Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 vs Realme 5 Pro: An In-depth Hands-on Comparison

If your budget for a new smartphone is ₱12,000, you can either get the new Realme 5 Pro or the newly discounted Huawei Y9 Prime 2019.

I have already reviewed both smartphones so this is an in-depth hands-on comparison. Let’s compare their design, display, performance, cameras, battery, and other features. You may also read the Realme 5 Pro full review and Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 review.

 

Design and Display

Right of the bat, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 has a bigger screen than the Realme 5 Pro. It has a 6.59-inch FHD+ display with no notch while the latter has a 6.3-inch display with a teardrop notch and a similar FHD+ resolution.

Both screens are sharp, clear, and have decent color accuracy. However, the smaller screen of the Realme 5 Pro is slightly brighter when the brightness levels are set to the maximum.

 

In terms of the design, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 has the more futuristic motorized pop-up selfie camera but the Realme 5 Pro’s crystal pattern at the back makes it look better. It’s also slightly slimmer and more compact.

Overall, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 has a bigger display and pop-up camera while the Realme 5 Pro has a slightly brighter display and better-looking design.

 

Performance and User Experience

The Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 is powered by Huawei’s own Kirin 710F chipset, 4GB RAM, and EMUI 9 software. Meanwhile, the Realme 5 Pro uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 AIE chipset, 4GB RAM, and ColorOS 6 software. There are two versions of the Realme 5 Pro – one has 4GB RAM for ₱11,990 and 8GB RAM for ₱13,990.

In terms of raw performance, the Realme 5 Pro scores almost 200,000 points on Antutu Benchmark while the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 barely reaches 150,000 points. The Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 also takes 3.64 seconds to compute 1 million digits of π using RealPi Benchmark while the Realme 5 Pro completes the task in 2.46 seconds only.

 

These benchmark scores translate to better gaming performance for the Realme 5 Pro. When playing NBA 2K20 during my gaming review, it achieved an average frame rate of 43 fps. Meanwhile, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 can only run the game at 29 fps at the highest graphics quality.

However, there’s an issue with the 4GB RAM variant of the Realme 5 Pro when playing Mobile Legends. The High Frame Rate mode option is not enabled for that variant as of publishing this article. MLBB might issue an update to enable this feature since the phone’s chipset is new. The Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 is capable of running Mobile Legends at 60 fps.

For the software and general user experience, it’s a personal choice between Huawei’s EMUI and ColorOS which is the same software used by OPPO smartphones. Both are highly customized skins running on top of Android 9 Pie. It’s also worth noting that Google apps are pre-loaded and run perfectly fine on the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019.

 

Camera Quality

The Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 has triple rear cameras while the Realme 5 Pro has quad rear cameras. However, that’s not very important because the only camera added on the Realme 5 Pro is a 2MP macro camera for shooting extreme close-ups of small subjects.

The real difference between the rear cameras of these two smartphones is in the main rear camera. The Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 uses a 16MP primary camera while the Realme 5 Pro has a 48MP primary camera.

Both smartphones can capture good-looking pictures but the Realme 5 Pro has slightly more natural colors and better dynamic range. Meanwhile, pictures from the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 tend to be brighter with great skin tone when the subject is a person.

 

 

When it comes to low light photography, both the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 and Realme 5 Pro have dedicated Night mode. It takes a few seconds to take a picture but the results are stunning low light shots. Once again, the Realme 5 Pro produces slightly better images than the Huawei y9 Prime 2019.

The two smartphones both have a 16MP selfie camera. However, the Realme 5 Pro has its selfie camera in the display notch while the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 uses a motorized pop-up mechanism. The rising selfie camera looks cool but it’s hard not to doubt its durability.

When it comes to quality, it’s the Realme 5 Pro that produces better selfies. It still not the best selfie camera and can use a slight boost in color saturation. However, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019’s selfies clearly have a lower quality.

 

Connectivity, Storage, and Security

This will be the section for all other features of the two smartphones starting with connectivity. Both support 4G LTE networks although the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 uses its second SIM slot as the microSD card slot so you’ll have to choose between having a second SIM card or more storage space.

Storage might not be a big issue though since both smartphones come with 128GB of internal storage. Both phones have a 3.5mm audio jack and USB Type-C port.

For security, the Realme 5 Pro has a fingerprint scanner and face recognition while the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 only has a fingerprint scanner since face recognition isn’t enabled on the device.

 

Battery Life and Charging

The two smartphones have similar batteries – 4,000mAh for the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 and 4,035mAh for the Realme 5 Pro.

However, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 has longer battery life. It achieved a score of 12 hours and 7 minutes on the PCMark Battery Life Test 2.0 while the Realme 5 Pro only got 10 hours and 38 minutes. The test simulates real-world usage of a smartphone with the screen brightness set at 50% and airplane mode turned on.

 

When it comes to charging time, the Realme 5 Pro easily wins this comparison. It supports 20W charging power using the VOOC 3.0 Flash Charge technology resulting in incredible charging time of 1 hour and 30 minutes! Meanwhile, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 only supports 10W charging power with an average charging time of a little over 2 hours.

 

Conclusion

So, which smartphone is better? The Realme 5 Pro has better performance, camera, and battery charging. Meanwhile, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 has a bigger display, longer battery life, and readily supports HFR mode in Mobile Legends.

My recommendation for this comparison is to choose the Realme 5 Pro. Despite the lack of HFR mode on Mobile Legends, it can run other games at medium or high graphics quality such as PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty.

Yes, its screen is smaller and has a notch but it’s also slightly brighter. Furthermore, the shorter battery life compared to the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 is easily solved by the way, way faster, charging technology.

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