natural to throw everything but the kitchen sink at this new device. We’re inclined to save the bulk of the details for later, but we’ll spill all the available tea on just how well this new smartphone runs on some of the most popular, and most demanding mobile titles on your app store.
The tale of the tape
The realme 13+ 5G comes packed with a 4-nanometer Mediatek Dimensity 7300 Energy chipset, and a Mali-G615 MC2 GPU. On paper, this is enough power to run just about any game you choose, and on decent enough settings. Benchmarks also confirm this.
We’re given a total of 26GB of RAM, courtesy of the additional 14 via RAM expansion. This, overall, is great for daily productivity and recreation. However, for gaming, we’ll be utilizing the default 12 GB. As for storage, a generous 256 GB is what we get. This is sufficient, especially given how 20GB of memory is slowly becoming the norm for more popular titles. We’re looking at you and your catalogue, HoYoverse.
One-button Super Saiyan
GT Mode will play a vital part here, as it basically enhances your overall gaming experiences by allocating all resources to gameplay. That means your RAM, your chipset, and even your display’s refresh rate will be firing on all cylinders. While it’s a feature that, in essence, makes your smartphone act like Sonic the Hedgehog, GT mode supposedly helps dissipate heat in tandem with the stainless steel vapor chamber cooling system. That being said, battery life will be the one to suffer here.
What’s more is the realme 13+ 5G comes with a feature that allows you to manually set RAM for two titles of your choosing. This is a boon for loyal purists who sink hours into one or two mobile games, training restlessly for hours. You can also opt to use AI mode and have the system switch between games if you’re the type of player who indulges in six different gacha titles a day. It’s also worth noting that both GT Mode and dedicated RAM have their own home screen widgets for easier accessibility.
It’s also worth noting that we chose to keep GT Mode switched on during our tests. Logically, if it’s there, why not use it, right?
Running the gauntlet
Now that we have our basic specs and features, let’s see how well they do in practice. Prepare yourself for a lot of reading ahead, as this is part is the bulk of our writeup. For this test, we took five popular titles, underwent about an hour’s worth of gameplay for each, and see how the smartphone fared.
Honor of Kings was first on the chopping block–as it seemed most appropriate. While a less-demanding mobile game, it does have an abundance of resources for download, and quite a bit of aesthetic to showcase. In our gameplay, we decided to choose the “Ultimate” preset, which just cranks everything up to either max or high–essentially, balancing everything out for optimum performance and graphics.
As expected, we experienced no problems at all. Smooth gameplay, no stutters, and no kills because everyone on the team wanted to carry. After an hour, the phone felt sufficiently warm, but it wasn’t an issue. It’s safe to say that you’ll be getting the same experience, regardless of whichever MOBA or even FPS you choose. If you’re training for esports, you can’t go wrong.
Goddess of Victory: NIKKE has always been a conundrum. Whether you’re running a flagship or a budget devices, those loading screens can be a pain. It’s been a while since we picked up this title, but it seems like things have been optimized as of late. Loading times don’t take forever anymore, and gameplay stay smooth at high settings, 60 fps.
The stutters would usually occur during “burst” animations, but that was never the case with the realme 13+ 5G. We also got the same amount of warmth after the hour was done. NIKKE targets two schools of thought–sweaty tryhards and enthusiasts of bosoms and bottoms. Regardless of whichever school you’re enrolled in, performance won’t be a problem here, either.
We crank things up a bit with Kuro Games’ Wuthering Waves–a title which had a less-than-optimal launch, but a phoenix-like comeback. The game itself demands a bit from your chipset, and contains a massive, sprawling world. So, we kicked things up to maximum.
Yes, we got a warning–and we chose to ignore it.
Surprisingly, the game ran much smoother than expected. This is a title that even upper-midrangers would have at least a few problems with. Not necessarily struggling, but a few screen tears and jitters here and there. Not for the realme 13+ 5G, though. The warning served more as a “suggestion” as our hour of gameplay wrapped up quite nicely. In terms of thermals, it felt a bit hotter, but still within reasonable levels.
Of course, we don’t recommend you do the same for extended periods. Perhaps we were just lucky. Besides, the game still looks nice at lower, or even its default settings. You’ll even get smoother gameplay.
Our penultimate title comes from HoYoverse–as we’re looking to use as much storage as possible. Zenless Zone Zero or ZZZ is their latest gacha game that mixes more stationary gameplay with fast-paced, high-octane action. So far, it demands less from its other, larger titles, but it still requires quite a bit of power to perform optimally.
This is where a few problems arose. At high settings, we experienced a few stutters simply from moving around the overworld–an overworld that doesn’t even allow you to jump around. It’s quite weird, as the opposite could be said with the action-based gameplay, which ran much smoother. Perhaps, this could be attributed to the overworld having more particles and moving parts–thus more stress on the chipset. Turning things down to the default medium settings alleviated these problems a bit, but the occasional stutter still found its way into our game.
Still, we had a great hour of gameplay–which had to be cut short in spite of us wanting to go further into the story. Thermals were still good here. It looks like that vapor chamber is really putting its back into it. If you’re just starting out with this game, as are we, you’ll have plenty of fun grinding and gacha-pulling with this smartphone.
Last, but not least, the granddaddy gacha title of 2020–Genshin Impact. Of course, we had to include this in our test. It’s the age-old nemesis of any gaming segment for any device, as some devices can’t even run it at all. Challenge accepted.
Boy, did we bite of quite a bit more than we could chew by accepting said challenge as Genshin Impact made ZZZ look like a stroll in Teyvat. While “Lowest” is the default setting on almost all non-flagship smartphones, kicking it up a notch to medium or even high shouldn’t yield anything egregious. In our case, going high quality, 30 fps, and with motion blur turned off still had us hiccupping in battle against two or three enemies. It was a bit concerning.
Given that was the case, we decided to tone it town drastically. In turn, we got better results. Characters being able to burst and use skills without ridiculous stuttering was great. It helped us manage to finish the hour we allotted ourselves. After our playtime, the heat increased just a pinch, but still not to a point where it was painful. Overall, Genshin Impact really took the realme 13+ 5G to task.
Now, we’re not writing things off just yet. We’re inclined to believe that a good firmware update would easily rectify most of the problems we’ve encountered–as we haven’t receive any updates in the time we’ve had the device. There’s also the possibility that this is a problem limited to our device alone.
That being said, in its current state, you can still play the majority of app store games without any problems that would otherwise hamper your gameplay. Of course, just remember to tinker with the settings if you decide to take the gacha grandpa out for a stroll.
Sharp and Smooth
Having a decent viewing experience contributed to the hour-long sessions we had with each game. The realme 13+ 5G has an AMOLED HDR10+ display with a whopping 120Hz refresh rate. This also meant we could see the jitters and screen tearing crystal clear in real time.
Kidding aside, the display also comes with some much-welcome AI Eye Comfort. While we didn’t play all the games in one sitting, we did play both HoYo titles back to back. Two hours of continuous gameplay is not joke for your eyesight, so it’s nice that the realme 13+ 5G took this into consideration.
When gaming gets real
Running this gaming test was quite fun. It’s rather timely as well, since three of the titles on board didn’t even exist a few months ago. Given the quality of features you get with the realme 13+ 5G, you’re bound to have a great time–whether being a solo casual or a competitive tryhard. We suppose further testing would involve gameplay with GT Mode turned off. But we just can’t dismiss the fact that games are just so much more fun to play with that added boost.
With a decent chipset, a smooth interface with an abundance of cool features, generous storage, and a display worth a double take, it’s best to look out for the realme 13+ 5G if you’re looking to get into the game. It has so much more to offer, though. But we’ll save that for a more in-depth, full review later on.
In the meantime, if you wish to learn more about the realme 13+ 5G or simple want to stay updated, make sure to drop by realme’s official website and Facebook page.